My View: How can we let this happen to children?
By Katie Wolff
Jun 16, 2018 at 7:00 PM Jun 19, 2018 at 11:44 AM
The Trump administration's recently enacted zero-tolerance immigration policy has been eating at my heart and has led to sleepless nights.
Migrant families crossing our borders are being arrested -- and then torn apart. Parents go to jail and innocent children are kept in detention centers in chain link enclosures in places like Brownsville, Texas.
We can't imagine the trauma this is causing to these kids and parents. Imagine if this were your children or grandchildren.
Does anyone remember the Berlin airlift of 1948-1949 when American pilots created a great sky bridge to feed 2.2 million people of West Berlin for 15 months?
Not many pilots that flew those missions are still alive. Col. Gail Halvorsen, known as the Chocolate Pilot, used handkerchiefs to drop candy and chocolates on waiting children as he landed his plane full of supplies. He will be 98 this October.
His moving story is found in a children's book, "Mercedes and the Chocolate Pilot" by Margot Theis Raven.
Halvorsen wrote, "Hope is the essential ingredient for a child to recover from tragedy, whether it is in Berlin, Camp Hope in Albania, or in homes across the United States."
I recently read this book to my four grandchildren. We talked about the children in Massachusetts in 1948 who learned about Gail Halvorsen's work on the radio, and then sent tons of candy and chocolates. The children in the United States helped make this mission of love a reality.
Later my grandchildren caught up on current events and learned about the immigrant children being kept in Brownsville and other places.
"Why?" they asked. I responded, "Because their parents entered our country illegally and are taken to jail. But the kids can't go to jail, so they have to be placed in separate centers."
This is a new policy, not a law, that is being enforced by DHS and ICE. Before this most immigrants were processed, given a court date and released, families intact.
Many immigrant families were seeking asylum and had no idea their children would be taken from them. Now there is immediate arrest. The new policy is meant to show a tougher response to immigration, to criminalize what used to be a civil procedure.
My grandchildren looked at me in horror when we talked about this. No Mommy, no Daddy, no Poppy, no Bibi to cuddle with them at night? How can this country have gone from helping our former enemies, the West Berliners, survive the Soviet blockade, to this treatment today of innocent immigrant children in our country? How can we ignore the shock of our own children when we tell them what our leaders are doing?
The grandchildren wanted to send chocolate, but I told them it would melt in the Texas heat. So they found stuffed animals and Legos to send, and wrote letters to the kids.
When this time, this Spring of 2018, is written in history books, what will be said about us as a nation, as a people? Are we worthy of the airmen that saved West Berlin?
How can we Americans allow this to happen to these children? If you find this as horrific as I do, please call your representatives in Congress.
Sen. Dick Durbin: 202-223-2152
Sen. Tammy Duckworth: 202-225-3711
(Durbin and Duckworth have joined Sen. Diane Feinstein and 30 of their Senate colleagues in introducing legislation to make separation of immigrant families illegal.)
U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger: 202-225-3635
U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos: 202 225 5396
Katie Wolff, a Rockford resident, is a retired teacher.