463 Migrant Parents May Have Been Deported Without Their Kids, Court Filings Show | HuffPost
Aghhhhhhhh!
Category: Modern Parenting,
Pregnant women don’t learn about profound brain changes
I was in the midst of the most rapid and dramatic neurobiological change of my adult life. The unmooring I felt, and that so many new mothers feel, likely was at least in part a manifestation of structural and functional brain changes, handed down through the millennia by mothers past and intended to mold me into a fiercely protective, motivated caregiver, focused on my baby’s survival and long-term well-being.
…Women experience a flood of hormones during pregnancy, childbirth, and breast-feeding that primes the brain for dramatic change in regions thought to make up the maternal circuit. Affected brain regions include those that enable a mother to multitask to meet baby’s needs, help her to empathize with her infant’s pain and emotions, and regulate how she responds to positive stimuli (such as baby’s coo) or to perceived threats. In the newborn months, a mother’s interaction with her infant serves as further stimulus to link her brain quite tangibly to her baby’s.
…After childbirth, the volume of gray matter in the mothers’ brains changed dramatically, particularly in regions involved in social processes and “theory of mind,” or the ability to attribute emotions and mental states to other people — key in raising a human. The degree of change, enough that researchers could easily sort the women who had had a pregnancy from those who hadn’t, surprised Elseline Hoekzema, a lead author on the 2016 paper who studies pregnancy and the brain at Leiden University in the Netherlands.
…Studies have found that fathers, including gay fathers raising children without maternal involvement, experience significant changes in brain activity, but those changes depend on exposure to the child. The more time a man spends as primary caregiver, the more activated the parental network in his brain becomes, and researchers suspect a similar effect may be present for others in a parental role.
…A surge of oxytocin at childbirth triggers changes that allow a woman quite literally to sync to her baby through a coordination of biology (synchronized brain responses and heart rates) and behavior (matching responses in gaze, touch, and vocalizations). That intense connection teaches a baby from the very first day how to relate to another person, says Ruth Feldman, Simms-Mann Professor of Developmental Neuroscience at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel. When we connect with friends, romantic partners, and colleagues and even as we view ourselves as a member of a sports team or as part of a nation, we “repurpose the basic machinery” established in the connection between mother and baby, she explained in a 2017 paper on the neurobiology of human attachment.
The parental brain incorporates human-specific functions such as empathy with ancient ones aimed at protecting the young for the survival of the species. That complexity makes it “a peak expression of human evolution,” she says. In fact, she speculates that the parental bonding phenomenon came first. Before there were humans.
Pregnant women don’t learn about profound brain changes – The Boston Globe
hmmm
State Dept trafficking report includes ill effects of family separation
The State Department trafficking report, in addition to drawing attention this year to “modern day slave markets” in Libya, the dislocation of thousands of Rohingya in Burma, “untold numbers” of North Koreans subject to forced labor and the punishment of trafficking victims in Iran, also includes a section on the negative effects of family separation.
…”Studies have found that both private and government-run residential institutions for children, or places such as orphanages and psychiatric wards that do not offer a family-based setting, cannot replicate the emotional companionship and attention found in family environments that are prerequisites to healthy cognitive development,” the report reads. “The physical and psychological effects of staying in residential institutions, combined with societal isolation and often subpar regulatory oversight by governments, place these children in situations of heightened vulnerability to human trafficking.”
The report made reference to “ill-managed facilities” as a prime target for traffickers.
State Dept trafficking report includes ill effects of family separation – CBS News
Sigh….
Indefinite family detention is now Trump’s official policy
Indefinite family detention is now Trump’s official policy – Vox
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
The Birth of the New American Aristocracy
Every piece of the pie picked up by the 0.1 percent, in relative terms, had to come from the people below. But not everyone in the 99.9 percent gave up a slice. Only those in the bottom 90 percent did. At their peak, in the mid-1980s, people in this group held 35 percent of the nation’s wealth. Three decades later that had fallen 12 points—exactly as much as the wealth of the 0.1 percent rose.
