St. Louis has received a handful of unaccompanied immigrant children separated from their parents at the border as part of the president’s new “zero tolerance” immigration policy rolled out in April.
And more children are on the way, said Meredith Rataj, site director of immigrant services at St. Francis Community Services – the largest local organization providing legal and case management services for unaccompanied immigrant children.
Under the president’s new policy, families seeking asylum – even those who present themselves to authorities through legal channels – are being criminally prosecuted. And prior to the president’s executive order signed on June 20, children were being torn apart from their parents.
More than 2,300 children have been separated from their families and taken to detention centers, including “tent cities” in Texas and warehouses with large cages inside. This week, a lawsuit was filed alleging that children in the centers are being forcibly injected with powerful psychiatric drugs. A former center employee said the centers are understaffed and ill-equipped to handle children who experienced trauma. The administration’s policy did not include a plan to reunite the children with their parents, and hundreds of children are expected to be lost to their parents permanently, said Amy Diemer, managing attorney at St. Francis Community Services.
The children now in St. Louis are those who were connected with either relatives or people the parents knew who were willing to take in their children, Diemer said.
A majority of the families currently seeking asylum at the borders are fleeing persecution in their countries – including Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala – because of the rise in crime and gangs, she said. And the journey through Mexico is perilous and traumatic.
“They were all so confused,” she said. “They are not getting treated the same as what they had in the past. Clearly, being separated is traumatic.”
While some have claimed that the circulating pictures of children in detention centers and “tender age shelters” for toddlers and babies are old or fraudulent, Rataj told The American, “We know for a fact that it’s happening because we have clients that this has happened to. They are not child actors. They are child victims.”
The families are only coming because they feel they have no other choice, Rataj said.
“They didn’t feel safe in their home country,” Rataj said. “These are kids, and they miss their families and their friends. They are trying to learn English and understand this new culture.”
One mother who stayed in a detention center a few years ago with her preschool-aged son told Rataj about the fear they experienced of not knowing when they’d be released.
“They had come a long way fleeing terrible violence,” Rataj said. “In small and large ways, holding children and asylum seekers in jail is intended to demoralize and dehumanize.”
Like many people around the country, Diemer said she wishes she could do more to help these children.
“I have all these tools,” Diemer said. “I’m privileged, and I want to help and I don’t even know how to do it.”
St. Louis denounces zero tolerance
Alderwoman Annie Rice of the 8th Ward, also an immigration lawyer, shared Diemer’s sentiment and did the only thing that she felt was in her power, she said. On Friday, June 22, she filed a resolution calling for Missouri’s elected leaders in Washington, D.C. to oppose family separation and for Gov. Mike Parson to withdraw Missouri National Guard resources from the border, as a bipartisan group of governors already has done.
Twenty-two aldermen signed on as co-sponsors, and many immigration advocates, religious leaders and elected officials stood behind her when she announced the resolution at a press conference on Friday morning.
The resolution states:
“The City of St. Louis Board of Aldermen stand alongside our immigrant neighbors and residents and oppose the practice of family separation and the detention of children, and oppose the use of Missouri taxpayer dollars to fund this practice, particularly since many families are fleeing dangerous situations including pervasive violence, severe poverty, and the threat of death in their originating countries; and BE IT RESOLVED that we call on Governor Mike Parson to refuse to allow Missouri and St. Louis taxpayer resources to be used in any way to further these inhumane policies, and we ask Governor Parson to recall the Missouri National Guard from the U.S. border immediately, as governors from both political parties have already done;
and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we call on our leaders in Washington D.C., including Senator Roy Blunt, Senator Claire McCaskill, and Congressman Lacy Clay to oppose this practice of family separation and support clean legislation that honors the dignity of all, ends the practice of detention while immigrants await asylum hearings, and does not further disrupt legal immigration processes and or unjustly punish immigrants.”
Aside from being a moral issue, Missouri is currently in its severe weather season and sending National Guard resources away from the state puts residents at risk, Rice said.
Part of Rice’s motivation to write the resolution stems from time she spent in Rwanda, where she learned about the 1994 genocide that took the lives of about 800,000 people.
“What leads people to violently act out against our neighbors is referring to people as animals and treating them that way,” she said. “The president used the word ‘infestation.’ That is a giant, waving red flag. They called them ‘cockroaches’ in Rwanda. That kind of language when you start dehumanizing people – it feels like we are very much on the edge of something here.”
Her resolution was meant to, at the very least, counter the hateful rhetoric that has escalated since this new administration came into power, she said.
“I wanted to come out and say we are humanizing our neighbors,” Rice said.
What’s next?
Attorney Nicole Cortés, co-founder of the Migrant and Immigrant Community Action (MICA) Project, said that the president’s emergency order did not move the needle that much.
“Family detention is still upsetting, though we ended our self-induced family separation,” Cortes said.
Within the order, it states that the U.S. attorney general will “promptly” file a request in federal court to modify the settlement agreement in Flores v. Session, a court precedent that limited the length of time families can remain in detention to 20 days. Prior to zero tolerance, adults were given ankle bracelets and required to check in through phone calls until their court dates for asylum status. The modification would allow the U.S. secretary of Homeland Security to “detain alien families together throughout the pendency of criminal proceedings for improper entry or any removal or other immigration proceedings” – essentially throwing out this 20-day limit.
“It’s outrageous,” Cortes said. “It doesn’t fix anything.”
At the press conference, Amanda Tello, an organizer with Missouri Immigrant and Refugee Advocates, said, “Our government has stolen over 2,000 children. I urge you all to think about how these families got separated due to unjust immigration laws that target immigrants of color and have left entire communities devastated.”
Tello and other immigration advocates and attorneys recommended three ways St. Louisans can get involved:
– Continuously call your congressmen to let them know you want legislation that ends the practice of detention while immigrants await asylum hearings, and does not further disrupt legal immigration processes and or unjustly punish immigrants.
– Donate to organizations with a history of working with immigrant children. St. Francis launched a social media fundraiser on June 21. The MICA project posted on Twitter a donation link to various organizations working on the border (https://secure.actblue.com/donate/families-border/).
– Learn more about what’s going on. On June 26 from 6:30-8 p.m., St. Francis will hold an informational meeting about the current immigration policies and “what you need to know to advocate for a moral response,” held at the Cardinal Regali Center, 20 Archbishop May Dr.
