Dara Lind at Vox has the story:
Immigration polling consistently shows that Americans want something to be done to fix the immigration system, and aren’t necessarily picky about what that is. …. As the child and family migrant crisis has continued to be in the news over the last few weeks, more Americans are beginning to believe that it’s a serious problem. That means they want something done, quickly. And deporting all the children and families who have come to the US is the most obvious option for quick and decisive action.
That’s the takeaway from a new poll that YouGov and the Huffington Post put out [yesterday.]
Episcopal Church leaders including Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, the Rev. Gay Jennings, President of the House of Deputies and diocesan bishops including the Rt. Revs. Andy Doyle, Jim Mathes and Todd Ousley have called on Congress to treat the children with compassion, and the Episcopal Church’s Washington office has submitted testimony buttressing this case.
What do you think should be done?
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If you want to fund legal representation for children, use the relevant link from the website of Catholic Social Services of Central Texas. http://www.txcatholic.org/component/content/article/13-policy/447-unaccompanied-children-refugees
I checked back to the website of the Diocese of West Texas, and it appears that donations there are going for material supplies. I think I was mistaken in my earlier post that donations to the Diocese of West Texas would go to provide legal representation. But they are doing other vital work you can help support.
I called Allison Duvall of Episcopal Migration Ministries to ask this question, and Ann Fontaine sent a super-helpful link to a page set up by Catholic Charities of West Texas, who appear to have a network of skilled child welfare agencies able to help with placing children. Ann said that Episcopal churches are teaming up with Catholics in Texas.
The two websites below list several ways that Episcopalians can act immediately to help ensure the safety of these refugee children. But Congress is poised to decide in the next few days whether funding is used to shut out and deport children, or to provide the care that will ensure they get fairly heard and housed in physically and emotionally safe conditions while their cases are pending. So here are ways we can respond:
1. contact your members of the Senate and the House to advocate that the children be treated with compassion, receive a thorough and fair evaluation of their case, and that the US response address the “push factors” that are driving so many parents to the desperate measure of sending their children far from home.
2. send money to help the Diocese of West Texas provide legal counsel to the children and meet other material needs: http://www.dwtx.org
3. send material supplies to meet children’s immediate needs. But call first to make sure the church or agency can use what you’d like to send.
The website of Catholic Charities of Central Texas lists several ways donors and volunteers can aid churches on the front lines of response:
http://www.txcatholic.org/component/content/article/13-policy/447-unaccompanied-children-refugees
Does anyone know if there’s a way to sponsor one of these children? If so, the church could be disseminating information on how to do that. It seems like the US government should want people to foster the children and get them out of their detention areas.
Nothing less than treating these children as we would want our own children treated is acceptable. I am grateful that our Bishops have made strong statements on behalf of the children. The 2008 law was passed with a hope toward protecting children from child sex trafficking, how can we now ignore the law and say that child sex trafficking is okay, and send them right back to the same environment? We need to find places for them, sanctuary if necessary.
Mary English Morrison
(added by editor – please sign your own name in the future)
I would like to see the emphasis changed to establishing conditions under which these children can stay rather than be sent home. These ‘tired and poor’ have risked all to get here. My inkling is they will make very good citizens if they are allowed to stay.
The President has erred in emphasizing their deportation rather than their welcome.