Great goodness

Small actions to help children

They are taking children. I am adding my voice to the chorus of voices saying this is not okay. Murders by ICE are not okay. Violence by ICE is not okay. Detainees being killed in detention due to insufficient medical care or safety measures or sanitation or nutrition are not okay. Imprisonment of children not okay. Destruction of families not okay.

Liam Conejo Ramos has my heart, and it took me a few days to figure out why, aside from the obvious horrific experience that small boy is living through, juxtaposed with his innocence.

His little hat.

Quinn’s little hats.

Children getting taken.

Quinn getting taken from me just before he turned five.

Oh, right. I can almost sometimes forget that wound. It’s a story that is an important part of my memoir manuscript. I’ve emotionally processed it, as much as one can process something like that. But some things can still reopen that wound. And it’s when a small boy is unjustly taken from his mother.

Quinn at almost five was in a big drawing phase.

“Three whales swimming towards you and smiling and these are their noseholes.”

“It’s you, me and dada standing on a moon, and it’s a pink moon, and a butterfly is landing on dada’s head and bringing us a berry pie.”

You get the idea. His father made some false accusations because he didn’t like that I had a new beau. He wanted to inflict maximum pain. He took my son.

I imagine Liam makes drawings like this. A child his age is absorbing everything in his environment, learning about the world. Liam is learning the worst things about the world.

Damage was done to me and to my son. Damage is being done to Liam and his family members. They want to inflict maximum pain.

I had the advantage, the unearned privilege, of being an educated white woman. The police detective, the child protective workers, they got one look at me and I did not fit their profile of child abuser. My son was kept from me for twenty-one days, nonetheless. It should never have happened.

This should never have happened to Liam, either.

Two five year old children wearing animal-themed hats and small backpacks.

It has now been thirteen days. Liam and his father Adrian and mother Erika must be so aware of the passage of time. I was so aware of the passage of time. On Friday when I searched Liam Ramos, I found out two more students from his school have been detained, bringing the total to six. Their mother, who showed up to her court appointment (doing immigration the “right way”), was captured by ICE. Similar to Liam’s father, a court order from a judge states she is not to be deported, but similar to Liam’s father, ICE didn’t give a fuck. The principal was tasked with delivering her children to her at the detention center. “Great goodness to put us in a position like that,” said Principal Kuhlman, according to MPR news. Great goodness.

The children, a second grader and a fifth grader, are now presumably in the Dilley detention center in Texas. In 2021, the Biden administration closed this facility and largely ended the practice of detaining children. Since Trump returned to office, at least 3800 children have been detained. The majority have had pending immigration cases, appeared in court to proceed with them in the correct manner, which is where most of them were “apprehended.” The majority were then deported.

It’s horrible and wrong. Migration is not an aberration. It is not a crime. The system is broken, and people who are doing their best to navigate the terrible system are being punished, having their families devastated. They cannot work, cannot go to school, cannot even appear for their court appointments to proceed through the legal immigration process, cannot go to a hospital for medical care. They cannot prove they belong here from within a cell or a camp, across state lines from their homes. So many human rights violations are happening every day in this country right now. America, where we’re obsessed with preserving the heteronormative family (unless you’re immigrants), where we’re obsessed with forcing women to bear children (unless you’re brown), where we are pro-life (until that life actually starts and things like child care, health care, and nutritional assistance would be helpful).

I know the alt-right echo-chamber spin is that Liam was being “abandoned” by his other family members, and that is why he “had” to be detained with his father. I know that family detention being reinstated is spun as a way to preserve family integrity. It’s not. The way these families should have integrity is by not ripping them apart in the first place. If they meant that about family integrity? There would not be nursing mothers deported without their infants so volunteers would need to provide pumped breastmilk to a family struggling to feed a newborn whose mother is locked in a cell (a story relayed by Pastor Eric Severson of the U.U. Church of Midland). But deporting a mother with her infant is not the solution. Humans, including infants and people of all ages in detention are being treated inhumanely. Pregnant women are being detained (we are pro-life, but we embrace the increase in maternal mortality and poor birth outcomes following Dobbs, because mothers should be selfless and God has a plan?)

I’m especially haunted by the separations of family members from one another. Of children from their parents. Of Liam from his mother.

One of my ways of coping is research. It’s why I keep searching Liam’s name daily. When I feel anxious about something, sometimes I do science to it. This article explains research that links the trauma of separations of children from their parents, to mental health consequences that reverberate years later. It’s important that we not look away, but while we are choking on the firehose of horrific news each day, it is difficult to get past the surface of each new horror. I’m trying to handle this by choosing the horror that will not let go of me, and not let go of it as the firehose continues its flood. Choose one thing and go deeper. I will keep my eye on Liam, whose release has been ordered by a judge, to take place by Tuesday. Quinn was returned to me on a Tuesday, as ordered by a judge. But I do not trust ICE to adhere to court orders as they have blatantly ignored many.

As I have been preparing to post this, Liam has finally been released. Today. Thirteen days.

On Saturday my one small thing was to attend the weekly noon protest in my small town. I wore my “Migration is Natural, Hate is Not” shirt, and held my “No Human Is Illegal” sign that I made last year and have kept in my car on rotation with the other signs I’ve been holding this past year at protests. I saw a few familiar faces and chatted with those I knew and didn’t know. I heard we numbered 185. All I did was stand as one of them, which was a very small thing. While I was there, a mom and her daughter handed out strawberry candies and thanked every protester. An elder woman in a motorized wheelchair was to my left holding her sign about the importance of our constitution. A woman in an inflatable shark suit was to my right. The weather was sunny and pleasant. An angry man paced behind us, filming with his phone, telling us we were losers, that he supports America, and that we are all sellouts (which reminds me, I need to fill out my timesheet for Joyce). A truck drove by with “I support ICE” signs, rounding the block multiple times. Many supporters honked and waved. We received peace signs, thumbs up, thumbs down, and middle fingers. One yellow van swerved at the curb, apparently feigning vehicular assault, then stopped abruptly by the last man in line who held a flag, and shouted slurs before speeding away. A beater car drove by deploying a rigged windshield wiper pump to spray water toward the curb, onto the protesters, including me, the elderly woman, my friend, his small dog. It seemed to be water, anyway. The friend standing next to me and I looked at each other. “That’s pretty much assault,” he said. I nodded. I thought of Ilhan Omar and how she moved toward the person who assaulted her with (possibly) vinegar at her Town Hall. One of my small things this week has been to donate to Ilhan’s security detail. I stayed there on the curb and let the sun dry the splatter across my carhartts.

We are white people taking very small risks to make a stand for constitutional rights, to make a stand against violence and bigotry. We are privileged with not being rounded up due to our skin color or accent. We are taking risks. But our risks are nothing compared to what many of our neighbors are facing. I don’t care if I get accused of virtue signaling. I’ll take that risk, too. I have donated to some, not all, of the fund raisers I’m sharing here. I have participated in some, not all, of the protests. Sharing is also an action. And I will continue to donate and spread the word.

They are taking children.

Here is Liam’s family’s GoFundMe.

Here is the GoFundMe for the second grader and fifth grader taken on January 29^th. You can help fourth grader Elizabeth and her mother Rosa here. Another student separated from family is being helped by this teacher’s fundraiser. And this one is set up to help these and other Columbia Heights students and families.

There are many ways to be one of the helpers and do a small thing each day. Here is the extensive list of ways to specifically stand with Minnesota. On my list for upcoming days is to donate to Minnesota Public Radio, since public broadcasting is reeling from the gutting of their funding just at the time when we need their voices most, and journalists are under attack. Please feel free to add more links and actions in the comments.