Is the United States unintentionally complicit in trafficking children internationally? This question was postulated over the weekend by a couple of sources. If someone floats a statement like that about my fellow citizens and me, I want to dig deeper to see what is going on. So I did.
Late last week, photos surfaced from inside the camps where the children are temporarily housed at the border. The children were sleeping in mylar or space blankets, which are used in emergencies. These blankets keep people warm when it’s cold and cool when it’s warm. I knew about the mylar technology when viewing the pictures, so the blankets did not cause me concern. What did alarm me was how many mylar blankets were there-not 6 feet apart, not 3 feet apart, but about 3 inches apart. The number of children housed together is very large. My second concern is that there were younger and older children together. The room I viewed was for boys.
My mind went to the fact that some children as young as four walked to the United States from Central America, if the stories are true. I was glad for their rest, and then suddenly, it dawned on me that maybe they still were not safe from suffering and potential disease. Who knows what their journey was like? Who knows what will happen to them? Yes, I know they carry a phone number in their pocket or on their wrist. Who knows who is on the other end of that number when the authorities call it?
I watched eighteen senators who went to the border to see the migrant detainment facilities for themselves. They gave an immediate news conference. Find the video. Listen to their findings. You will be faced with another side of the story to consider. It is tough to hear that in a facility made for around one hundred, there are seven hundred children in that particular shelter.
Are we unintentionally complicit in the child trafficking trade? I am very troubled by this situation. How can we open the doors to our country by not informing parents in other countries about the dangers of letting their innocents walk a thousand miles? It is not enough that the kids make it here alive. How will we ever fix potential irreparable emotional scars to these children who will be our fellow citizens? This border situation has lasting consequences that America can’t fix. What culpability do their parents and their home countries have?
What culpability do we have? What should we do? I, for one, will be contacting each of my congressional representatives. It is not a partisan issue. It’s an American issue.
This is Common Sense Civics and Citizenship. 🇺🇸
