APNewsBreak: Youngest migrants held in ‘tender age’ shelters
“Tender age?” What does that mean? They’re ripe and succulent?
Decades after the nation’s child welfare system ended the use of orphanages over concerns about the lasting trauma to children, the administration is standing up new institutions to hold Central American toddlers that the government separated from their parents.
“The thought that they are going to be putting such little kids in an institutional setting? I mean it is hard for me to even wrap my mind around it,” said Kay Bellor, vice president for programs at Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, which provides foster care and other child welfare services to migrant children. “Toddlers are being detained.”
Bellor said shelters follow strict procedures surrounding who can gain access to the children in order to protect their safety, but that means information about their welfare can be limited.
Right. Let’s hide behind privacy laws to cover up our inhumane and outrageous behavior. Did you notice that earlier today Senator Bill Nelson (D-Fl) was denied entry into a detention facility in Florida? He added this:
The company running this facility told us we would be welcomed to tour the facility. HHS then denied us entry and said that they need “two weeks notice” to allow us inside. That’s ridiculous and it’s clear this administration is hiding something.
— Senator Bill Nelson (@SenBillNelson) June 19, 2018
My first thought when hearing that “two weeks notice” is that you can bury a lot of bodies in two weeks. Presumably that’s not how HHS would use the time. I hope not, anyway.
By the way, here’s the definition HHS uses for “tender age”, from:
Steven Wagner, an official with the Department of Health and Human Services.
“We have specialized facilities that are devoted to providing care to children with special needs and tender age children as we define as under 13 would fall into that category,” he said. “They’re not government facilities per se, and they have very well-trained clinicians, and those facilities meet state licensing standards for child welfare agencies, and they’re staffed by people who know how to deal with the needs — particularly of the younger children.”
Trump and the Republican party own this. The moment he went up to Capitol Hill tonight to meet House Republicans (and only Republicans, mind you) family separation became their policy as well as his. They have now tied themselves to him.
Let’s work to see he becomes an anchor for each one of them in November.