Commentary: Morristown vigil protests ‘cruel, inhumane’ immigration policy, and border shooting of Guatemalan girl

From the Wind of the Spirit Immigrant Resource Center in Morristown:

Kids and Families at the Border: Vigil Protests Separation, Detention and Tracking

Last month, the US Department of Justice unveiled inhumane new policies that subject migrants crossing the US-Mexico border without authorization to criminal prosecution.

These changes in the nation’s immigration policies, which according to Sister Cialinett Colon of Wind of the Spirit’s legal team, “are cruel and inhumane. They cause unnecessary suffering for families and potentially lifelong psychological trauma to immigrant children.”

The impact of these policies has already made been made clear as their uneven implementation, have increased the number of reports of abuses of migrant children at the hands of federal immigration enforcement, such as the recent murder of 19-year-old Claudia Patricia Gómez González.

In light of these events, Wind of the Spirit hosted an educational forum on Sunday at the Morristown Presbyterian Church’s Parrish House. It focused on the detrimental immigration policies that have torn thousands of families apart.

Following the forum, WOTS held a vigil on the Morristown Green in honor of the thousands of children who have been separated from their families and for those murdered, including Ms. Gomez Gonzalez, who was tragically shot dead on May 23, 2018.

These events both aimed at educating the community-at-large about the impact that punitive immigration policies have had on migrant families and to draw the increasing spate of abuses against migrant children by federal immigration authorities.

As it stands, the nation’s current immigration policies identify all migrant children as unaccompanied minors, regardless of them actually being unaccompanied or not.

This policy has exasperated the length of these minors’ stay at immigration detention centers. Migrant children have been separated from their immediate families and submitted to refugee resettlement programs.

Editor’s note: The opinions above are the author’s, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication.