The Tragic Lives of the Children Trump's Policies Target
Claudia Maquin shows a photo of her daughter, Jakelin Amei Rosmery Caal
Maquin, who died in a Texas hospital two days after being taken into custody
by border patrol agents in a remote stretch of New Mexico desert. (Oliver de
Ros / AP)
Maria Meza desperately sought safety for herself and her children. The
39-year-old Honduran mother had trekked northward on the migrant caravan,
arriving in Tijuana in November. She and two of her daughters were among
hundreds of asylum-seekers tear-gassed by U.S. border agents. A Reuters
photo of Maria and her girls fleeing clouds of tear gas went viral,
provoking outrage at the administration of President Donald Trump and his
draconian anti-immigrant policies. But it also brought Maria unwanted and
potentially life-threatening notoriety, as right-wing media outlets like the
Fox News Channel fanned the flames of racial hatred day and night. Just this
week, she entered the U.S. and applied for asylum, but only when two members
of the U.S. Congress camped overnight with her and escorted her with her
children through a port of entry near Tijuana.
Jakelin Caal Maquin did not have congressional protectors. The 7-year-old
Mayan girl from Guatemala crossed the border into New Mexico with her
father, Nery Caal, seeking asylum with about 160 other migrants. They were
taken into custody and, after more than eight hours of detention, Jakelin
began having seizures. Her body temperature spiked to 105.7 degrees F. She
was taken to a hospital in El Paso, where, on Dec. 8, she died of
dehydration, shock and liver failure.
"Why should this little girl be in a jail-like system in the first place?"
Clara Long, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, asked, speaking on
the "Democracy Now!" news hour. "The United States can do this better, from
a humanitarian perspective, receiving people with dignity and humanity,
screening them, making sure that they're well taken care of. But treating
people like criminals will lead, unfortunately, to these kind of outcomes."
Abdullah Hassan is not an asylum-seeker. He's a U.S. citizen. But the 2-
year-old suffers from epilepsy and hypomyelination, and, at the time of this
writing, is on life support, near death, at a hospital in Oakland,
California. Abdullah's father, Ali Hassan, also is a U.S. citizen, and has
been by his side throughout his ordeal. But his mother, Shaima Swileh, is a
Yemeni citizen and, as such, can't enter the U.S. because of Trump's "Muslim
Ban," which bars people from five majority-Muslim countries - Iran, Libya,
Yemen, Syria and Somalia.
The family had been pleading with the U.S. State Department for over a year
to grant Shaima a waiver so she could be with her son in his final months.
On Monday, as it looked like he would soon die, they filed a lawsuit. As
media attention grew, the State Department granted a waiver at the last
minute, and she began the long flight to California. CAIR, the Council on
American-Islamic Relations, is coordinating her immediate travel from San
Francisco International Airport to her son's side. He is unconscious, and is
not expected to regain consciousness.
These are just a few of the stories that comprise the grotesque milieu of
immigration in the United States today. It's gotten so bad that even the
libertarian Cato Institute has called Trump's asylum policy a "sham."
Last June, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a new rule blocking
people from using some of the most common reasons for seeking asylum:
gang-related or domestic violence. A lawsuit challenging the rule was
assigned to U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan. Sullivan was in the news
this week, presiding over the sentencing of Trump's former national security
advisor and now admitted felon, Gen. Michael Flynn.
Last summer, as the case challenging Trump's restrictions on asylum was
making its way through the court, Sullivan learned one of the 12 plaintiffs
and her daughter was being deported back to El Salvador, facing the very
violence they fled. Sullivan ordered the plane turned around, and threatened
Sessions with contempt of court if his orders were not followed immediately.
This week, Sullivan issued a final ruling, overturning Trump's policy and
restoring access to asylum for victims of gang-related or domestic violence.
In his ruling, Sullivan wrote, "Because it is the will of Congress - not the
whims of the Executive - that determines the standard for expedited removal,
the Court finds that those policies are unlawful."
Immigration policy is a matter of life and death, most tragically impacting
the most vulnerable among us. As Judge Emmet Sullivan shows, the courts can
offer relief. But nationwide grass-roots organizing and massive media
exposure are needed to reverse the abomination of Trump's war on migrant
children.
Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan
Amy Goodman
Columnist
Amy