EDITOR:

What have we become?

I recently wrote a Letter to the Editor about the President of the United States calling undocumented immigrants animals. I titled it “What have we become?”

Again, I ask the same question. Regardless of whether you support Trump or not, I believe that most of us can agree that we should not separate children from their parents. According to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services that takes custody of children who have been removed from migrant parents, officials acknowledged in a statement that there were “approximately 700” this year alone. The same Office of Refugee Resettlement reported at the end of 2017 that of the 7,000 plus children placed with sponsored individuals, the agency did not know where 1,475 of them were. Read that last sentence again.

A documentary from the PBS program “Frontline” said that the federal government has actually released some of the minors to human traffickers. The ACLU issued a report based on more than 30,000 pages of documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act indicating alleged reports of physical, verbal, sexual and psychological abuse of migrant children and the denial of clean drinking water and adequate food.

Betsy DeVos, education secretary, has indicated that schools could call ICE on undocumented students. Keep in mind that in 1982, Plyler v Doe, the Supreme Court ruled that states cannot constitutionally deny a free education to students based on their immigration status.

On May 23, 2018, the Arizona Daily Sun reports that at a recent immigration hearing, Alma Jacinto, a 36 year old Guatemalan migrant had her children taken from her — and was given a yellow “bracelet” to indicate her status as a detained illegal immigrant. Remind you of anything?

Have we lost our humanity? Every one of us should be outraged. Again, I ask: What have we become?

Teresa Ross

Escanaba