The Trump administration has created such a climate of fear toward immigrants and asylum seekers from south of the U.S. border that undocumented and unaccompanied children have become collateral damage.
More than 2,300 children have been separated from their parents, many detained in inhumane conditions. These children have become pawns in the administration’s criminalization of people attempting to come into our country. The children are being used as leverage to gain support for extending the wall between Mexico and the United States.
It’s a credit to the American people that many are refusing to succumb to the fear. The incarcerated children have summoned people’s empathy. Their feelings have surface a sense of common humanity and a commitment to family unity, no matter the color of skin or language spoken. Growing numbers of people are speaking out for these children and their parents, including some politicians and human rights organizations. People are writing letters to the editor of their local newspapers, as well as posting on social media. This movement is making a difference. It is rejecting the flawed idea of American superiority over people from other national and ethnic origins, cultures and religions.
However, in spite this movement of conscience, our government’s commitment to hegemony continues. President Donald Trump is sending the double message of reuniting children with their parents while focusing on building more walls and maintaining the criminalization of asylum seekers, migrants and unaccompanied children. He recently advocated sending them all back without any access to legal council or the justice system.
The U.S. administration’s cavalier treatment of immigrant children and insensitivity toward human rights is consistent with Nikki Haley, U.S. envoy to the United Nations, announcing that the United States is leaving the United Nations’ Human Rights Council. Members from 47 countries, allocated from each region of the world, are elected to the council for three-year terms. Representatives can serve only two terms in a row. The U.S. terms would have ended next year. Yet Haley has insisted in leaving the Human Rights Council now. Haley’s primary reason for withdrawal is her perception that the council has a “chronic bias against Israel.” She has offered as one of the conditions for the U.S. to remain in the council the abolishment of its Agenda item 7: “The human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories.”
However, a plan that regularly reviews the human rights situation in Palestine is not, as Haley has said, “a chronic bias against Israel.” The real “bias” involves binding the United States and Israel to a policy that subverts human rights in favor of security. This choice extends to U.S. ill treatment of immigrant children and the harsh Israeli military treatment of Palestinian children.
Palestinian children are taken from their parents and held in confinement without charges. Often the parents do not know where their children have been taken. The children have no access to legal counsel. In Palestine, children are often interrogated by the Israeli military, using mental and physical abuse. They are jailed for indefinite periods of time. Human rights groups, including the Israeli human rights organization B’tselem and the Defense for Children International Palestine, have documented the abuse and rights violations to which Palestinian children are subjected in the Israeli military administration of the Palestinian territory.
Given the U.S. and Israel’s compatibility concerning the treatment of children, it is important to resist succumbing to the accusation that advocating for the rights of Palestinian children is “a bias against Israel.” It is important to tell the stories of military detention, abuse and rights violations of Palestinian children. It is important to let these stories raise the consciousness of the American people and stir their conscience. It is important to extend the surging empathy and concern for migrant children along the U.S. border to Palestinian children, as well as to the millions of refugee children around the world.
Nikki Haley needs to understand that speaking the truth to Israel is the same as the truth we are speaking to our own government concerning migrant children. Human rights for all people are to be advocated and cherished for the health of our country and for the health of our friend, Israel.
Empathy and care for migrant children along our border opens the window for the same concern for Palestinian children. For example, on Nov. 14, Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., introduced a bill to prevent U.S. tax dollars from paying for human rights violations against Palestinian children in Israeli military detention. (The United States gives more than $30 billion in military aid to Israel). U.S. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter of New Hampshire has become a co-sponsor of this bill. It would also be helpful to advocate for full restoration of UNRWA funding, which includes aid to Palestinian children in refugee camps.
Oppressed children have become the catalyst for this movement. As empathy and care for “the other” grow, the walls of fear collapse and fade away. Values of hospitality and love reach across boundaries to create neighbors. The need to criminalize migrants ends when they are recognized as contributors to the prosperity of our nation. The movement has begun to empathize with the oppressed and to speak out for a common humanity, no matter the color of skin or language spoken. It makes a difference.
(The Rev. John Buttrick, United Church of Christ, lives in Concord.)