Courtnee Cox

Rob Williams 

December 1, 2019

Kids in Cages

In May of 2019, 63.6  percent of the immigrants coming into the United States were families. Of this 63.6 percent, 8.6 percent of them were children who were crossing the border alone (Ting, 2019). Many of the underage immigrants coming to the U.S. stem from the Deferred Action for Child Arrival (DACA). This program was created by the Obama administration to help immigrant children who come to the U.S for safety. DACA gives them the resources they need to live.  These children who are detained at the border are being brought to holding cells that are extremely overpopulated, and are given little to no food and are not provided adequate space to sleep. Many children are getting sick from the amount of overpopulation and are not given the right to a doctor. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 25 states, “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services” (United Nations, 1948). Border control is breaking this human rights law by putting many children in great danger of health and even death. THE UNITED STATES NEEDS TO CREATE A PLAN FOR CHILDREN FROM OTHER COUNTRIES WHO ARE SEEKING HELP SO THEY CAN FEEL SAFE AND HAVE BASIC HUMAN RESOURCES.

Many families are traveling to the United States illegally in search of help from the mistreatment in their own country. Many are being caught; as a result, their families are being ripped apart never seeing each other again. “The Trump Administration has separated over 2,300 children from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border since 2017” (Hildreth, 2019).  The Trump Administration created a policy to tear families who are caught apart, it is called the “zero-tolerance” policy. This policy orders that 100% of the parents that are caught crossing the border with their children be separated. Both the parents and the children are detained in holding cells apart from each other. Not only are the children separated from their parents, but most likely they are separated from their other siblings as well. The Trump Administration created this policy in hopes that it would be so cruel that it would stop immigrants from wanting to enter the U.S illegally.

 The  Trump administration’s theory failed and the courts denied the policy and demanded that the children be returned to their families. The administration failed to abide by this request, resulting in many more separations. The exact amount of separations is unknown due to the lack of tracking separations. Trump made a statement on ABC News stating,   "Nobody talks about that, but under President Obama, they separated children from the parents" (Flaherty, 2018). The difference between DACA and Trump's Zero Tolerance act is that DACA wasn't looking to separate families and the few who were separated was due to major drug trafficking. 

Once children are taken from their families and are detained, they are turned in to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The law states that children must be put in the care of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) within 72 hours of being detained at the border. HHS has 11,200 beds for children who are under government custody, this is not nearly enough beds for the number of children coming HHS’s care. Since there is a lack of space for these children coming in, the Trump Administrations opened up “tent cities” along the Texas border. Each tent can hold up to 20 children and 2 adults, the city as a total can hold up to 4,000 children (Hildreth, 2019). Many children who are being detained are put in very dangerous situations and the government is failing to follow the law. Many children are being held in a cage cells, with little to no food or water, no space to lie down and sleep, or even adequate temperatures to not get sick. 

The government is not taking into consideration how this physically and mentally affects children. According to Dr. Alan Shapiro with the American Academy of Pediatrics, 

As children develop, we know their brains change in response to the environments they’re in. Detention leads to very serious distress which is called toxic stress. Toxic stress can impair brain development and cause lasting damage. The report really spells out in black and white the consequences that the zero-tolerance policy has for children. To keep a child in one of those centers is cruel and unusual punishment. As cited in America's voice, 2019

Not only are children’s basic living needs not being met, resulting in illness that is not being treated, but also it is so traumatic for the child to be stuck in such poor living conditions that it alters their brains.

The Department of Health and Human Services provides education for the children in their care until they get permanent placements where they can go to public school. According to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (2019), “Each unaccompanied alien child must receive a minimum of six hours of structured education, Monday through Friday, throughout the entire year in basic academic areas (Science, Social Studies, Math, Reading, Writing, Physical Education, and English as a Second Language (ESL), if applicable)”. In addition to taking classes after school hours, children have access to a tutor for additional help with school work. Although these children in custody may not be getting the best education, they are most likely getting more education than what they had in their home country. The requirements state that there must be a diverse cultural reflection on the context they are learning in the classrooms so the children feel safer. The children are not permitted to take more than a two-week break from school. “Unaccompanied alien children may be separated into class groups according to their academic development, level of literacy, and linguistic ability rather than by chronological age” (Office of Refugee Resettlement,2019). Children are separated to best benefit the child academically, but this also means they are being separated from the people they are comfortable with such as other siblings. Unaccompanied children are also provided with special opportunities such as independent study, special projects, pre-GED classes and college preparatory tutorials.

