Photo disclosure: These are pictures from a 2013 service trip to Mexico. I just got a "real" camera and wanted to capture stories of the people I spent time with. For this blog, I revisited these images and edited some now that I know a little more about photography. I was reminded of projects I didn't agree with and projects I did. Currently, I cannot go to the situations and places described in the following paragraphs and photograph the scene or question the helping versus hurting. I wanted to use these photos, though, because they remind me everyone has a story. Every. Single. One.

The same world that is satisfying to us is utterly devastating to them, said Paul Farmer in his book, Pathologies of Power. I return to this quote frequently as I witness more of the world. Unfortunately, terror is not bound only to distant places like Myanmar, Dakar, or Darfur. If you immediately characterize those places as holding atrocities as “worse” than the injustice at the Mexico-America border, I can understand. But, I understand oppression, violation of human rights, and unnecessary inhumane situations to be unacceptable, no matter what “level” we want to assign an atrocity.

To clarify, this is about the “sadistic,” as Michael D’Antonio characterized it, removal of children from their parents upon entering America illegally via Mexico. Illegal immigrants entering the States were not previously subject to this practice resulting in indefinitely separated families, and in some cases, parents deported without their children and without any knowledge of how to be reunited. This is shaking the American conscious, disrupting parents (unless you’re Corey Lewandowski who mocks a child with downs syndrome separated from her mother at the border, I cried), and receiving a loud outcry from left and right.

As the United States announces they will withdraw from the UN Human Rights Council what concerns me the most is the common thread of the current administration stripping American policy and practices of common humanity. It seems so quickly guiding statements we have upheld as our values hold no weight, have no merit, and America is forgoing the fact we were built on battles for peace, freedom, and equality. The exact things being stripped away from people.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Article 25 says, “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family” following with, “Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance.” Families are immigrating to America to escape violent, oppressive situations. Joanna Goddard cited an attorney representing immigrants, saying his clients are claiming asylum “because they were kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery (and escaped), abused and threatened with murder for political reasons.”

Now, American “policy” which is not actually law (removing children from their parents) but a decided practice, not only is denying families health and well being, but also directly enacting horrific treatment specifically to children. "You could easily end up in a situation where the gap between a parent's deportation and a child's deportation is years," John Sandweg said, former director of ICE. I cannot fathom being separated from my parent, in a new place, where I don’t speak the language, and supposedly in a place of hope. The US can have immigration policy without taking children from their parents, “without losing our hospitality” said Michael Wildes, Melania Trump’s former immigration lawyer said on CNN tonight.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services changed their mission statement in February. For some reason, this action deeply concerned me and brought the feeling the immigration debates were far beyond policy proposals. The verbiage was changed from “a nation of immigrants...ensuring the integrity of our immigration system” to “administers the nation’s lawful immigration system….securing the homeland.” This is not just a policy shift, this is an ideology shift of the things our nation was founded on and for centuries stood for.

Our administration is acting as though children without parents are massive threats to security. What is a legitimate concern is the help these children will need in the coming years due to the trauma of family separation and inadmissible living conditions. Casa Padre, the converted Walmart in Texas for children, has cages serving as rooms for children wearing bracelets with barcodes to be scanned before Cisco quality food is served on styrofoam trays. This is one of many migrant children’s centers. The image of kids from Latin America no older than twelve sitting on a couch watching the World Cup does not keep me up at night fearing for my life. But, the inhumane treatment they receive does.

Emma Lazarus, a forthright voice for the Jewish refugee crisis, penned the poem, “The New Colossus” in honor of the Statue of Liberty in 1883. Little noted are the first two lines characterizing Liberty’s embrace as, “Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land,” which lately proves truer than the remainder of Lazarus’ verse. The concluding lines describe, Lady Liberty, a sign for our nation as glowing “world-wide welcome” and saying,

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

If our mission and values are being so easily rewritten, ignored, and scoffed at, what will become of our nation? I do believe, though, the one thing stronger is the human voice. “Even in times as troubled and uncertain as these, I still hold to the faith that a better civilization than any we have known is in store for America and by our example, perhaps, for the world,” said FDR in 1936 on the 50th Anniversary of the Statue of Liberty. Over eighty years ago and we still must hold to this faith. This example is not being set by the current administration, so now more than ever up to the people to do so. Hopefully, by the people’s example, the current administration will move away from these inconceivable practices. It is our voices and our actions that have the ability to lessen the disappointing world. Until then, let us hope and pray for FDR’s words to be true:

“For each generation the more patriotic part is to carry forward American freedom and American peace by making them living facts in a living present.
To that we can, we do, rededicate ourselves.”

If anyone would like to tell me a way to teach skills at Casa Padre or other child detention center, let me know.

Also, do this with me, sign the petitions, call your officials.

#familiesbelongtogether