This was originally spoken to the Lincoln City Council in support of a resolution affirming that we want to protect DREAMERS in Lincoln, NE. A shortened version appeared in the Lincoln Journal Star as a letter to the editor.
—
Right now, families are entering the United States, perceived to be without the correct paperwork and passport stamps. In response, we’re taking their children and splitting up sibling groups by gender and age. Babies are taken from mothers’ breasts. The children are living in warehouses, and soon will live in tents in some of the hottest places in the country. We must immediately reunite families and stop splitting them up. We must dismantle ICE, as they have shown they cannot be trusted to put their humanity above their cold hearts.
Let’s list examples of people that actually do children harm, but we do nothing in response.
In Nebraska, we have allowed 50 children in the state’s care to be sexually abused. The youngest one was 4 years old. A preschooler was sexually assaulted on Nebraska’s watch. The inspector general made 18 recommendations which amounted to changes in bureaucracy. It was not recommended for anyone in charge to lose their job, or access to their own children.
Right here in Lincoln, Governor Pete Ricketts defunded women’s healthcare, blocked medicaid expansion, and used our tax money to buy illegal death drugs, and is currently suing the legislature to keep his sick execution fantasies a secret. Real people are sick and dying across the state because of government actions and inactions in Lincoln. It has not been recommended that anyone in charge lose their job or access to their own children.
Every community across the country needs to stand together against this. It’s time we look to our history of using government to give barbaric treatment to children and choose to do better this time. We sold children from slaves, we stole native children and forced them into boarding schools, we refused to help Jewish children who were then murdered by Nazis, we put Japanese children into American concentration camps, and we let Jim Crow kill and untold number of black children. It has not been recommended that anyone in charge lose their job or access to their own children.
Desperate people looking for safety and compassion deserve both. All people, in all nations and from all nations, deserve safety and compassion. We cannot place children in concentration camps. We cannot allow government agents with guns to turn us into a nation of sick and twisted child abusers. We must immediately reunite families and stop splitting them up. We must dismantle ICE, as they have shown they cannot be trusted to put their humanity above their cold hearts. Children need our help. Give them back to their families and dismantle ICE.
