Americans have a moral obligaion to protect migrant children from family separations and support them with humane care

Echo Letter To the Editor of The New York times:

“Migrant Children Set to Lose Health Protections”

As a registered nurse, I know from my clinical experience how these traumatized children will forever be emotionally harmed by this terrible "caging" experience.  Americans can surely do better by providing them with humane care and treat them like human beings.

* (news article, Dec. 14) highlights a profound ethical lapse in the treatment of detained migrant children, who endure preventable illnesses and inadequate care. This systemic neglect not only endangers their well-being but also undermines the core principles of justice and humanity.

Children, regardless of their citizenship status, deserve access to basic health care. Denying such care to those in custody violates both moral and legal standards. Immediate steps are necessary: Increase funding for medical services, enforce stricter oversight of detention facilities and ensure accountability for the humane treatment of these children.

As a nation committed to human rights, we must uphold our responsibilities to the most vulnerable among us. Failing to do so reflects a disregard for the values we claim to represent.

From Jia Ulama in Farmington, Minnesota

United Nations’ human rights chief said she is “appalled” by the conditions migrants and refugees face in U.S. detention facilities, intensifying a challenge to the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

*Report by Emily Baumgaertner: A court-ordered system for protecting the health of children detained at the southern border, put in place two years ago after several children died in custody, is set to expire nine days after Donald J. Trump takes office with plans to intensify the deportation of migrants.

The system, part of a July 2022, legal settlement between the government and lawyers representing migrant children in custody, set detailed protocols for detaining minors at Customs and Border Protection facilities in the Rio Grande Valley and El Paso sectors.

It required agents to provide them with access to emergency care and basic hygiene items — showers, toothbrushes and blankets for sleeping, for example. It forbade agents to separate children from their parents for extended periods of time.

At the center of the reform was a new position: an independent pediatrician who was assigned to visit the facilities and work with staff members to improve them. That monitor role is set to phase out even sooner than the overall agreement, on December 27.

Despite notable improvements, reports from the pediatrician — the so-called juvenile care monitor — showed that the conditions still sometimes fell short. Now, medical experts worry that, with the settlement expiring and the monitoring role set to disappear, conditions could worsen under an administration far less friendly to immigrants.😟 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/13/health/migrant-children-health-monitor.html

Trumpziism is domestic terrorism

An echo opinion letter published in the independent online newspaper, The Daily Bulldog in Farmington, Maine.

January 6 will exist in infamy:

The violent mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, was overwhelmingly made up of longtime Trump supporters.

There are still people running around with MAGA hats and Trump flags. This letter is not for them, because they have become cult members and are past reasoning.

Let us put some of our past history in perspective. 

Osama bin Laden organized an attack on the United States of America in 2001. Two aircraft struck the Twin Towers causing massive civilian loss of life, but the aircrafts sent to strike the heart of our government, the Pentagon and the White House, failed to make their target.

In 2021, twenty years later, Donald J Trump organized an attack on the heart of our government. He succeeded where Osama bin Laden failed. Trump’s cult of fanatics assaulted the Capitol of the United States while Congress and Senate were in session. They violently attacked, and overran the Capitol police, destroying property – including defecating and urinating in the Capitol rotunda. They ran through the halls of Congress breaking into offices. A noose was hung from scaffolding and the mob was chanting ‘Hang Mike Pence’. They were searching to capture the Speaker of the House. They were armed with collapsible weapons, stun guns, bear spray and zip tie handcuffs. It is unclear what outcome they were seeking: the violent overthrow of our Constitutional government and the installation of their Glorious Leader… President for life?

#FormerGuy tRumpf lost the election! 

In fact, Trump lost the popular vote by almost eight million. Every Governor and Secretary of State in all the contested states certified the election counts as fair, accurate and unassailable. There were numerous recounts, each affirming the results of President Biden’s win. Sixty-four judges, many Republican judges that were appointed by Trump, threw out Trump’s lawsuits as having no merit. Trump’s total argument was that thousands showed up at his rallies so he couldn’t have lost the election; and even now he continues the Big Lie.

The major threat to United States of America is no longer foreign terrorist, but radicalized American terrorist motivated by the ex-President of the United States – Donald J. Trump.

From William Gilliland in Farmington, Maine
Vietnam veteran, U.S. Navy retired (USN-Ret)