Cara Drinan, professor, law, published commentary in the Huffington Post on the juvenile justice system.
Last week, the nation witnessed an abrupt reversal from the White House. After claiming for days that he did not have the authority to address the family separation crisis at the border, President Donald Trump appeared to do just that with the stroke of a pen.
Trump has purportedly put an end to the family separation policy, but he has also created a host of new issues to resolve. How and when will nearly 2,500 migrant children be reunited with their parents? How and where will families be detained together going forward? Even as these legal questions are being resolved, there is a persistent sense of outrage among most Americans.
How could there not be? In 2018, in a time of tremendous economic prosperity, the United States is keeping migrant children in cages, claiming that a policy of family separation deters future illegal immigration. The images of what this policy entails are horrific: terrified, confused children watching as agents search their mothers; parents pleading with agents to show mercy; children sleeping on mats inside wire cages covered with Mylar blankets. The sounds of this inhumanity are even harder to stomach: children calling for their mother and father, sobbing to the point of breathlessness. ...
Continue reading in the Huffington Post.