Category: Taking immigrant children

Caged children, Child protection, Child trafficking, Children, Prayer, Sheltering children, Taking immigrant children

The World’s Children Need Us

kathymfindley

Here’s the bottom line: in every nation of the world, one can see the oppression of children. No matter how one views the wars and the skirmishes, the occupations and the trafficking, the rationed medical care and the failure to administer the Covid vaccine, the stark reality is a picture of child endangerment and physical, sexual and emotional abuses.

The estimated number of children trafficked around the world is 5.5 million. They suffer violence, exploitation and abuse — ending up in forced marriage, prostitution, illegal adoption, labor, drug smuggling, begging and armed recruitment. They are taken from all around the world and sold by human traffickers as slaves. Child trafficking is linked to demand for cheap labor, especially where the working conditions are poor. Children may be forced into many dangerous and/or illegal situations, including slavery, domestic labor, sexual exploitation or prostitution, drug couriering and/or being turned into child soldiers.

And then, we must remember the immigrant children who have been separated from parents or guardians. An NBC News report on June 8, 2021 cites a 22-page progress report submitted to President Joe Biden last week by the task force for reuniting families. The report indicates that 2,127 children are awaiting their reunions. The report also states that 3,913 children separated from their families between July 2017 and January have been identified. The ACLU has said more than 5,400 children were separated at the border. The discrepancy, the DHS official said, is due to thousands of yet-to-be-reviewed files by the task force.

The estimated number of children trafficked around the world is 5.5 million. They suffer violence, exploitation and abuse — ending up in forced marriage, prostitution, illegal adoption, labor, drug smuggling and armed recruitment.

I could give many more statistics, hundreds of them, but we have all learned to hear statistics and simply dismiss them as irrelevant data. And yet, one single number in a spreadsheet of statistical information represents one particular child. A child stolen from her parents. A child exploited and enslaved. A child taken from the arms of protection and forced into danger. There is high lethality in child trafficking. A child loses his or her life forever because it is impossible to return to the life the child once knew.

So I will spare you from any more abysmal statistics. Instead, I want to share with you a portion of passionate, heartbreaking message I read today.

I wish to request that all those receiving this email pray for the children of Palestine living under a brutal Israeli occupation. Hardly a week goes by when 3-4 Palestinian children are summarily shot. Worst yet, Israel has not allowed the COVID vaccines to be administered in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza. If this is not a genocidal act, then what is? And to think that a $3.8 billion dollar aid package was only last week sent to Israel . . . Folks, if this generous give-away of your hard earned tax dollars does not peeve you, then I urge you to start reading the papers and informing yourselves about the many genocidal acts of terror against brown people – Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan. As Christians, we are called upon to stand up for the oppressed.

In Deep Sorrow,
Raouf J. Halaby

What does this tragic situation as expressed by Mr. Halaby have to do with us? Maybe nothing. Probably nothing. But wait! I want to talk more about the inconceivable practice of modern day slavery — child trafficking.

Could my child be kidnapped and trafficked? It doesn’t happen here!

A very common misconception about human trafficking is that it does not happen in the United States. The truth is that the United States is ranked as one of the worst countries globally for human trafficking. It is estimated that 199,000 incidents occur within the United States every year.


Here are the 10 states with the highest rates of human trafficking:

        1. Nevada 
        2. Mississippi 
        3. Florida 
        4. Georgia 
        5. Ohio 
        6. Delaware 
        7. California 
        8. Missouri 
        9. Michigan 
        10. Texas 

Victims of trafficking frequently do not seek help due to language barriers, fear of their traffickers, or fear of law enforcement. Because human trafficking is considered a hidden crime, we can be diligent in reporting it when we see it happening. But we have to know what to look for. Several key warning signs can help us recognize potential endangerment and notify law enforcement. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has a list of indicators we can use to help identify victims. These indicators include:

      • Appearing malnourished
      • Appearing injured or having signs of physical abuse
      • Avoiding eye contact, social interaction, and law enforcement
      • Responding in manners that seem rehearsed or scripted
      • Lacking personal identification documents
      • Lacking personal possessions

Every day there are things — bad things — that happen. Usually we think they have nothing to do with us, and usually they don’t, not directly at least. But the ministry of the Christ, who walked on this earth and who cared for the most vulnerable and endangered people he encountered, is our example. As Christians, do we follow Christ to the dangerous places? Do we pray for every child in every land, asking God to pay heed their circumstances and protect them from evil?

