Outrage over the Trump administration’s handling of immigrant families and children has been growing exponentially over the last couple of weeks.
The Facebook fundraiser that was started to help RAICES, “the largest immigration legal services non-profit in TX, focusing on under-served immigrant children, families, and refugees” has raised over $20 million so far, making it the biggest fundraiser Facebook has ever seen.
Before going on, let’s be clear: we at Unpolitically Correct fully support legal immigration, and we don’t support deporting non-criminal illegal immigrants already in the country. The current situation at the border is complicated and constantly developing. You can read The Unpolitically Correct Response to Total Immigration to hear our thoughts on immigration policy. Our point here is that this situation has brought to the forefront extreme hypocrisy from both sides of the aisle, the public (including ourselves), and the media. Our own justice system allows for the separation of children from parents on a daily basis, yet no one is raising $20 million dollars towards changing it.
NPR reported in 2010,
Half a million people sit in jail because they can’t make bail; alleged criminals, for sure, but men and women the Constitution protects as innocent until proven guilty. Most of them are charged with petty, nonviolent crimes. Some will wait behind bars for as long as a year before their case – makes it to court. [Continue reading here]
Most of these 500,000 people probably have families, and since they can’t make bail while awaiting their court dates they are detained in jail and separated from their families. The children are then put into the system or sent to live with other distant family members. They are undoubtedly being Psychologically, emotionally, and maybe even physically hurt, as a result of the way our justice system runs (but no one seems to care).
Side note: Did you know that in 2012 there were 1.9 million military children (0-18 years)? From 2001-2012, there were more than 700,000 kids who experienced the deployment of one or more parents. [Read more of the statistics here] These are big numbers, and these families probably need a lot more help than they’re currently getting. Shouldn’t we be supporting our military members and their kids? Let’s raise $20 million for them!
According to the HUD Point-In-Time report [Read here] on a single night in January 2017, there was 40,799 unaccompanied homeless youth under 25. Nearly 12% of that consisted of children under 18, and the remaining 88% consisted of children aged 18-24. These numbers are staggering, to say the least, yet little is being done to help the situation. Can you think of a time when the whole of America united in public outcry over homeless youth? We certainly can’t.
While the nation is infuriated at what is happening at our borders, it is silent about the injustices that are affecting American children every day. The media neglects these stories because they don’t fit a political agenda and they don’t get as many views (because these subjects make us all feel guilty and hypocritical, plus we can’t conveniently place all the blame for the issue on just one person/political party).
The bottom line is…
We all know and accept that our country’s immigration policy is messed up. There are certainly moral and ethical issues that have been brought to light as a result of the recent happenings at the border. However, it’s important that we recognize our own hypocrisy in our anger and understand that if we are feeling outraged by what’s happening at the border, we should be equally as outraged at how the system is letting down American children every day. Let’s stop talking and start doing something about it!
