[Caption; A series of tweets by josie duffy rice/ @jduffyrice
Now that we’re all on twitter because of this game, I am making a public service announcement: PLEASE STOP SHARING THAT STORY ABOUT 1500 KIDS MISSING. The outrage I’ve seen is the result of a total misinterpretation and could SERIOUSLY threaten the children you want to save.
Before I get to it, I’ll answer the question that 99 million ppl will inevitably ask: I know this because I’m a lawyer, i works on criminal justice issues (sometimes incl immigration), and 4 of my closest friends are immigration attorneys dealing with this EXACT THING.
There are two things going on. 1) HHS doesn’t know where 1500 unaccompanied minors are. 2) we are separating parents and children at the border.
These are different. The kids in 1) were not separated from their parents at the border. They crossed the border alone* or arrived here without a parent.
That’s not really the point I want to make, though it is important.
These kids were dealt with by ORR, the office of refugee resettlement. They were released into the care of people that almost always fit within one of these three categories:
1) immediate family 2) extended family 3) other people that the child has a pre-existing relationship with. If none of these categories apply, then the kids normally stay in a shelter.
(After a number of children were trafficked in 2014, these restrictions got tighter.)
So those kids are released and then they are no longer ORRs responsibility or problem. THIS IS A GOOD THING.
One analogy I heard from my dear friend who I won’t tag without her permission, is that ORR is basically a jailer. Do you want the jail keeping track of where every former inmate is?
Now I have more to say about that but before we do that, let’s talk about the word missing. Basically by all accounts HHS did a cursory reach out to check on these kids, and couldn’t find out where they were exactly.
When I say cursory I mean cursory. We’re talking about phone calls. Phone calls! Like, no door knocks. No checking school records. They called. They didn’t find answers.
There are so many reasons why people wouldn’t answer. Maybe these kids are living with someone undocumented. Maybe they aren’t but their sponsor is (legitimately) completely scared of immigration authorities in trumps America.
They aren’t missing! They are almost certainly living with family members who almost certainly don’t want to interact with the government and WE SHOULDN’T ASK THEM TO
ORR’s job is NOT to track and monitor these kids, and it shouldn’t be. As my friend said, if there were an issue- abuse, or other wrongdoing- it should go through the appropriate agency: children’s services or what have you. It SHOULDN’T GO THROUGH HHS/ORR or DHS/ICE
When your school loans provider can’t reach you, are you missing? No. When your boss can’t find you on a Friday night, are you missing? No. They aren’t missing. Some unanswered phone calls does not a missing child make.
Now, I started out identifying two things that were happening. The second- the separation of children and their parents at the border- is goddamn unconscionable and sickening.
But DO NOT confuse the two. The potential for it backfiring is real. What we’re demanding is that ORR, which works hand in hand with ICE, “keep better track” of kids they basically would like to deport if giving the chance. We don’t want that!!!
You’re asking immigration authorities IN TRUMP’S AMERICA to BETTER MONITOR UNDOCUMENTED CHILDREN AND THEIR FAMILIES. You don’t want this. I promise you don’t.
I get it. It sounds awful. But at WORST it’s benign. At best, it’s a GOOD thing that ORR doesn’t know where these kids are. There’s a reason. We actually now have pretty strict requirements before we release these kids. They aren’t all being trafficked. They aren’t dead.
It doesn’t mean life is easy, but life won’t be easier if ORR starts tracking them. Trust me. And trust my brilliant friends who know about this shit and have warned me and are now warning you. DONT conflate the two things.
AND because some people are obviously taking this as an opportunity to exonerate the president- NO. Trumps immigration policy is disgusting. His separation of kids and parents at the border is SICKENING. He’s a tyrant. Just don’t conflate them.
Man oh man I forget that at least 50 percent of people on twitter refuse to learn basic reading comprehension. Tonight should be fun!
] *[Also it says “alien” up there where it should say “alone”, cool, autocorrect.]
*corrected autocorrect/typo in my transcription for the sake of being less confusing, especially for anyone listening to the text rather than reading it visually.
Since I reblogged a post about this issue, here is a correction.
I’m not sure what’s true anymore, but here is someone else’s take on it
it’s worth taking a look at the links i added to the original post – the “missing” kids are completely unrelated to the kids that ICE has been separating from their families, and that’s very clear if you actually read the articles and shit about the situation.