Prayer is the one thing, perhaps the most important thing, we can do. Mr. Halaby asks this of us: “I wish to request that all those receiving this email pray for the children of Palestine.” Let us start there, with that single request for prayer. And then, may all of us become more aware of the lives of children everywhere and pray that they will be protected from all harm.

Prayer is one thing we can do! Will we?


AWARENESS . . .

If you believe you may have information about a  trafficking situation:

Call the National Human Trafficking Hotline toll-free at 1-888-373-7888:
Anti-Trafficking Hotline Advocates are available 24/7 to take reports of potential human trafficking. 

Text the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 233733. Message and data rates may apply.

Chat with the National Human Trafficking Hotline via www.humantraffickinghotline.org/chat

Submit a tip online through the anonymous online reporting form below. However, please note that if the situation is urgent or occurred within the last 24 hours we would encourage you to call, text or chat.

The information you provide will be reviewed by the Trafficking Hotline. All reports are confidential and you may remain anonymous. Interpreters are available via phone call only. Learn more about the Hotline’s approach and policies regarding reporting trafficking situations to law enforcement.

Report missing children or child pornography to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) at 1-800-THE-LOST (843-5678) or through their Cybertipline.

Another good resource is “Not for Sale” at https://www.notforsalecampaign.org/about-us/

Belief, Christ’s face, Christianity, Compassion, Iconography, Immigration, Paula White, Sacred Art, Social justice, Taking immigrant children, The Christian Church, Trump, wind

Showing Christ’s Face to the World

kathymfindley

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Mother of God, Protectress of the Oppressed.  Iconography by Kelly Latimore.

On many fronts, I am troubled today by the appointment of Paula White as head of the White House’s Faith and Opportunity Initiative, a successor to previous administrations’ faith-based office that coordinates outreach to religious communities. The news reports point out that she is neither seminary trained nor qualified to hold this position, and yet the president identifies her as his “pastor.” I cannot help but wonder: When did it become acceptable to evangelicals to tolerate a woman as their president’s pastor?

It appears that Donald Trump has employed a Pentecostal televangelist from Florida, an outsider whose populist brand of Christianity mirrors his own conquest of the Republican Party.  She is in many ways a quintessentially Trump figure: a television preacher, married three times, lives in a mansion.

And like her president, Ms. White has survived accusations of financial misconduct and ethical improprieties. Among Christians, she is a divisive figure because of her association with the belief that God wants followers to have wealth  — commonly called the prosperity gospel. This theological perspective is highly unorthodox, and is also considered heretical by many Christians.

The Rev. William J. Barber II, who organized the Moral Mondays protests in North Carolina and who spoke at the Democratic National Convention in 2016, calls White’s appointment “a very ominous sign” and signals that “Christian narcissism” has come into the White House. He said this:

The so-called prosperity gospel is a false gospel that can be compared to the theology that justified slavery because of economic prosperity. It is an attempt to interpret the gospel to be primarily about personal wealth and personal power, which is contrary to the theology of Jesus where the good news was always focused on caring for the poor, the least of these, the stranger, the sick.

I just spent five paragraphs trying to show Paula White’s face to the world when what is infinitely more needful is showing Christ’s face to the world. With that in mind, I feel compelled to switch focus to the theology of Jesus that insists upon caring for the oppressed.

Some of you may know that I am an iconographer and one who is very interested in the theology of icons and their call to holy introspection. An iconographer colleague of mine gave me this wise counsel:

Look at the eyes first and see the light that shines through them. Stand reverently and quietly before the icon until the image speaks to you.

Icons hold a spiritual effect, a history and a message. So in thinking about caring for the oppressed, I turn to two icons depicting the Mother of God and her Son. 

The first, an icon by Kelly Latimore, is Mother of God, Protectress of the Oppressed. Russian Christians for centuries have called Mary the Protectress of the Oppressed. While some icons embrace traditional forms, this one has been re-imagined. It reflects current political morés related to the treatment of refugees and migrants at our southern border. Christ has assured us that He will always be found among the poor and oppressed. In that light, this depiction of Mary is a refugee mother and child behind the fence our government has erected to separate them from “God-fearing Americans.”

