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Tuesday, June 19, 2018

Letter to the Editor: Keeping children in cages

To the Editor

It is bad enough that the children of undocumented mothers fleeing from persecution have been torn from their mothers, but this morning's news that these children are being kept in wire cages in a warehouse is an evil of unprecedented magnitude. Today's news report states that on Father's Day, a group of Democratic lawmakers visited a facility where these children are being held. Reporters also touring the warehouse-like building described seeing hundreds of children in chain-link cages, apparently sleeping on the floor on mattresses with mylar blankets.

Unless any of us are full members of an original indigenous tribe on this continent we are all immigrants. The color of our skin, the family into which we were born, the era and place where we grew up are not achievements. So if we are pale skinned, raised in what was once a democratic republic with many civil personal rights, not experiencing daily persecution, this is not an accomplishment. It is an accident of birth.

What is or would be an accomplishment is to recognize that others because of an accident of birth do not share our individual good fortune. And given that, we need to be tolerant, indeed welcoming. For those of us who are Christian the obligation to welcome one and all is part of our responsibility to be inclusive.

Please demand of our elected officials that these children be reunited with their mothers and housed in decent living conditions as soon as possible.

Gini Paulsen
Shoreline


8 comments:

  1. Please get more facts about what is transpiring on the southern border then get back to us. Parents who enter the country seeking asylum appropriately are not separated from their parents. Parents who sneek over the border with their children are not seeking asylum. They must be able to prove that they are the parents of the children because of rampant child smuggling. If they can’t, the law requires that there be a short-term separation so verification can take place. Children are then united or placed with a relative for their safety. MS-13 are notorious for grabbing infants and coming to the border as a free pass due to “catch and release” which is terrible policy. Apparently 80% of girls that cross illegally get abused and/or raped. This is what you want?

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  2. Doug, four first ladies agree with Gini. And many more intelligent and informed citizens.

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  3. Doug - so sorry to have to inform you that you have just posted a typical Trumpster distortion of reality. Anyone who approves the current so-called "zero tolerance" treatment of people trying to escape horrible, life-threatening circumstances in their home countries obviously does not care about what happens to their children who - under Trump's orders - are being isolated from their parents. Experts have already told the world that this can damage the children for the rest of their lives. Knowing this, do you still stsnd with Trump?

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  4. Oh Doug, you mean like this (according to NPR):

    "But there is evidence that even families who seek asylum at ports of entry are being separated. One high-profile case involves a Congolese woman who sought asylum and still was separated from her 7-year-old daughter. In February, NPR's Burnett reported on the legal battle of Ms. L v. ICE."

    And this:

    "Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service has documented 53 incidents of family separation in the last nine months, mostly Central Americans. Other immigrant support groups say there are many more cases," Burnett reported.

    And this:

    "Reporter Jean Guerrero of KPBS in San Diego reported on the case of a Salvadoran father, Jose Demar Fuentes, who says he sought asylum and was separated from his 1-year-old son, Mateo, despite having an original birth certificate proving that he is the boy's father."

    That crap about "we're just trying to protect children from being smuggled" is just cover up BS.

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  5. Well - one way we could address this illegal immigration crisis is to STOP the War On Drugs. We have created the impetus for the gangs in Central America that many of these immigrants are fleeing. We could spend some of the billions of dollars wasted on that war to
    1. rebuild infrastructure in the countries
    2. help create jobs so people don't have to migrate
    3. provide assistance to addicts in our country that have been created by Big Pharma.
    4. fund lobbyists to petition our law-makers to consider the general population when creating new laws, rather than favor corporations that can fund lobbyists. And there would still be $$ left over. We could use that to buy back some of the weapons we gave & sold to the gangs in Central America.
    just sayin"...

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  6. We better let some of these people through or you can say goodbye to tomatoes in your salad - and your salad greens as well! and those roast chickens that you like to pick up for a quick dinner.

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  7. According to hundreds of reports on many media this is indeed happening. Children of families requesting asylum are indeed being torn away from parents. It is documented in first hand reports.

    We are a better country than this. Thank you Gini for this excellent letter. I hope that the pressure is effective on policy makers in the current administration. The harm to these children will be very hard to heal. It could take weeks and months or more for these little kids to be reunited with their parents.

    This is an unconscionable policy being implemented by the Trump administration. It must be stopped.

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  8. Where is the outrage for the dumpster fire of King County's failed leftist policies that are ripping children from their families every day? Homelessness, gangs and violence all fueled by the epidemic opioid crisis. Democrats care more for illegal immigrants than law-abiding American citizens.

    After years of the mainstream media forgoing all sense of morality or fairness they have yet to concoct a story to effectively damage Donald Trump’s administration, but with their latest feigned outrage over the separation of illegal immigrant children at the border they have succeeding in fanning the flames of violence on the far-left.

    Ironically, although the media and their Democrat allies claim to be fighting for the care of illegal immigrant children, many appear quick to wish for death and bodily harm on the children of politicians they disagree with.

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