In between the top 0.1 percent and the bottom 90 percent is a group that has been doing just fine. It has held on to its share of a growing pie decade after decade. And as a group, it owns substantially more wealth than do the other two combined. In the tale of three classes (see Figure 1), it is represented by the gold line floating high and steady while the other two duke it out. You’ll find the new aristocracy there. We are the 9.9 percent.
…As of 2016, it took $1.2 million in net worth to make it into the 9.9 percent; $2.4 million to reach the group’s median; and $10 million to get into the top 0.9 percent.
…Let’s suppose that you start off right in the middle of the American wealth distribution. How high would you have to jump to make it into the 9.9 percent? In financial terms, the measurement is easy and the trend is unmistakable. In 1963, you would have needed to multiply your wealth six times. By 2016, you would have needed to leap twice as high—increasing your wealth 12-fold—to scrape into our group. If you boldly aspired to reach the middle of our group rather than its lower edge, you’d have needed to multiply your wealth by a factor of 25. On this measure, the 2010s look much like the 1920s.
…The Institute for Policy Studies calculated that, setting aside money invested in “durable goods” such as furniture and a family car, the median black family had net wealth of $1,700 in 2013, and the median Latino family had $2,000, compared with $116,800 for the median white family.
The Birth of the New American Aristocracy – The Atlantic
hmmmm
‘Find Your Passion’ Is Awful Advice – A major new study questions the common wisdom about how we should choose our careers.
Those who learned that interests are fixed throughout a person’s life were less captivated by [information unrelated to] their [own] interests.
…The authors also had students learn about either fixed or growth theory and then exposed them to a new interest: Astronomy. First, they had them watch a video made by The Guardian for a general audience about Stephen Hawking’s ideas. It was easy to understand and entertaining. Then the authors had the students read a highly technical, challenging article in the academic journal Science about black holes. Despite saying just moments ago, after viewing the video, that they were fascinated by black holes, the students who were exposed to the fixed theory of interests said they were no longer interested in black holes after reading the difficult Science article. In other words, when you’re told that your interests are somehow ingrained, you give up on new interests as soon as the going gets tough.
…K. Ann Renninger, a professor at Swarthmore College who was not involved with the study, has researched the development of interests and said that “neuroscience has confirmed that interests can be supported to develop.” In other words, with the right help, most people can get interested in almost anything. Before the age of 8, she said, kids will try anything. Between the ages of 8 and 12, they start to compare themselves with others and become insecure if they’re not as good as their peers at something. That’s when educators have to start to find new ways to keep them interested in certain subjects.
Though the authors didn’t examine adults, they told me their findings could apply to an older population as well. For example, people’s interest in parenthood tends to escalate rapidly once they have a real, crying baby in their house. “You could not know the first thing about cancer, but if your mother gets cancer, you’re going to be an expert in it pretty darn quick,” O’Keefe said.
How to Really Find Your Passion – The Atlantic
hmmmm
This Alternative To Detaining Immigrant Families Works. Trump Just Won’t Use It.
The Family Case Management Program, which President Donald Trump ended several months after taking office, was meant to keep track of immigrant parents and kids in removal proceedings without having to keep them locked up. It was relatively small ― about 950 families in five locations. But it was hugely successful: More than 99 percent of families in the program showed up for their court dates, and 97 percent participated in required check-ins with their case managers, according to a report from Geo Care, the private prison company that operated the program. And it reportedly cost the government just $36 per family each day, versus $319 per bed per day in a family detention center.
…The FCMP was meant for people deemed too vulnerable for detention, such as pregnant or nursing women or families with special needs children. It required families to be briefed on their responsibilities in the immigration court process, which can be complicated, and to check in regularly with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and their case manager. Case managers referred families to services — such as lawyers and children’s school enrollment — and, if they received a deportation order in court, helped them prepare to return to their native country.
…ICE abruptly shut down the program last June with little explanation for advisory committee members.
…Immigrant rights advocates are pushing for policymakers to remember that detention isn’t the only option.
“ICE has a whole range of alternatives to detention,” said Ashley Feasley, a former advisory committee member and the director of policy at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ migration and refugee services. “These are existing programs that could be implemented now in lieu of building large-scale family-child detention facilities.”