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Mother of the Streets.   Iconography by Br. Robert Lentz, OFM

The second icon, written by Brother Robert Lentz, OFM, is Mother of the Streets. Each year, larger numbers of homeless people live in the streets of our cities — jobless workers, battered women, the untreated mentally ill, or simply those too poor to get by. They tend to be “invisible” to us. This icon depicts the Mother of God as the mother of those on the streets. Her garments, and those of her Son, are covered with jewels and gold decoration, making manifest the hidden worth and dignity of street people, who are living icons of God. In 1984 the Catholic bishops of the U.S. declared, “To turn aside from those on the margins of society, the needy and the powerless, is to turn aside from Jesus. Such people show His face to the world.”

It matters whose face we show to the world. It matters whose face we see. We can choose to “see” the Donald Trumps and Paula Whites of the world, or we can turn our eyes on Jesus. It matters whose face we “see!” And it really matters whether or not we will be found in the city streets, on the border and at the fences, at the margins of society where so much oppression holds sway. It really matters whether or not our every day, holy acts of compassion show Christ’s face to the world.

May God create in us compassionate hearts. Amen.

 

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On another note, please pray for me as I look toward my kidney transplant currently scheduled for November 12th at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. I am so grateful that you are walking with me on this journey that often felt so frightening. Your thoughts and prayers mean so much. If you would like to read the story of my illness, please visit the Georgia Transplant Foundation’s website at this link:

://client.gatransplant.org/goto/KathyMFindley

A “Go Fund Me” page is set up for contributions to help with the enormous costs related to the transplant, including medications, housing costs for the month we have to stay near the transplant center, and other unforeseeable costs for my care following the transplant. If you can, please be a part of my transplant journey by making a contribution at this link

https://bit.ly/33KXZOj

Asylum, Courage, Dreams, Faith, Family, Freedom, Immigration, Life Journeys, Maren Tirabassi, Politics, Roots, Taking immigrant children

Yiayia / Γιαγιά

kathymfindley

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In my heart this week, I have held my grandmother, my “Yiayia” who came to America at age 25 with an older husband and two babies. One of them was my mother. December 16, 1916 it was when the ship Guiseppe Verdi reached Ellis Island. My Yiayia — line number 25 on the ship’s passenger manifest — had never envisioned coming to this land. She never considered she might leave the tiny Greek village on the island that was her home.

Her husband, wanted by Mussolini as a political detractor, had no choice but to flee in the dark of night in search of a place of safety and refuge for his little family. He had the courage to survive and to dream. But here’s the thing: my grandparents were welcomed into this country when they arrived to see the brightness of the Lady Liberty’s lighted torch. To be sure, their life in America was not all bright or easy. They worked hard to eek out a living and to become a part of a new community so very far from the home they loved. 

After I was born into the world, a toddler at Yiayia’s knee, I watched her struggling to learn English, to speak English well enough to be understood by her neighbors. One of my most vivid memories was sitting next to her at our kitchen table next to an enormous silver radiator that creaked and groaned, but warmed us famously. With The Birmingham News spread across the table in front of her, she drank her coffee, dipping her Zuieback toast and reading the newspaper, every morning.

She taught herself to read English, but The Birmingham News was not merely a reading primer for Yiayia. She learned from it. She understood the news events of her day. She knew that liberty was a gift worth protecting. So she studied the political climate and the political personalities asking for her vote. She would insist that you MUST vote, that you must know the candidates, that you must cherish the right to free and fair elections.

So Yiayia would dress in her finest clothing, simple but lovely dresses. She would put on her earrings and her brooch, her rings and her watch. Then she would dress me, and off we would go, across the street and down the block to the polling place. We would go together into the booth with the dark brown curtain. She would vote and I would stand in close to her with the view of only that brown curtain and her chunky shoes, heels of course.

Before we exited the booth — every time — she would look down at me and say, “We are Democrats! That’s how we vote, always!” And to this very day, I have followed her voting directive — always. The truth is that her definitive directive about voting had much more to do with the process than the political party she supported. It went deeper than any party loyalty, all the way back to reading The Birmingham News, seeing the beam of the Statue of Liberty, crossing the ominous ocean, remembering how it felt to have to flee from government oppression and grieving the loss of the island of her home.

Today, it’s not so simple for our neighbors who must flee their homes for so many reasons — safety, survival, fear, oppression. Our president says they are not welcome here. Many Americans say they are not welcome here. Just today, The New York Times reported that Mr. Trump’s growing migrant paranoia resulted in the forced resignation of homeland security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who resigned on Sunday. She is part of Trump’s wider “housecleaning” designed to appoint persons who will make sure migrants can not get across our southwestern borders. Only department heads who will enthusiastically implement the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy will keep their jobs. May we never forget the images of thousands of migrant children who were separated from their families.

