I was listening to REM’s song “Everybody Hurts Sometimes” (A Todos Nos Duele A Veces) the other night. It put me in a reflective, almost somber mood. I stared at this photo of a young Latina in custody at the U.S. border. She no doubt has overwhelming problems and pain, as do other young people in America. I tried to put myself in her shoes to understand how she feels.
She cannot leave the facility in which she is warehoused. She cannot leave her cell, which I understand is for her own protection and the safety of others. All day and occasionally during the night, babies wail and older children cry aloud unconsolably. She sobs quietly to herself. She is occasionally without anything to drink, and when she gets water, the chlorine taste is overpowering. Sometimes, she gets a sandwich to eat and sometimes the meat is black or moldy. Occasionally, her accent is mocked by the guards, but generally she is ignored. She is in a “bubble-type” cell with other girls, some teenagers like herself, other “detainees” still in diapers. The older girls are often charged with caring for the younger ones even though no one in the cell is related. When she asks when she can see her mother again, she is told “soon.” Here is an abbreviated story provided by an adolescent girl courtesy of ABC News. This girl was apprehended near McAllen, TX with her mother. They were taken to a unit called the “Freezer,” and on arrival, she was involuntarily separated from her mother.
I was placed with female girls from 5 to 6 years old to 15 or 16 years old. There were large numbers of girls, some of whom had to sleep on concrete and sitting up because there wasn’t sufficient room in the cell,” the girl said. “I slept on the floor in a passageway [where] I could find room. It was around midnight, and I was given an aluminum blanket. There were no mattresses. I had difficulty reaching the bathroom because I didn’t want to push through other girls and wake them. When I did go to the bathroom, there was no door or separation between the toilets. The lights were on all night,” she said. “A male officer kicked me to wake me up to confirm whether or not I was the person they were looking for. I was not.” She said she did not cry the first night, but did so with the other girls on subsequent nights.”
In this March 30, 2021, file photo, young minors lie inside a pod at the Donna Department of Homeland Security holding facility, the main detention center for unaccompanied children in the Rio Grande Valley run by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), in Donna, Texas. U.S. authorities say they picked up nearly 19,000 children traveling alone across the Mexican border in March. It’s the largest monthly number ever recorded and a major test for President Joe Biden as he reverses many of his predecessor’s hardline immigration tactics. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills, Pool, File.)
Incarceration is brutal enough on adults, but it is also disorienting to children.
Children said every few days they were allowed into a courtyard for about 20 minutes, but the lawyers said some of them may have gone longer than that without seeing the sun. The lawyers were not permitted to see inside the living quarters for themselves and instead based their accounts on interviews with more than a dozen children.”
This girl arrived with her mother before she was forcibly taken from her. Other girls (and boys) may have arrived unaccompanied hoping to live with an uncle or cousin in this strange land. She can’t read or speak English. She may have been physically or sexually assaulted during the long walk of 1,500 miles from Tapachula, Mexico to El Paso, Texas. When she asks what time it is, she is told that she is not permitted to know. Sometimes when she asks a question, she gets conflicting information. Often she won’t receive an answer at all. She knows she cannot go back to Nicaragua, or Venezuela, or some other distant land, and she believes she will not be welcome in this country. This is a lot of stress and trauma for a young woman. As someone who is the child of immigrants, what would I say to her? “I was born here because my parents sneaked or squeaked through immigration, your parents did not, so go home! America is closed.” By what right do I deserve to be here and not her? Because of where I happened to be born? Maybe I was nothing more than an anchor baby, myself?
This woman and others like her are not welcome in America. Borrowing a line from Adolph Hitler, Mr. Trump says that undocumented migrants are poisoning our blood.1 He says they come from third world prisons or insane asylums; “shit-hole” countries perhaps?
Between 2017 and 2021, more than 650,000 children were taken into custody at the border, with more than 220,000 of these children being detained for more than 72 hours and many transferred with their families to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facilities.”
Furthermore,
The evidence of this study demonstrates that immigration detention harms children’s mental and physical health at a crucial time of physical, mental, and social development. This evidence supports a conclusion that detention, in any form, is never in the best interest of children and the detention of children must end.”
The Center for Investigative Reporting (Reveal) notes that
. . . prolonged detention can fundamentally change children. From 2014 to 2020, the government held nearly 1,000 children for longer than a year. In some cases, children have been held for extended periods even though they have family in the United States willing and able to care for them.
Records document 141 instances in which migrant children expressed thoughts of suicide while in Office of Refugee Resettlement custody and at least 10 times when they attempted suicide. Children often complained about their length of stay, the isolation they felt after their friends were released and the suffering they experienced being away from their families. The children were in custody an average of 37 days at the time of the episode. The records indicate that no children died by suicide.”
As of last year, more than 1,000 children taken from their families during the Trump Administration have yet to be located and repatriated to their relatives. According to Senator Josh Hawley, there are tens of thousands of other minors presently unaccounted for that have crossed over into the U.S. since then. Then, again, where was Senator Hawley’s voice when President Trump was doing this?
Immigrants coming to this country are humans, as equal in the sight of God as Christian Nationalists, Freedom Caucus Conservatives or third generation Americans. When I think of men, women and children entangled in concertina wire, I think of Shylock’s speech in “The Merchant of Venice.”
If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?”
REM
Part of the lyrics in the song by REM (Everybody Hurts) read as follows:
If you’re on your own in this life The days and nights are long When you think you’ve had too much Of this life to hang on
Well, everybody hurts sometimes Everybody cries Everybody hurts, sometimes
Hopefully, Congress will act quickly on meaningful legislation and provide the necessary resources to protect the children in custody. If those people who call America a Christian Nation truly believe that, then they must prove their faith by their actions and not just words. This is a good place to start. In the meanwhile, hang on.
Undocumented migrants crossing the border surreptitiously.
Footnotes
1Adolph Hitler wrote of the Jew in Mein Kampf: “He poisons the blood of others but preserves his own blood unadulterated.” Donald J. Trump uses this same phrase today when speaking of people crossing our southern border.
