Kids at the Border: How to Help
Will I see you tomorrow at Odd Salon, where I’ll be waxing poetic(ish) on "Actual Fake News" for Prank? Tickets are still available but selling fast.
Sweethearts, I don’t have a lot to write about today, because I’ve spent the last hour reading about the cruel immigration policies enacted by the Trump administration that take children away from their parents, whether because the parent has been charged with entering the US without a border inspection OR the parent is waiting in jail-like conditions awaiting a review of their *LEGAL* asylum application.
All of this is horrific: stories of parents deported without their children; kids lost in the labyrinth of the ICE system, with minimal tracking and no accountability; children housed in cages while the staff of the private facilities are instructed not to hug or comfort those traumatized.
We all know the last two years have been outrageous and exhausted. I often think about how this near-constant DDOS of barbaric and insane news has overwhelmed everyone, making it a lot harder to sustain any resistance or opposition - which is a feature, not a bug of this administration, tbh.
But this week especially, I’ve felt enraged and helpless reading about the agony of children ripped from their parents and injected into our faceless system. I’m sure you have too.
Over at Slate, Dahlia Lithwick and Margo Schlanger have compiled a list of ways you can help fight family separation at the border. I encourage you to give it a read and find a way - any way - that you can help.
And if you want to help NOW, as in at this minute, your CC is ready, Act Blue has a one-click donation button that goes to “eight critical groups working to protect kids separated from their families by ICE.” The contribution is tax deductible.
If in reading about 20th Century history, you ever ask yourself “what would I have done” if living through those times, know that we are in that time, our time. What we are doing now is what we would have done then.
Over on Twitter, Leah McElrath reminds us that “real monsters always have human skin.” She continues,
“When a person or a system demonstrates an absence of empathy, understand that they will do whatever they can get away with… Stop asking, “But why would they do this?”… Start thinking ahead and asking, “If they will do this, what else will they do if they can get away with it?””
Be kind to each other.