The president, in a not so presidential tweet, took aim again Sunday night when he tweeted, “Our Country is FULL!” So yes, he says that our neighbors are not welcome here. Yet, millions of us, second generation citizens of the United States of America, will never forget where we came from. We will always remember that our roots spanned the ocean and survived in a new land.

In my friend’s blog last week, I found words that touched me in a profound way and caused me to grieve the land of welcome we once knew. Her words express a startling poignancy. 

“A country that unwelcomes the world,” she writes.

I want to share with you her entire blog post — Jericho Walk — because it is well worth your time to ponder it, but first I emphasize this portion:

Often there is a shofar
to remind us just how deep
are the cracks
in the foundation of a country
that unwelcomes the world . . .

Jericho Walk
by Maren

I return to the Jericho walk,
in Manchester,
having not been well enough
for a couple months,
and it feels like home —
this moving vigil, silent, but with signs
and grateful waving for drivers
who honk their support.

We travel around the large block
of the federal building
where people we love and
some people we have never met
come to discover
if this week they’ll be deported.

We walk around seven times
hoping the walls
will come tumbling down —

around this place
that sends into certain danger
kind, hard-working,
tax paying, family-loving people
who contribute so much
to our community

Often there is a shofar
to remind us just how deep
are the cracks
in the foundation of a country
that unwelcomes the world,

but today there is a flautist
playing “Siyahamba”
over and over again —
walking
in the light of God,

and I think of that less-military
Jericho story —
the one that defines neighbor as

anyone from anywhere
who stops to help vulnerable ones
fallen on the side of the road.

Thank you, Maren. 

Thank you, my dear Yiayia, for teaching me that God grants us the grace gifts of refuge, safe haven and freedom. And no human — not even a big, bad, bully president — can take those gifts from us and from the generations that come after us.

May God make it so. Amen.

 

 

Activism, Asylum, Community activism, Compassion, Immigration, Lenses, Refuge, struggle, Taking immigrant children, Violence, Violence against women and children

Lenses

kathymfindley

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Photo: The Power of Lenses, Wired

All of us see things through a lens. We get our lens from our life, and no one else sees things through that same lens. Just to make it clear: this is not a commentary on current politics and policies. This is simply a hodgepodge of musings that have emerged from what I am seeing through my lens.

Let me start, right off the bat, by pointing to something that doesn’t look so good through my lens, namely the unconscionable practice of separating children from their parents in the name of enhanced border security. We railed at that policy — for a while. But with the passing of time, our advocacy for these separated families has waned. These days, it is even hard to find a current news report that updates the status of the separated children.

I did find a report that quotes administration officials in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services saying that the number of beds available for migrant children increased from 6,500 last fall to 16,000 today (CNBC; 19 Dec 2018). Apparently, the crisis we have all but forgotten is still real.

Dr. Jack Shonkoff, who heads Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child, has called our current immigration policy “a moral disaster.” Dr. Shonkoff provided this emphatic rebuke:

There has to be some way to communicate, in unequivocal terms, that we are inflicting punishments on innocent children that will have lifelong consequences. No matter how a person feels about immigration policy, very few people hate children — and yet we are passively allowing bad things to happen to them.

According to The New York Times, population levels at federal shelters for migrant children have quietly shot up more than fivefold since last summer, reaching a total of 12,800 as of September 2018. There were 2,400 such children in custody in May.

Are we choosing to ignore the huge increases of children in custody that have placed the federal shelter system near capacity? Are we listening to the the employees who work in the migrant shelter network telling us that the bottleneck is straining both the children and the system that cares for them? Do we care that the administration announced that it will triple the size of a temporary “tent city” in Tornillo, Tex., to house up to 3,800 children?

Reports are that immigrant advocates and members of Congress reacted to this status report with distress. As well they should! 

Leader or citizen — each of us should react to this report with great distress! My lens sees that with our current immigration practices, we are participating in a sin against humanity by placing children and teens at great risk of long-term trauma and irreparable harm.

With that realization, I find myself in a place that is antithetical to the teachings of Jesus. My silence, passivity and failure to act is complicity. Have I signed enough petitions, made enough phone calls and written enough emails? There is no right answer to that question. 

I heard a discussion this morning on National Public Radio that revealed a troubling trend. The information shared is that not as many males are crossing the border into the U.S. right now. Instead, record numbers of women and children fleeing domestic violence and violence in general are coming to seek asylum, protection from horrific circumstances and safe shelter.  

