4/2/21

By Josh Rubin

We have convinced ourselves of the self-righteous notion that we, here in the United States, can better care for and decide the fates of children who migrate here than the families they come to be with. And this notion has been swallowed whole by an industry.

This morning thousands of people are reading adds for jobs in this industry, jobs that will enable what some have called the border-industrial complex to cash in on their investments in, for instance, the sizable campaign contributions and detention infrastructure. Few are aware that the migrant detention industry bet quite a bit heavier on a Biden win in the presidential election. And as private contractors move into the convention centers and military bases being commandeered for child detention, those bets are paying off. In spades.

Here, in this group, angry debates are taking place, as some members, moved by images of children held in these facilities consider whether they should take jobs, some quite lucrative, in this exploding industry. They, too, are convinced on one level or another, that their kind presence in the lives of these children is exactly what is needed. It seems to me that they are not quite aware of what they are being asked to participate in. Not aware of two things, mainly. First, a false, and, at its base, racist premise. And second, an opportunistic and craven atrocity.

The premise is that the greatest danger faced by these children is not the violence and starvation that they are fleeing, but that they will stumble into abusive situations if we facilitate their journeys to parents and family inside our borders. Now, listen carefully, because this has to be said. There is far more danger of abuse, sexual and otherwise, inside the walls of these institutionalized settings than outside with families. If you are concerned with trafficking of children, consider the patent exploitation of these children by this industry before turning your, perhaps unconsciously, racist suspicions on their loving families. Because each day spent investigating, or not getting around to investigating, their families, and interfering with their reunification is cashing in on them. Simply this: there is no greater likelihood that any one of these children is going to be harmed by their families than any child you see shopping with family at the local Walmart. And there is no legal or moral justification for separating that child from their family than for the self-righteous and exploitive exercise of child detention we are engaged in.

And consider the consequences to the children put through this exercise in a combination of white saviorism and corporate opportunism. Those who have had a chance to study the effects of this period of detention, even without the specific incidents of abuse inside these places, find the effects often devastating and long-lasting. Read the reports of the Flores inspectors. Listen to the stories from Amy Cohen and Hope Frye and others who are part of this group. They will tell you that the existence of these places substitutes the certainty of psychological damage that may last a lifetime for what amounts to either a favorite and prurient American fantasy or a cynical cover for greed. Or both.

And now that we know the origins and the consequences of all this, if I have made this clear enough, ask yourself, if you are one of the ones staring at one of those want ads, whether your impulses toward kindness or your desire for a good-paying job—and they do pay very well—would justify complicity. And whether you want to risk the PTSD that many who have worked in these settings have told me about.

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4/1/21