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Friend,
This November marked my 16th anniversary at the Young Center. But the four years that spanned the first Trump administration’s immigration policies showed me the worst possible treatment of children and families who fled their communities knowing they’d die if they stayed.
During that time, I met with children forced back from our border to live on the streets of Mexico while they waited months for a hearing in the United States. I visited encampments where fathers lay awake across the tent entrance all night to prevent the kidnapping of their teen daughters. I sat in the frigid “tent courts” where I could see mothers’ unrelenting shivers and hear the deep, dangerous coughs of infants. The judge overseeing their case and the attorney prosecuting the immigration case against them did not; they were ensconced in a comfortable courtroom a mere 20 miles away, protected by policy from witnessing the families’ anguish in person.
Then in 2017, I had the grim task of documenting the children appointed Young Center advocates after they were ripped away from parents at our border. On weekly calls, my colleagues reported cases of children sobbing for hours, losing their language skills, starting to bed-wet for the first time in years. Children who waited weeks for the chance to hear a parent’s voice, only to be told at the last minute that the immigration official overseeing their parent’s case was suddenly “unavailable” to put the call through. Just weeks into more than two years of chronicling family separation cases, I dreaded opening what I considered my “spreadsheet of child abuse.”
Over the last four weeks, I’ve swung between anger and grief as the incoming administration has made its intentions clear: this time, its campaign of terror will not be limited to the border, but extend to communities across the U.S.. To our neighbors, local businesses, and our schools. Neither the unlawfulness nor the inhumanity of these practices seem to matter.
Many people ask why I’m still here. Mostly, it’s because of the kids and families I’ve worked with for almost two decades. They don’t have a choice when it comes to fighting for their safety and I have the privilege of standing alongside them from a position of physical and professional safety.
But it’s also because my incredible Young Center colleagues never stop fighting for change, even in the toughest circumstances. Even when the incoming administration has put a target on our backs , opening the door to civil or even criminal charges for being lawyers or social workers for children, my colleagues don’t give up. The children and families we advocate for and accompany certainly won’t. How could I?
Please, show your support with a gift this Giving Tuesday. Every contribution, no matter the amount, reminds us that we’re not in this alone, and that perhaps someday, humanity and reason will triumph over hate.
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Warmly,
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Jennifer Nagda
Chief Programs Officer
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Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights
2245 S. MICHIGAN AVE, SUITE 301,
Chicago, IL 60616
United States
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