For the first time in her young life, I was gone from my 7 month old daughter for a week for a work trip. I got home late last night.
This morning, I picked her up from her crib. She looked at me with an expression I hadn’t seen directed at me. The one reserved for strangers who get too close to her face. It took her a good 30 minutes to warm up to me, to recognize me, to remember me.
My heart hurts.
Not for me.
But for the 3000 others across America.
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…I imagine it was longer than a week apart from my child.
Two weeks.
10 weeks.
Twenty.
And my child isn’t being cared for by my spouse, playing with her older sisters, but in an internment camp of a foreign regime, with no human contact beyond necessity, no caring touch allowed. Beyond clinical to the inhumane.
Her fragile world wrapped in chain-link fence that doesn’t smile or coo back, the only distraction from the red, white, and blue background.
I imagine it is me.
- How would she look at me when I saw her then?
- How long would it take her to remember?
- How long would it take us both to recover?
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…and then I imagine that I’m the one who separated the child from her family.
What effect would it have on the person who does that?
What would American soldiers feel and think, hearing the anguished cries all day? When they leave the chain link fences, does this world disappear?
What does betrayal taste like?
I imagine it is me.
- Do I look at the children when I take them?
- Do I look at the children when I return them?
- How long would it take us both to recover?
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…and then I think of the people who support this program.
Who created this. Who “YESSIR” for this.
Who think indefinite detention of toddlers and babies is a great idea.
Who don’t have to hear the cries over their 8 foot privacy fences. Who think they should eat in public in peace.
Who look to the comments section of news stories for justification, never considering if it was their own flesh and blood daughter being slowly eaten by lice.
I imagine it is me.
- Do I look at the pictures of the children when they are reunited?
- Do I feel a sick sense of triumph at the moms, sick with grief, as they sign the deportation in exchange for that long-awaited touch?
- How long will it take me to feel the shame for building a regime that does this? Or will I?
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…and I think of the creators of these Child Internment Camps. 3 or 4 people who feel nothing because to these white men, brown children aren’t human.
They believe no one cares if “an animal” is harmed.
No one cares if a family member of “murderer or rapist” is harmed.
No one cares if a court-mandated deadline passes for these “savages.”
Because they don’t.
I imagine I was…well, no, I can’t.
As i think of these persons who wrap themselves in the flag, MY flag, I can’t make the leap to be in their shoes, an inconceivable chasm between my humanity and theirs.
All I feel is the boiling rage.
A rage I will carry to the streets of the detention center 20 miles away from my home as often as I can, and to ballot box in November.
But I wonder if the children, the families, and the country will ever truly recover, or will these wounds too deep for words be with us forever.
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…I wonder if there’s someone else out there who imagines what it is like to be in my shoes.
A middle-class white beneficiary of this regime, complicit through apathy with atrocity.
Wondering if I will remember this moment because—DING—the 30 minutes is over, and all is right in my baby’s world. My world is fine, the moment of empathy has passed.
Do they put themselves in my shoes, asking:
- Will I move on?
- Will I remember?
- Will I recover from the wound too deep for words?
- Will any of us?
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…We will if we remember.
We will if we pluck out the white, hot plank in America’s eye come this November and every November, the same pathology on different faces.
We will if we force ourselves to see the wound and start to heal it.
We will if we can hold onto a feeling and a commitment to see each other as human for longer than 30 minutes.
We will. Together.
Or we’ll whither away alone.
Thank you fir this post Jeremy.
Thank you for this post Jeremy.
I agree with you to a point, but don’t forget, that this policy was born earlier than Trump and was help end the human trafficking of unaccompanied minors. This whole thing has been a no win situation, capitalized by fear on both sides…
Me thinks thou doth protest too much.
I don’t agree with separating a child from their parent, but how is ICE supposed to know that the adult accompanying the child is indeed the parent and not a drug mule?
My understanding is the policy was in effect prior to the Trump administration but I applaud him for trying to correct the policy. I also applaud him for all the other things he is doing to undo the losing policies of the Obama administration.
As to a parent who doesn’t want to risk being separated from their child, the answer is simple, Don’t try to illegally enter the US and break our laws. Actions have consequences.
Seeking asylum is not illegal.