IMMIGRATION AND SEPARATION

BACKGROUND

For several decades, America has become ‘home’ for thousands of immigrants in

order to reside, study, or work. Most immigrants come for the fact that America provides

a lot of economic opportunity, great university education, cultural freedom, and its

economical way to live inexpensively in a country with higher salaries than compared to

other countries. Immigrants show deep appreciation of the U.S. and a commitment to

making it their home. Though immigrants maintain a strong connection to their country

of origin and possess strong desire to stay connected with people and events "back

home", it does not contradict a desire to stay in their new home.

More than being a ‘home’ for many people, America has also been a ‘safe haven’

for many refugees across the borders and from other countries. In 1981, President

Ronald Reagan vowed to continue America’s tradition as a land that welcomes people

from other countries and to continue to share in the responsibility of welcoming and

resettling those who flee oppression.

Recent report from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

(UNHCR) shows an increase in the record number of forcibly displaced persons in

2017, including 25.4 M refugees.

Yet, in the middle of this crisis, Donald Trump’s administration has opted to close

the nation’s doors to refugees and to abdicate American leadership. The President set

America’s refugee admissions ceiling at only 45,000. Since the Trump’s administration

took over, the country has resettled just 14,887 refugees, putting it on track to admit the
lowest number of refugees in the program’s 38-year history. In addition, the Trump

administration has eliminated the Central American Minors program, which allowed

refugee children from Northern Triangle states (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras)

to enter the United States to join their parents, who are in the country legally. It also

terminated temporary protected status for 200,000 El Salvadorans, 57,000 Hondurans,

50,000 Haitians, and smaller numbers of Nicaraguans, Sudanese and Nepalese. In

addition, it ended Deferred Enforced Departure (deferral of removal) for 4,000 Liberians

who fled to the United States more than 20 years ago.

On April 2018, the US Administration rolled out the “Zero-Tolerance Immigration

Policy”. It now seeks to prosecute 100% of these cases, including those of asylum-

seekers who enter between ports-of-entry. The new policy of the United States began

to separate parents and children who illegally crossed the border. Intensify matters, the

federal Office of Refugee Resettlement has begun to share information with Immigration

and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on potential sponsors with whom the children in its

custody might be placed. Because ICE runs immigration checks on sponsors,

placement of the children with safe family members (including parents) will now be less

likely.

According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, families were rarely detained before

the early 2000s. Instead, they were released and given an immigration court hearing

they were required to attend.

There is no law that dictates children must be separated from their parents when

caught crossing into the country illegally, and there was a time when ICE policy didn’t

call for detaining all families. There are, however, laws against entering the U.S.
illegally, and a decree regarding how long children can be held in immigration detention.

A 2008 anti-trafficking statute dictates that certain minors must be taken out of

immigration detention within 72 hours.

The children of the said immigrants are held in a facility without proper care.

They were treated the same way actual criminals are treated. There were some

documents made by civil rights organizations in the US indicating that some of these

children were verbally, physically, or sexually abused within the facility. Not all children

being separated are to be reunited with their families even after detention. It seems that

the current administration of the US has no plans of doing so.

The United States played a chief role in taking action to the huge refugee crises

brought by the biggest conflicts in the history including the World War II, the Vietnam

conflict, and the Cuban revolution. Thus, saving the lives of the world’s most vulnerable

people reflects American values. By contrast, today’s US administration’s efforts to

break U.S. refugee protection programs increase psychological harm that children and

parents experience when separated, put fuel on anti-refugee campaign, and encourage

other states to follow its example. Such policies will not only damage America, but also

the world.

In light of this crisis, it is logical that any state would be prioritizing its own welfare

and people. Hence, humanitarian responsibility must not be neglected over any

economic or political interest. Thus, this research aims to propose a solution relative to

the current US immigration policy’s potential harm.

PHILOSOPHICAL ISSUES AND VIEW POINTS

A. INTENTIONAL ACTIONS

1. Trump ordered the banning of people who illegally crossed the borders

of United States. Adults caught crossing the border illegally are transferred

to criminal custody to be prosecuted for that crime – a misdemeanor –

including those exercising their legal right to seek asylum. Their children are

taken from them and placed in the custody of the Department of Health and

Human Services as “unaccompanied minors”. Sessions has equated parents

with human traffickers: “If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute

you and that child will be separated from you as required by law.”

2. Trump intended to tighten the laws on immigrants. Trump’s real

motivations have become abundantly clear: these children are a bargaining

chip to get his immigration reform passed. The Trump administration has

failed on several occasions to pass various immigration and border security

reform bills (yes, that include the funding for his border wall) and this latest

horror might just be deplorable enough to get him what he wants.

B. IRRESPONSIBLE IGNORANCE

1. For Donald Trump’s position in the U.S. government and being the head

of the state, it is impossible for him to not know any better. He has all the

resources and all the people or (advisers) he needs to give him opinions, and

what actions to take for the good of the country and its inhabitants.

2. Moreover, President Donald Trump even wrongly blamed Democrats for

his own administration’s immigration policy. According to him, the

 Democrats were the ones who created such bad law in which they need to

break up families. But there is no law that mandates separating children from

their parents. Trump’s own administration devised a policy to that effect.