Although our government has improved on the quality of care for illegal immigrants, they still break many human rights laws, most concerningly human rights law in regards to children.  Children are not permitted to be detained in a jail cell for more than 72 hours, but some reported they had been held for three to four weeks in a jail cell. “The Border Patrol claims that high numbers of border arrivals are causing these delays as they wait for space to open up in the somewhat more child-friendly detention centers and shelters run by the Office of Refugee Resettlement at US Health and Human Services” (Long, 2019). Officers are holding children longer rather than finding a more permanent placement for the child. This is why there is overcrowding in the jail cells and people are getting sick. Most children who are being held are unable to talk to their parents and the parents are completely unaware that they are even in government custody. These children being held don't have access to showering and clean clothing. When children are able to shower they don't generally have access to soap. “The US government argued in court on Tuesday that its obligation to provide “safe and sanitary” conditions does not require it to provide kids with hygiene items such as soap or toothbrushes” (Long, 2019). Many children in custody are not old enough to feed and bath themselves, but the government is unwilling to help with this so other kids who are older and are strangers have to help out. Our government needs to find a better system for helping the children coming to our country seeking help.

The United States has in the past tried creating a system to keep under aged children who are crossing the border safe; this program is known as deferred action for childhood arrivals (DACA). “On June 15, 2012, the Secretary of Homeland Security announced that certain people who came to the United States as children and meet several guidelines may request consideration of deferred action for a period of two years, subject to renewal”(U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, 2017). Although this plan is to keep children safe and give them rights in America, it doesn't make them legal citizens. Although this plan is to keep children who are seeking help safe, there are many flaws in the program many might not be aware of. There is a long list of requirements a child must meet in order to be eligible for DACA. In many cases it is impossible to meet DACA’s requirements and often children do not get in the program, such as being over the age of 16, not having proper documentation stating you have been in the U.S. for a certain period of time, and not having the money to pay for the application presses which is almost $500.00 (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, 2017). These standards are unreasonable. The United States makes this process difficult so that the children don't want to come to the U.S.,  but many of them have no other choice and as a result have to suffer the consequences.

There are many ways we can help the children who are being mistreated and having their human rights be taken away from them. One way we can help these children is volunteering with an organization who works with the children to advocate for them such as the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). “UNICEF is using its decades of humanitarian expertise to promote the protection of migrant children and their rights in their home countries or wherever their journeys take them”(UNICEF, 2019). Another way we can help is by donating to organizations such as UNICEF to help they get the supplies the children need to live. The other major thing we could do to improve the safety and living state of these children is to only elect officials who support the rights of immigrant children . President Donald Trump thinks with an old fashioned thought about how no immigrant should be allowed in to the U.S. no matter what the circumstance is. This has made the living conditions for these unaccompanied children extremely worse than it has been in the past. Trump has cut funding for living supplies for these children, and he has set policies in place make being stuck at the border so horrible that no one would want to come to the U.S. Although this did the opposite effect Trump wanted it to have because more people came to the border because they felt it was their only chance before things got even worse. If we elect a different president in the upcoming election, we can get Trump out of the White House and elect someone who values human rights and children’s rights.

The Trump administration has created a new act in hopes of keeping illegal aliens from trying to cross the U.S border called the Zero-tolerance Act. This plan did not work; if anything, it has made illegal crossings increase. From 2018 to 2019 the amount of border crossings have doubled. When former president Obama was in office the amount of illegal crossings were at an all time low, once Trump became president the numbers began to rapidly increase. “While figures show that illegal border crossings have seen an overall decline since 2000, they have been rising again since Mr Trump took office” (Bailey, Rodgers 2019). Children are being ripped from their families and their human rights are being violated. They do not have access to food, water, adequate sleeping space, and even doctors. Many of these children never see their family again and have to suffer the poor conditions that border control puts them through. This Act violates the human rights of children which is stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25. How can our country create a long lasting plan to protect the human rights of immigrant minors, while also working on illegal border crossing?

Work Cited

Bailey, D, & Rodgers, D (2019).  Trump wall - all you need to know about US border in seven charts. BBC News. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46824649

Hildreth, M. (2019). Immigration 101: what is zero tolerance family separation? America’s Voice. Retrieved from https://americasvoice.org/blog/separation-of-children/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI3vSY_Lmc5QIVQz0MCh0gEAi0EAAYAiAAEgLOtvD_BwE

Office of Refugee Resettlement. (2019). Children entering the united states unaccompanied. Retrieved from https://www.acf.hhs.gov/orr/resource/children-entering-the-united-states-unaccompanied-section-3#3.3.5

Ting, J. (2019). Kids in cages, the inhumane treatment at the border. Center For Immigration Studies. Retrieved from https://cis.org/Testimony/Kids-Cages-Inhumane-Treatment-Border?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIhvDhr86F5QIVUdbACh1-hQ87EAAYASAAEgJtXPD_BwE

United Nations. (1949). Universal declaration of human rights. Retrieved from https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

Long, C. (2019). Children at risk in u.s border jails. Human Rights Watch. Retrieved from  https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/06/20/children-risk-us-border-jails#

UNICEF. (2019). Our mission. Retrieved from https://www.unicefusa.org/mission

Flaherty, A. (2018). Retrieved from https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-falsely-blames-obama-family-separations-border/story?id=58908866

U.S Citizenship and Imaragtion Services. (2017). https://www.uscis.gov/archive/consideration-deferred-action-childhood-arrivals-daca