(no subject)
Aug. 22nd, 2004 05:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
my_window_seatFour years ago, there were approximately 2,000 children stopped at U.S. Customs checkpoints for having illegal paperwork.
These children, from many different countries, were sent to INS detention centers - something like large orphanages - until something had been decided about where they would eventually end up.
That was four years ago.
Last year, there were over 4,000. This year, the INS is expected the number to jump to around 6,300.
It may be that the increase is due to increasing of security since 9/11, and that the numbers just look larger now that more children are being "caught".
The reason that many of these children end up in this situation?
Their parents are willing to part with them in order that their children can 'have a better life.'
Not in the American sense of the word. This isn't just a matter of parents who want their kids to be able to go to a better school or have higher-paying jobs than they have.
For some of these kids, the parents are trying to get things for them that include - indoor plumbing. A home in a country that isn't made up of small villages that are routinely flattened by mortars or bombs. Some of these parents want their kids to live in a country where their little girls have a chance to make it past their teens without being raped by soldiers - or even neighbors. Some want their boys to be able to do something besides play dominoes or dice in a village square as their main occupation - some of them just want their boys to get out of their teens without being trained to use a weapon on another human being.
Why is it then, that they send their children to the country that is often directly responsible for the conditions that they want to relieve their children from having to experience?
Because they don't know any better.
Why is it that this incredibly powerful country, a country that, particularly considering its origins, should know better - seems not to either?
Why do I even bother to ask?
These children, from many different countries, were sent to INS detention centers - something like large orphanages - until something had been decided about where they would eventually end up.
That was four years ago.
Last year, there were over 4,000. This year, the INS is expected the number to jump to around 6,300.
It may be that the increase is due to increasing of security since 9/11, and that the numbers just look larger now that more children are being "caught".
The reason that many of these children end up in this situation?
Their parents are willing to part with them in order that their children can 'have a better life.'
Not in the American sense of the word. This isn't just a matter of parents who want their kids to be able to go to a better school or have higher-paying jobs than they have.
For some of these kids, the parents are trying to get things for them that include - indoor plumbing. A home in a country that isn't made up of small villages that are routinely flattened by mortars or bombs. Some of these parents want their kids to live in a country where their little girls have a chance to make it past their teens without being raped by soldiers - or even neighbors. Some want their boys to be able to do something besides play dominoes or dice in a village square as their main occupation - some of them just want their boys to get out of their teens without being trained to use a weapon on another human being.
Why is it then, that they send their children to the country that is often directly responsible for the conditions that they want to relieve their children from having to experience?
Because they don't know any better.
Why is it that this incredibly powerful country, a country that, particularly considering its origins, should know better - seems not to either?
Why do I even bother to ask?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-08-23 09:12 am (UTC)Seriously, I've never thought of it that way. Things wont be this way forever, I hope.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-23 04:36 pm (UTC)