This Alternative To Detaining Immigrant Families Works. Trump Just Won’t Use It. | HuffPost
Sigh….
Immigrant ‘was offered reunification with child if he agreed to leave’
Illegal immigrant separated from his six-year-old daughter at the border says he was offered to be reunited with his child at the airport if he agreed to deportation.
…Immigrants who crossed into the United States have been told that they would be able to get their children back in exchange for agreeing to immediately leave the country, it has been reported.
…Immigration lawyers have advised him to revoke the paperwork he signed and appeal for asylum before an immigration judge.
Carlos is currently being housed at a privately run adult detention center in Polk County, Texas, some 75 miles outside of Houston.
He said that his daughter was taken from him on the day he went to a McAllen court to plead guilty to illegal entry.
Carlos said that he was told his daughter would be taken to an aunt in California, but this was ‘pure lies,’ he said.
‘She’s a prisoner,’ he said.
Immigrant ‘was offered reunification with child if he agreed to leave’ | Daily Mail Online
…And then the governments lies about it. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat…..
Tips For Staying Civil While Debating Child Prisons
– Recall that violently rejecting a tyrannical government goes against everything our forefathers believed in.
– Find common ground by recognizing that some kids are huge assholes.
– Make sure any protests are peaceful, silent, and completely out of sight of anyone who could actually affect government policy.
– Give your political opponents the benefit of the doubt by letting this play out for 20 years and seeing if it gets any better on its own.
– Realize that every pressing social issue is solved through civil discourse if you ignore virtually all of human history.
– Remind yourself that you’re just two people having a cocktail at the same D.C. party and that politics is a game to you.
Tips For Staying Civil While Debating Child Prisons
bahahahahahahah!
Health secretary: ‘No reason’ why separated families can’t find children
Health secretary: ‘No reason’ why separated families can’t find children – POLITICO
Does Trump tell them he’ll fire them if they don’t agree to lie every time they are on the record?
Judge Bars Migrant Family Separations, Orders Return Of Children Within 30 Days
Judge Bars Migrant Family Separations, Orders Return Of Children Within 30 Days : NPR
How many days left? I hope no one is holding their breath on this one…
Immigrant toddlers ordered to appear in court alone
Given the trauma the children faced in their home country that spurred their families to flee and the pain of being separated from a parent, the expectation that children can mount a legal defense is “unconscionable,” said Dr. Benard Dreyer, director of the division of developmental-behavioral pediatrics at New York University School of Medicine.
“It’s certainly grossly inappropriate,” said Dreyer, who is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics advocacy committee. “I’m ashamed that we’re doing this.”
Leaders at three legal services organizations and a private firm confirmed that children are being served with notices to appear in court. They are not entitled to an attorney but rather are given a list of legal services organizations that might help them.
Immigrant toddlers ordered to appear in court alone | The Texas Tribune
Without even a fucking attorney to speak for them. What, in the ever-living fuck, is wrong with us?????????????????????!
A Former ICE Director Explains How Separated Children Can Easily Become Orphans
John Sandweg, who served as acting ICE Director under President Obama, tells Rolling Stone,“There’s a very high risk of permanent separation” for the families that were ripped apart. Migrant parents could easily lose legal custody, he says, in a Kafka-esque tangle of American bureaucracies.
To understand the plight of the families affected by Trump’s initiative – which Amnesty International has condemned as “nothing short of torture” – it’s critical to understand that once family units are broken apart, parents and children are in the hands of two separate bureaucracies. …Children are handed over to the Department of Health and Human Services, and are now considered unaccompanied minors. Some of the children have extended family in America who can provide a home for them. For the rest, HHS seeks foster care placements – anywhere in the U.S. that can accommodate them.
…Some desperate parents, Sandweg says, may have already been pressured into abandoning asylum claims and voluntarily accepting removal from the United States, in the mistaken belief that this would speed reunification with an infant child. But this is a false hope.
…It can take years for a child’s asylum case to wend its way before an immigration judge. If the child is now in the foster care system, he or she is a ward of whatever state HHS sent him or her to.