For example, Guatemala has one of the most prevalent rates of violence against women in the world. Instances of gender violence in Guatemala include domestic violence, sexual violence, human trafficking, incest, and femicide (the deliberate killing of women).

Unfortunately, this problem is not unique to Guatemala. The neighboring countries of El Salvador and Honduras, for example, also face epidemic levels of femicide as well as impunity for the perpetrators. (https://www.amnestyusa.org/why-does-guatemala-have-one-of-the-highest-rates-of-femicide-in-the-world/)

For many years, I have been a vocal advocate for women and child victims of violence. For at least fifteen years, that advocacy was my life’s work. I am angered by the abuse of women and children. But today, in our current circumstance, my advocacy feels like a tempest in a teacup. While my heart may be overflowing with anger, my acts of protest against our nation’s immigration policy are relatively insignificant.

Advocacy always begins with understanding? We understand that immigration and border security is one thing; illegal immigration is another. But the desperate need for asylum is on a significantly higher level in the quest for human rights and protection from oppression!

And so this presents a dilemma for any follower of Christ living in a relatively uncaring world. How does the Gospel motivate us? How do we follow Christ into the situations that are causing women and children such harm? How do we act in ways that offer asylum for those in the midst of violence? Wouldn’t God desire safe shelter for persons in danger? What can we do to effect real, in-the-moment, significant change? Knowing that many people look at the state of immigration and security through “America first” lenses, what lens am I using to look at this abysmal situation?

Lenses are important. They guide our thoughts and actions. They develop our sense of right and wrong, good and evil. As I contemplate lenses, I am reminded of Victor Hugo’s description of the very kind Bishop Myriel, the Bishop of Digne, in Les Misérables: 

He had a strange, idiosyncratic way of looking at things.
I suspect he got it from the Gospel.

I could only hope that a description of my idiosyncratic ways would point to the Gospel. In the meantime, I intend to challenge myself to find ways to be a change agent for the way our nation is dealing with asylum seekers — women and children — who take the dangerous risk of crossing our borders to what they desperately hope is a place of safety and refuge.

May it be said of America that her doors were forever wide open to receive persons in need of refuge.

God would will such a compassionate, caring welcome.

Jesus would have embodied that kind of compassion, a compassion that rescues, shelters and protects. As followers of Jesus, should we not live out his example?

 

Bondage, Child protection, Children, Fear, Freedom, Hope, Immigration, Liberty, Mexican border, Risk, sunrise, Taking immigrant children, Violence

Moving Towards the Sunrise: An Essay on Immigration

kathymfindley

F6C9AEAC-5F90-4F42-B0D9-FF50DDA7D60F.jpegI could decide to stand on this side wondering what life might hold on the other side. I can see the brilliant sunrise, perhaps a symbol for a bright new life for my children. I can see the tiny lights of dwellings or businesses. I’m not sure what they are but perhaps each tiny light is a warm welcome, a place of refuge, a safe haven.

I hold on tightly to the hands of my children, and now I look back and remember the violence, the fear, the drugs, the hopelessness for the future of my children. I consider going back, barricading my family in our tiny hovel and hoping for the best. It’s the life we know. It’s what we’re used to. But do I want my children to grow us “used to” violence and crime? Do I want then to be used to fear and hopelessness?

I decide to take a chance toward the sunrise and the tiny lights that will surely open their doors to a mother and her children. The land of the sunrise is called “the land of the free.” The land of the sunrise offers the wonderful promise of welcome . . .

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free . . . 

Give these, the homeless tempest tossed to me. 

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

Yes, I resolve. We will go forward. Yes!

I make, in this very moment, the most significant and life-altering decision of our lives. I choose  hope! We will go!

With great fear in the depths of my spirit, I move us toward the sunrise. I hold tightly to my children and begin the hope-filled crossing. Holding them all close on a grueling hike, I can see that we have almost made it to the other side.

Now we are actually standing in the light of the sunrise. We have crossed. Those who are to welcome us are approaching. Finally, I have made the journey to new hope for my beautiful children. Thanks be to God for safe passage! 

The welcoming people come near. But they are loud, boisterous, frightening. I never expected this. Oh my God, they have ripped my children from me. The youngest is crying, pleading for me, struggling to get away. The others are screaming “no” as they try in vain to work themselves loose from the powerful arms of those who restrain them. But the grip on them is too strong. I cry out and plead that they will not harm my children. I fall into the dirt, sobbing as they take my children away. 

Dear God, what have I done?

May God have mercy on us all.