What about the children? Damaging effects of ICE and anti-immigrant rhetoric 

In a nation that stands for “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” I have never felt so helpless watching thousands of children going through the unimaginable of being taken from their homes, separated from their families, and losing the life and dream they had of America. 

We are supposedly protecting ourselves from dangerous people and criminals. So why are we as a nation witnessing a five-year old being taken after his day at preschool? Or an 18-month old hospitalized and denied treatment? Why is there an 11-year old and a 13-year-old dying after their classmates at school threatened to call the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on her family? Why do we have to see countless other stories of young children with their futures taken from them too soon?  

Liam Conejo Ramos stood in shock and confusion as ICE agents took him and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, from their home in Minnesota to a family detention center in Texas. Liam’s family entered the US legally, with his father having no criminal record in either Minnesota or Ecuador, their country of origin. 

President Donald Trump has actively advocated to target “violent criminals.” Liam is a five-year old child who attended preschool and was coming home before being detained. He soon returned home to Minnesota, but nothing can undo the experiences he has gone through. His father reports his son isn’t the same; I don’t believe any child could be again.  

Amalia, an 18-month-old baby, was taken to the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, where hundreds of children are held with their parents. Once she was inside, her health declined severely, and after days of sickness, she was taken to a children’s hospital in San Antonio. She was treated and prescribed medication and equipment that were essential to her recovery. However, at the detention center, federal officials reportedly confiscated the equipment and denied her access to the medication, forcing Amalia’s parents to wait in long lines in the cold for medication. 

Jocelynn Rojo Carranza and Gabriela Aparicio Ortega tragically died by suicide after being bullied at school as ideals of nativism began to regain strength with Trump’s second term.  Carranza, an 11-year-old girl, was told by her classmates that they would call ICE on her family “so they could take her parents away and she would be left alone,” her mother said. Ortega, a 13-year-old girl, was bullied by her peers in North Carolina. These leave me speechless. No pre-teen should have to worry about this. While this bullying storyline isn’t new for many pre-teens and teens, the anti-immigrant ideals of the nation are growing increasingly concerning, and the consequences are starting to show through. 

No child deserves to experience the horrors these children have lived through, no matter their background. I respect different views from my own, but will not stand for the argument that these children “got what they deserved.”

I urge us as people, as human beings, to wake up. I’m not asking you to change your political views. I believe everyone has the right to have their opinion and express it. But, please, let’s put blinding division to the side for just a second and reflect: These are hundreds of children put into life-changing and damaging experiences, losing the people and life they love. Is this what being American is about?