C. ACCOUNTABILITY

1. From Trump’s electoral platform, immigration plan which is based on

three core principles: to build a wall across the southern border; the

current immigration law must be fully enforced; and interest of

American citizens must be put first resulted to the implementation of the

‘Zero-Tolerance Immigration Policy’. This policy has threatened the

immigrant families who are living in the U.S. or the immigrants who are

planning to go the U.S. Many families have reported that their children were

returned with bruises, covered in lice, and unable to recognize them. When

the government was asked about their plan on the kids, the answers are

unknown because the administration refuses to respond to any congressional

inquiries.

2. Trump is fully capable of knowing that by doing this kidnapping is

wrong. He has all the people and resources to tell and know whether this

action is right or wrong. Because of the “zero tolerance” policy for illegal entry,

it is now also a government policy to separate children from their parents at

the border. Adverse childhood experiences, such as parent-child separation,

are important social determinants of mental disorders. For children, traumatic

events can lead to the development of post-traumatic stress disorder and

other mental health disorders that can cause long lasting effects.
Degree of One’s Knowledge

1. The administration knew that illegal immigration can be held accountable

through the rule of law. If a person violated the law, he/she would be

reprimanded to imprisonment or deportation.

2. However, the welfare of the children was to be kept protected even in

custody. How the Trump administration can pretend the situation of caged

children in migrant camps is not their fault is shocking to the core.

Degree of Difficulty

1. Trump’s administration blames the parents of the children because they are

unfit to parent the children because they are immigrants. For example, a

person who steals a loaf of bread to feed his starving family is considered as

a thief. Same logic to the example, the parents chose to migrate to give their

family a better and sustainable life. The parents are shown to be unfit to

parent their children because they took the risk and knew the consequences

that they will face just to give their family a better life. But the families fleeing

and in the process being separated from their precious children is already

distressed, traumatized, and only seeking for refuge. They should at the very

least be cared for humanely while a better immigration policy is sought.

Degree of Injury

1. Many parents are unable to reunite with their children causing misery

between family members and often indeterminate period of time in the

custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Decades of psychological

research have determined that it is in the best interest of the child and the
 family to keep families together. Families fleeing their homes to seek

sanctuary in the United States are already under a tremendous amount of

stress.

2. The children are going through trauma at young age due to the fact that they

are being abused in the facility. Sudden and unexpected family separation,

such as separating families at the border, can add to that stress, leading to

emotional trauma in children. Research also suggests that the longer that

parents and children are separated, the greater the reported symptoms of

anxiety and depression are for children. Adverse childhood experiences, such

as parent-child separation, are important social determinants of mental

disorders. For children, traumatic events can lead to the development of post-

traumatic stress disorder and other mental health disorders that can cause

long lasting effects.

Degree of One’s Involvement

1. Every person in the administration who supports this cause is held

accountable. It may be the legislators who are just using actual people for

their political experiments or the indifferent people who choose to be blind

and deaf of what is going on in reality. Even the people who contributed to the

cause why there are refugees everywhere in the world have to be considered

involved in the misery of the innocent children.

2. Above all, Trump is the most accountable for this issue because he is the

head of the state. He has all the power to protect not just his people but also

those who are seeking for protection.

ETHICAL RESOLUTIONS

1. Advocacy

a. Amnesty International is a human rights advocate organization which

documented the number of cases the Trump administration had in

violation of human rights. The advocacy is to make sure governments

honour their shared responsibility to protect the rights of the refugees,

asylum-seekers, and migrants. This cause awareness and hopefully act in

the international scene.

ETHICAL RESPONSE

UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

1. The creation of the United Nations in the 1945 and the 1948 Universal

Declaration of Human Rights brought the issue of human rights and basic

recognition of the humanity as an international political issue to draw attention of

world leaders. As the world attempted solve issues such as treatment of

displaced persons and refugees unable or unwilling to return to their home

countries.

2. The US is a member of the United Nation. Meaning, they must follow the code of

conduct that each member had agreed on. If the issue still persists, then it is

possible for the UN to take action against the US because of its unethical act.
REFERENCES

A. Books

Chaudry, A. (2011). Children in the aftermath of immigration enforcement. The Journal

of the History of Childhood and Youth, 4 (1), 137-154.

Dreby, J. (2012). The burden of deportation on children in Mexican immigrant families.

Journal of Marriage and Family,74, 829-845. Doi:10.1111/j.1741-

3737.2012.00989x

Suárez-Orozco, C., Bang, H.J. & Kim, H.Y (2010). I felt like my heart was staying

behind: Psychological implications of family separations and reunifications for

immigrant youth. Journal of Adolescent Research 26(2), 222-257.

B. Online Sources

https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-want-to-immigrate-to-the-United-States)

https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/06/19/how-americas-refugee-policy-is-

damaging-to-the-world-and-to-itself

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/20/how-can-we-ignore-child-refugees-

facing-cruelty-and-toxic-stress

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/made-by-

history/wp/2018/05/27/the-trump-administrations-refugee-and-border-policies-

cruelly-ignore-the-lessons-of-the-past/

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-minors/us-will-phase-out-program-

for-central-american-child-refugees-idUSKCN1C234G

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/05/15/separating-

children-from-parents-at-the-border-isnt-just-cruel-its-torture/