History is Repeating Itself and We Haven’t Done BEEP About It
As of recent political news, there has been a shock throughout the nation when reports have been made that the U.S. federal government lost track of 1,500 immigrant children but say they are not legally responsible. The commotion across news networks and social media started when top official of the Department of Health and Human Services, Steven Wagner, disclosed the number to a Senate subcommittee while discussing the Office of Refugee Resettlement, or ORR. The ORR tends to oversee the care of unaccompanied immigrant children. But recently the ORR lost track of 1,500 children that were placed in homes of sponsors. Most sponsors are in some way close-linked to the children. Still there are cases when the children are sent to non-relatives or complete strangers. And according to the U.S. government, the custody of the children is no longer at the responsibility of the federal government once they are physically taken to a sponsor.
Not only that, but when asked about the reports on May 11th, the White House chief of staff, John F. Kelly, carefully hopped around the question: “I wouldn’t put it quite that way…. The children will be taken care of-- put into foster care or whatever. But the big point is they elected to come illegally into the United States and this is a technique that no one hopes will be used extensively or for very long.” Also on May 16th, Secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, was questioned about the same reports and she denied the new policy was an act of deterrence: “So my decision has been that anyone who breaks the law will be prosecuted,” Nielsen said. “If you’re a parent or you’re a single person or you happen to have a family, if you cross between the ports of entry, we will refer you for prosecution. You’ve broken U.S. law.” Both responses from top political administrators indicate the government is not denying the fact that many kids were not safe under the hands of the American government. But they also do not admit guilt that what they are looking at is possibly human trafficking or incompetency from the federal government.
Unfortunately, this is precedented news. The great debate over the border system and the urgency to “protect” the boundaries between states has been happening for decades. Internationally, borders have caused great loss and pain through migration -- fathers and sons losing limbs and their important possessions, moms and daughters losing their dignity and virginity as they sell their bodies in order to have access to food, etc. One of the greatest and most catastrophic migrations across a single border is what it is known today as the Partition of India. The “partition” was the division of British India into two separate states: India and Pakistan. It was a “last minute” mechanism in order for the British to secure the agreement on how the independence would take place. Very few people were actually aware and understood what was going on-- which is the reason why the migration took a vast majority by surprise.
Since many are not actual witnesses of the happenings that occurred around August of 1947, there are literary narratives that help give a vivid image of what happened to the repressed. In the novel The Adivasi Will Not Dance, there is a story of a young woman named Talamai Kisku. She is among forty- three people who are making a journey to Namal. On her journey, a young, fair, Daiku, jawan of the Railway Protection Force is attracted to her and makes a deal with her: food for sex. To Talamai, it is very common that “Santhal women do this work for food and money at the railway station.” Things got so out of hand that as stated in the novel, consensual human trafficking occurred in return for food. The government of the newly independent India had no way of enforcing their laws. And the British government was focused on their loss of land-- they did not have their troops supervising the migration because it was not their top priority. Sound familiar? Both the U.S. government and the U.K government did not put human rights as their priority. Many families were separated, maltreated, and possibly taken as a victim of human trafficking while trying to migrate for a better life. The excuse of the U.S. government is the protection of their country and British government’s excuse back then was they had their own losses to take care of. Regardless of the year and country, repression against the minority for the sake of a “better nation” has been happening. It happened in India, it’s happening right now at the Mexican border, and even though history is repeating itself, people should start giving a BEEP about it. The cycle is continuing and the repressed will continually face the consequences of the actions of the elite and the administration.
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