Evelyn Arambula, Maria Reyes, Itzel Esparza

English 3H
Mrs. Storer
October 22, 2019
The Horrible Reality of Being an Immigrant Child

As children keep getting torn away from their parents at the border, you are hugging your
kids and tucking them in at night. When those children stay in cages with nowhere to sleep, you
sleep on a mattress in the safety of your own home. If we always say we should protect the future
of the world, why aren’t we protecting these children? The separation of families in detention
centers is destroying the mental, emotional, and physical well-being of the immigrant children.
This is the sort of trauma young boys and girls are facing every day in these detention centers.
Ever since the election of Donald Trump in 2016, the United States’ viewpoint on
immigration has been clear: it isn’t welcomed. Trump has signed three executive orders
regarding immigration including the building of a wall, an increase in detention facilities and
immigrant detention, and limiting access to asylum. There has been an increase in debate after
the conditions of these detention facilities have come to the light, leading to a questioning of the
morality of this ordeal. The main concern with these detentions is the way children are being
treated. Children are being separated from their parents once they are detained at the border and
being placed in detention camps. Legally the United States can only keep a child in custody for
72 hours in these facilities, but it has become common for them to be held there for weeks. Some
of these kids are kept there for months at a time without adequate commodities. This means these
poor kids are separated from the only family they have in a whole new country in which they
don’t have any other connections. Not only are they separated they’re put into a cage with people
they’ve never met before. These children are so young yet experiencing trauma most adults in
the USA will never be at risk of suffering. 7 of these innocent children have passed away while
being held at these horrible detainment centers. Yet, we still haven’t done anything about it since
there are still detainment centers running. Do we not care about these kids? What needs to
happen for us to finally do something about this? More innocent children dead? If nothing
happens to stop these policies more children will be hurt in unimaginable ways at a young age.
The way these children are being treated is horrendous. These children already go
through enough when embarking on the arduous journey to get to the USA. And instead of
welcoming them, they get abused, unsanitary places to stay, separation from their parents for
extremely long periods of time as their welcome to the supposed “better” country. These policies
needed to be changed a long time ago, but nothing has been done. Will you be part of the
change? Or will you be the people that stand by and watch?