According to the HuffPost website, right now, within the borders of the United States of America, there are children as young as 2 years old being held in detention centers that resemble concentration camps. These babies, young children, and adolescents are being housed inside cages that are arguably no better than the kennels used for containing animals. We do not know what is happening to these young people being held behind blacked-out windows and doors. In fact, some of these facilities are buildings that have been repurposed warehouses and, formerly, big-box super stores like Wal-Mart. None of these warehouses were ever intended to become the living quarters for immigrant children, which begs the question, what kind of activities and humane facilities could be provided for these children under those conditions?
The HuffPost has also reported that Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley (D) was denied access to one of these facilities and there is little information that we, as tax paying citizens, are allowed to have as to the physical treatment, sanitation, medical care and attention that these children are receiving. We do not know anything about what these young prisoners do each day. Are they being bathed and given access to proper hygiene? Are they being properly fed or given any educational resources or mental or educational inducements? Is there exercise or physical stimulation at all? These are CHILDREN, many of whom may not speak English, and they have NO advocacy because they have been forcibly separated from their parents and then put in cages like animals. This is a Human Rights Violation. Where is the Right to Life constituency? Where are the Human Rights organizations? Where is the public outcry? Or, is there only a Right to life for the UN-born, the privileged or the “legal” American? Children are innocent victims of this travesty and if something isn’t done soon, they may become the newest victims of a proclamation by the worldwide community of “Crimes Against Humanity.”
It is absolutely incredible that, in 2018, the International Criminal Court may ultimately have to bring the United States of America up on charges of Crimes Against Humanity. That is a frightening thought, indeed, because as a nation it would force us to reflect upon our past. Lest we forget that within the United States of America’s historic legacy is ensconced some of the greatest crimes against humanity ever perpetrated. The attempted genocide of the Indigenous Peoples of North America, Chattel Slavery, the Japanese Internment, state-sponsored terrorism within the legally-sanctioned actions of the Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow era, separate but equal legislation and the unqualified inequality inherent within the U.S. criminal justice system whereby the mass incarceration rate in the United States outpaces the entire world.
This nation’s history makes the detention of these innocent children within facilities that are secretive and un-scrutinized by health and human services experts or child welfare workers untenable. These innocent children are being detained in inhumane conditions that clearly revive the shadowed and shameful past of this nation’s white supremacist and inglorious racial history. HEY! #THISisAmerica is there a RIGHT to Life in America or NOT?
