Family Separation Archives

History

Taking Children

An excerpt from Taking Children: A History of American Terror by Laura Briggs

June 8, 2020 • by Laura Briggs

The past stalks the present, the ghost in the machine of memory. This is why history writing matters; it gives us ways to understand the specters already among us and to assemble tools to transform our situation. Things change; the epidemic of child taking in the context of mass incarceration ...

Feature

Women March in DC to Protest Family Separation

A photo essay documenting the activism on June 28th

July 15, 2018 • by Jo Freeman

"We Care" "We Care" shouted a thousand women as they marched down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capital. Organized on very short notice by WomensMarch, which brought millions of women to Washington on January 21, 2017, the march started at Freedom Plaza and stopped for a rally at the Justice Department ...

Women March in DC to Protest Family Separation

Feature

Moral Blindness and Immigration in America

The Trump administration’s inhumane approach to immigration

July 12, 2018 • by Siobhan Kattago

Reactions to Donald Trump’s immigration policies -- whether in the Supreme Court’s upholding of the Muslim ban, rejection of domestic and gang violence as valid reasons for asylum or, more pointedly, the separation of families seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexican border, have primarily focused on the architects of such policies ...

Moral Blindness and Immigration in America

Feature

Beyond the Separation of Families

A view from Mexico on the crisis of the migration system

July 11, 2018 • by Alexandra Délano Alonso

An original version of this piece was written in Spanish for the Mexican magazine Letras Libres, focusing on Mexico’s response to the issue of family separation in the context of the July 1 presidential election. The separation of fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters at the U.S.-Mexican border, part of the Trump administration’s ...

Blue Monday

God Bless the Child?

Reflections on Families Belong Together, Trumpism, and the politics of resistance

July 2, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

"I merely took the energy it takes to pout, and I wrote some blues." -Duke Ellington While recent primaries have furnished some reason for modest hopefulness (see for example my piece last week on the primary victory of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), in a broader sense recent political developments have further darkened the already dark ...

Feature

Why the U.S. Should Ratify the Convention on Children’s Rights

The Trump administration’s policy on immigrant families makes it clear that the U.S. needs a child rights treaty now more than ever

June 29, 2018 • by Yvonne M. Vissing

The Trump administration’s forced separation of migrant children from their parents as a way to coerce Congress to agree with its proposed immigration policies is problematic on numerous fronts. Not only is it immoral but it is also damaging for the children involved, resulting in harms that range from toxic stress and abuse, to human rights violations. It has been ...

Why the U.S. Should Ratify the Convention on Children’s Rights

Feature

How You Can Help Immigrant Children Separated From Their Families

We need to take action against the U.S. government’s ‘Zero Tolerance’ Policy

June 28, 2018 • by Melanie Hart and Maya Wiley

We stand in support of a humane and equitable immigration path, policy, and process for all people. The federal government’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy promises to prosecute all persons who illegally cross the border, which includes individuals who seek asylum. Under the zero tolerance policy, thousands of children were forcibly ...

How You Can Help Immigrant Children Separated From Their Families

Feature

Summer Camps, Boarding Schools and the Ideology of Family Separation in the U.S.

Family separation is part of American history

June 21, 2018 • by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela

For many American parents gearing up for sleepaway camp season, the usual jitters are accompanied by a guilty unease: it’s hard to be anything but horrified by the profound difference between the experiences of affluent kids heading off for a summer of campfires and canoeing and those of the more than ...