…In state court hearings, the deported parents are then punished for being out of country. “The parent has no way – legally or financially – to return to the United States to appear in state court proceedings where the guardianship of their child is being decided,” Sandweg says. Because the feds deported the parent, courts usually deem the child to have been abandoned, legally speaking. “Parental rights are then severed,” often permanently, says Sandweg. “Now, the parent has no legal authority to mandate return of their child.”
…Some of the children, Sandweg says, could eventually be put up for adoption. In the darkest of ironies, forcibly orphaned migrants – whom the president is desperate to deport – could in fact qualify for permanent residency, because the U.S. has a “special immigrant juvenile” classification designed for abandoned children. As Sandweg puts it, “Trump could be creating hundreds of future green card holders.”
A Former ICE Director Explains How Separated Children Can Easily Become Orphans – Rolling Stone
Argggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Government Contractors Asked About The Religion Of Immigrant Women Trying To Reunite With Their Kids, Lawyers Say
Federal contractors working to reunite families separated at the border asked about the religious affiliation of at least two immigrant women seeking to get their children back, according to court documents and an attorney involved in one of the interviews.
The women, both currently living in the Boston area, were recently separated from their children under President Donald Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy. Both of the women are asylum seekers, and one has already been reunited with her daughter.
…“Both of the families we’re working with are Christians,” Clark said. “But what if they weren’t? Are we saying now you can’t be reunified with your own child if you don’t share the religious preference of this particular vendor who runs these detainment centers for children?”
…According to Clark, court documents filed on behalf of one of the women and an attorney for the other, the questions about religion came up during phone interviews with caseworkers responsible for determining whether the two mothers were suitable sponsors for their own kids.
…The woman, identified only as W.R. in her complaint, alleges in the case that in June she was instructed to fill out a “Family Reunification Packet” and was asked by a caseworker from BCFS, a Christian non-profit that serves as another government contractor, about her religious affiliation.
“The case worker’s very first question to W.R. was whether she is religious, and if so, what religion she practices,” according to the complaint. “The case worker then asked W.R. whether she was Christian and attended church and how often. W.R. replied that she is religious and attends church regularly, the case worker responded, ‘Great!.’”
The complaint says W.R. was then asked a range of questions by the caseworker, from her marital status to how she would “discipline” her son.
“W.R. answered all questions without objection, because she feared that any objection would jeopardize or further delay A.R.’s release,” the complaint states.
…Throughout the process of applying to be reunited with her child, W.R. was identified as the “sponsor” for her son, according to her lawsuit. The BCFS caseworker also referred to her as a “sponsor” during a phone interview, according to the court filing.
“We have to start treating these parents as parents,” Clark said. “We separated them from their children, and we have to do everything we can to bring them back together as quickly as possible. And asking a religious test to receive your own child back, are we saying that if you are not Christian you may not have your child returned to you? I find that shockingly — ‘inappropriate’ wouldn’t even begin to cover it — it’s just shocking that we would ask that question of parents.”
…W.R. was told that in order to complete her reunification paperwork she would need to be fingerprinted at a specific location in Massachusetts, more than 50 miles away, before her reunification case could be evaluated. The lawsuit states W.R. offered to have fingerprints taken at a US Citizens and Immigration Services site in Boston, but was told that she could not go there.
Clark said Gonzalez-Garcia was also initially told to travel from where she now lives in the Boston area to a specific site in New Jersey for fingerprints and would have to bear the cost of the travel. Both women, the lawmaker added, had already had fingerprints taken at the border. Asked what the justification was for traveling to a specific site for the fingerprints, Clark said, “We could never get a clear answer on that.”
“Nobody can tell me where the policy is from. I’ve asked everyone,” Clark said. “Can you send me the policy that says these moms need to be re-fingerprinted even though … Border Patrol has them, and why we can’t be sharing that information to get this process moving? And nobody can point me to a policy, an email, a meeting, a phone conversation.”
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Opposition to Breast-Feeding Resolution by U.S. Stuns World Health Officials
A resolution to encourage breast-feeding was expected to be approved quickly and easily by the hundreds of government delegates who gathered this spring in Geneva for the United Nations-affiliated World Health Assembly.
Based on decades of research, the resolution says that mother’s milk is healthiest for children and countries should strive to limit the inaccurate or misleading marketing of breast milk substitutes.
Then the United States delegation, embracing the interests of infant formula manufacturers, upended the deliberations.
Opposition to Breast-Feeding Resolution by U.S. Stuns World Health Officials – The New York Times
Good lord… is there any part of their own espoused values these people will not toss aside for money?
“Life is precious. Think of the children.”
Ivanka Trump’s Chinese-Made Products Conveniently Spared From Dad’s Tariffs
The first daughter doesn’t appear to believe in “made in America.”
Well, duh….
Mitch McConnell Confronted By Protesters Asking: ‘Where Are The Babies?’
Mitch McConnell Confronted By Protesters Asking: ‘Where Are The Babies?’ | HuffPost
Oh, Elaine… SYing something doesn’t make it true. Your husband is definitely complicit in anything he goes along with, including separating families at the border in a pre-nazi racist exercise of fascism.
ACLU Obtains Documents Showing Widespread Abuse of Child Immigrants in U.S. Custody
Law students in the International Human Rights Clinic examined a subset of the records obtained. The documents show numerous cases involving federal officials’ verbal, physical and sexual abuse of migrant children; the denial of clean drinking water and adequate food; failure to provide necessary medical care; detention in freezing, unsanitary facilities; and other violations of federal law and policy and international law. The documents provide evidence that U.S. officials were aware of these abuses as they occurred, but failed to properly investigate, much less to remedy, these abuses.
Examples of the documented abuses include allegations that CBP officials:
- Punched a child’s head three times
- Kicked a child in the ribs
- Used a stun gun on a boy, causing him to fall to the ground, shaking, with his eyes rolling back in his head
- Ran over a 17-year-old with a patrol vehicle and then punched him several times
- Verbally abused detained children, calling them dogs and “other ugly things”
- Denied detained children permission to stand or move freely for days and threatened children who stood up with transfer to solitary confinement in a small, freezing room
- Denied a pregnant minor medical attention when she reported pain, which preceded a stillbirth
- Subjected a 16-year-old girl to a search in which they “forcefully spread her legs and touched her private parts so hard that she screamed”
- Left a 4-pound premature baby and her minor mother in an overcrowded and dirty cell full of sick people, against medical advice
- Threw out a child’s birth certificate and threatened him with sexual abuse by an adult male detainee.
The report also shows evidence of CBP holding migrant children in excess of the 72-hour maximum period permitted by law, as well as officials’ efforts to deport children without due process and via coercion.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh. Monsterous.
Trump administration separated families. Reuniting them is a mess.
On Friday, in the latest sign of disarray in the administration, officials admitted in court that they may miss a judge’s Tuesday deadline to reunite children under 5 with their parents.
…But hopes that the reunions would be swift were dashed in court on Friday and by other reports of a badly malfunctioning system that was overwhelmed when the President ordered a so-called zero tolerance policy that led to separations with no plan for dealing with the kids.
Some parents who have gone through immigration procedures have told CNN they don’t know how to get in touch with their kids — despite a court deadline that expired Friday for the administration to at least put parents in telephone touch with their offspring.
One Guatemalan woman called Lesvia, who got out of a detention center in Texas on Thursday, told CNN’s Miguel Marquez on Friday that she received no answers about the whereabouts of her 10-year-old son, who she last saw on May 19.
…The administration has yet to tell Americans exactly how many kids are still in custody, how long they will remain split from their parents and when this grim chapter of modern political history will end.
…Trump is also a master of distraction, and he has a polished record of creating new political storms to disguise scandals and dramas that could damage him politically.
He also got lucky. The retirement of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy and a vacancy that could cement the court’s ideological balance for a generation have captured the political imagination of Washington for over a week.
Next week, Trump will leave for a foreign trip packed with high-profile photo-ops, which includes a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin that is likely to further shove the separations issue into the background.
Yet all this time, several thousand kids are wondering when they will see their parents again.
…Doubts about the Trump administration’s capacity to reunite children and their parents are being exacerbated by its unwillingness or inability to publicly describe the scale of the problem or to explain how much progress it is making toward ending it.
On Thursday, Azar said that “under 3,000” children from separated families were in custody.
On Friday in a court filing, HHS said that number included “approximately” 101 kids under 5.
But there is no certainty over how many kids are still separated from their parents and how many families have been reunited — let alone the issue of how the government will deal with new families who cross the border and who won’t be separated but will still presumably be treated as criminals under the zero tolerance policy.
Trump administration separated families. Reuniting them is a mess. – CNNPolitics
hmmmm
The government hasn’t answered key questions on family separations
US District Judge Dana Sabraw laid out a series of deadlines in a ruling last week. By Friday, officials must make sure every separated parent has a way to contact their child. By July 10, children younger than 5 must be reunited with their parents. And by July 26, all children should be reunited with their parents.
…Exactly how many kids from separated families are in custody? The last time officials released an official tally on this was June 26. Thursday, Azar said the number was “under 3,000” but added that reviews were ongoing and he could not provide more precise figure. This is an important number because — since officials have declined to specify the total number of families that have been reunited — looking at the number of children in custody is one of the few ways for the public to have any sense of whether reunions are happening, and how quickly.
…Officials haven’t disclosed how many parents from separated families were deported. But in court on Friday, Fabian revealed details about one subset: 19 parents of children younger than 5 were deported, she said.
…Parents have also been offered the option to sign voluntary departure orders to speed up their cases even if they still have other legal options — and told they’ll be reunited with their children before they are deported if they do.
Immigrant advocacy groups say they’re concerned that some parents may have been coerced or may have signed documents they didn’t understand.
The government hasn’t answered key questions on family separations – CNNPolitics
Agggggggggggggggggh
‘Keep the test!’ A debate flares over exam-based public high schools.
While New York is unique in relying solely on one test, the long-simmering disagreements over definitions of merit, excellence, and equity resonate more broadly. Selective public high schools exist in dozens of states from Virginia to Illinois.
…The consideration of racial diversity in admissions is front and center again on the national stage as well. Harvard University is facing a lawsuit alleging discrimination against Asian-Americans. And on Tuesday, the US Departments of Education and Justice announced a rollback of a variety of Obama-era guidance around affirmative action.
…Some in New York have suggested adding more specialized high schools, as well as changing the approach to gifted education. Similar questions in Boston have led the district to begin phasing out third-grade testing and tracking of students into “advanced work” classes – in favor of a system called Excellence for All.
‘Keep the test!’ A debate flares over exam-based public high schools. – CSMonitor.com
hmmm
U.S. border deaths rise on family, child migrants: patrol agency
The number of migrants dying from extreme heat on the U.S.-Mexico border rose 55 percent in the past nine months after an increase in unaccompanied children and families trying to enter the United States illegally, the U.S. government said on Monday.
Heat-related deaths, the main cause of migrant fatalities on the U.S. southwest border, rose to 48, up from 31 over the same period in 2017, said U.S. Border Patrol spokesman Salvador Zamora.
…The death toll is expected to rise in the triple-digit heat of summer months as vulnerable, unacclimatized immigrants attempt to cross harsh environments, putting border fatalities on track for a year-on-year increase in 2018, Zamora said.
…Humanitarian groups such as San Diego-based Border Angels say the main cause of rising deaths is tighter border security and law enforcement, such as the recent imposition of a “zero tolerance” policy for illegal border crossers. That has prompted migrants to make long treks through hostile terrain via remote crossing points.
…Until four years ago, the vast majority of migrants arrested at the border were Mexicans. With improved economic conditions in Mexico, their number has fallen, as have overall arrests on the border, which dropped to 303,916 in 2017, down 26 percent from 2016, according to Border Patrol data.
Immigrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador now top the list of people arrested at the southern border as gun and gang-related violence drives an exodus from those countries, according to U.S. government data.
…“You really know someone is leaving a bad situation if they’re willing to risk their lives and their children’s’ lives for a chance to live,” said Cordero, 36, a water drop leader.
Morones suspects Border Patrol agents of destroying the water supplies left by his group. One such act was caught on video in Arizona by another humanitarian group called No More Deaths.
U.S. border deaths rise on family, child migrants: patrol agency | Reuters
hmmm
Comments From The Peanut Gallery 