Not a call out just letting you know that there are sources and ish. 🙂
I saw the thread in Twitter originally and I’m glad someone brought it over here. It was good to read and understand. I feel like there’s definitely some media manipulation going on that might end up feeding MORE power to ICE, which is the last thing we want.
Okay, so my problems with this on the surface quite sensible-sounding statement are these:
1. If fandom has taught me anything, it’s that people are willing to declare someone Unredeemably Problematic and Terrible for the pettiest stuff, and spread the word, and apply peer pressure to stay away from that person, including pillorying them over something they said ten years ago. It’s definitely not just on Tumblr (I remember the same thing happening on LJ) but the social climate here is one that encourages people, especially young people, to make snap judgments about other people and shut them out at the drop of a hat. Or to distrust entire social movements because they are Irredeemably Tainted. For God’s sake, we literally know at this point – we have evidence – that this facet of tumblr subculture has been used by propaganda trolls to try to twist public opinion in a rightward direction by pushing the left to double down on refusal to compromise, unwillingness to trust people, and general intolerance. And this is the exact kind of black-and-white thinking, only one side can be right, “with us or against us” thinking that leads, for example, to blatant antisemitism on the left over the Israel/Gaza situation.
2. People can change their mind about things. And they’re a whole lot more likely to change their mind about things if it comes from someone they already like and trust. Look, obviously you shouldn’t stay friends with someone who’s toxic to you or who doesn’t accept you for who you are. And some people are truly Just Not Worth It. The following applies only in cases where you really do like them as a person and being around them is not harmful for you. But, particularly as an ally if you’re not in the affected group yourself … if you pull away from them, especially in the present climate where everyone is literally living in their own little media world, you’re leaving them isolated in a bubble of conservative groupthink where they’re just going to be pressured to descend deeper and deeper into it.
Case in point: my cousin. Given the hardcore right-wing family she comes from, she’s a relatively open-minded person, and we get along pretty well; I like her. Her ex-husband came out as either gay or bisexual (I’m unclear on precisely how he identifies; definitely not straight) after they divorced and is currently dating a trans woman. The family members she’s otherwise closest to (her mom and sister) are both deep in evangelical circles, absolutely HATE her ex and his new partner, and are actively trying to convince her that it’s unsafe for her daughter to be around them. If I pull away from her and refuse to associate with her for political reasons (I’m pretty sure she voted for Trump, for example), ALL the information she has about gay people, trans people, etc. is going to be coming from her frothingly conservative relatives and her church. Isn’t it worth giving her one person to talk to who can give her a different viewpoint on those things? If not for her sake, then for the sake of her 9-year-old daughter?
tl;dr by all means don’t keep up a friendship if it’s toxic for you or if you’re not getting what you need out of it, but people are not born knowing All The Right Things To Think. Peer pressure is really goddamn powerful, so is propaganda and media spin, and you know what it does when we withdraw onto our own side of the line and claim that it’s a social value to refuse to associate with The Other, even for purposes of changing their mind? It makes them more powerful and numerous, is what it does.
My grandpa lives in clarksdale, Mississippi and HATES white people with a passion. I grew up listening to stories like this. His cousins had to flee to Chicago in the 60s for trying to fight a group of white landowners who wanted to hang them for trying to leave the land they worked on.
Slavery turned into “share cropping” if you kept your slaves ignorant and isolated then they didn’t know they had been freed. This went on well into the 60’s the fucking 60’s these people are still alive dealing with this type of shit in the deep south.
My friend said to “fact check” this and I’m like…black ppl are literally saying they were kept as slaves what is there to fact check. Anyway, sharecropping was still slavery as far as I’m concerned.
Una protesta
Una masacre estudiantil
En las calles de un país.
The fusion feed relata el despertar de los Nicaragüenses y cómo los jóvenes se están levantando contra el gobierno.
#SosNicaragua
Vídeo por @fusiontv via twitter
This is the country that my mother left when she was just a child. What is happening here is real.
Please consider donating to this gofundme, it’s towards medical donations for those who have been harmed by the government and the sandinista youth during the protests.
And please spread word of this, international news feeds have been pretty much kicked out of the country and social media like twitter and facebook is all the people have left to show just what’s happening.
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