Dear Sen. Ernst,
I ask you to do everything in your power to stop the abuse of children. Recently in Mississippi hard-working people were arrested, and plans were not in place to care for their children. Good people in their communities did what good people always do; they stepped up. But that won’t eliminate the trauma these children are enduring. And for what? To send a message: that even though an employer falsified documents for you to work, even though you pay taxes, you can be torn away from your children on a moment’s notice? And what was the message to the children: the United States government can turn you into an orphan?
Of course we turn children into orphans every day at our southern border. And this brings me to another request, one that comes not just from me, but also from the 200-plus members of Moms Against the Camps. Sen. Ernst, please stop the abuse of children held in U.S. custody. “But children aren’t being abused,” you might say. “After all, they have food and shelter and no one is beating them.”
Abuse can be silent. The National Council on Independent Living stated, “reports concerning the treatment of detainees within these camps clearly indicates that the conditions are resulting in detainees acquiring trauma-related disabilities.
Remember when there was an outcry about orphans people in the U.S. adopted from Romania and Russia? Those children, too, had been housed in government facilities. They were fed and kept clean. And yet they were severely traumatized. (For more information, see “Post-Orphanage Behavior In Internationally Adopted Children” by Boris Gindis, Ph.D.)
Children, as you know, need nurturing. Without it their brains are damaged. This is why the United States closed its orphanages more than 70 years ago. As people who have been instructed to love our neighbors as ourselves, we can fix this. The most obvious way is to first not separate these little ones from their families.
Children are unnecessarily experiencing trauma, and you have the power to keep it from happening.
Deb Downey
Newton