Stop. Listen. Little Voices are Calling to Us
In the past few weeks, I’ve been mesmerized by the voices of young refugees from Central America, telling their stories. One little girl I read about was described by the reporter as no more than eight or nine. She sat in a chair holding a doll before the immigration authorities, swinging her feet beneath the chair, her little legs too short to touch the floor. She was to act as her own attorney as they questioned her to determine if she qualified to seek asylum, which would determine which set of laws, protections and rights would be laid out before her and her little doll to navigate. Imagine, eight years old and acting as your own attorney, yet more than half of these children must represent themselves.
There is a crisis. The world sees these children as refugees running for their lives.
They are fleeing, for some of them, certain death, and they deserve the full protection of laws our country passed to safeguard and defend the rights of vulnerable children. They deserve a proper hearing with proper representation and the chance to tell their story before a proper authority before any decision is made to send them back to the nightmare of terror they escaped.
It is hard to imagine the desperation of parents who might have sent their children on this treacherous journey. Some of the children, according to reports, decided toflee death threats, rape, kidnapping, brutal extortion and constant terror without the permission of their parents. They just left.
The vast majority of these children, over 90 percent, have relatives who are willing to take them in while their claims for asylum are taken under consideration. We Stop. Listen. Little Voices are Calling to Us - Lily's Blackboard: