The news has been marked this week by the dramatic situation of children who are separated from their parents on the United States border. The Trump tolerance's zero tolerance policy requires that those who enter the country illegally must be detained and that if they have arrived accompanied by a minor, children must be separated from their families. We have heard the distressing recordings of children crying after being taken from their parents, without knowing what will happen to them.
Although Trump has backed down and signed a decree yesterday to prevent the separation of migrant families, a reflection of the lack of humanity of his politics is the July cover of Time magazine, of the most critical and hard he has published in recent years. In it we see a migrant girl who cries in front of a Trump who looks at her from above, impeding her step and without being moved at all by her suffering. Next to the image, the ironic headline "Welcome to America".
With this change, from now on children who enter the country with their parents illegally will be able to stay with them in immigrant detention centers. But, who repairs the trauma through which more than two thousand children had to go through who were taken from their parents? Do youwhat awaits all these children And those who from now on will arrive fleeing violence, poverty and wars in their countries of origin?
TIME's new cover: A reckoning after Trump's border separation policy: What kind of country are we? //t.co/U4Uf8bffoR pic.twitter.com/sBCMdHuPGc
- TIME (@TIME) June 21, 2018
The story behind the photo
It squeezes our hearts to imagine what a child can feel when they see their mother or father arrested in front of their eyes, and immediately separate them without knowing anything more about them. They are completely alone in a country they do not know and remain locked in large cages with other children just as alone as they are. No one can even touch or comfort them.
If we saw it in a movie it would leave us completely shattered, but the worst thing is that it happens in real life and in the "country of freedoms", supposedly. There is no movie, yet, but there is a stunning photo that has been captured by the photographer and 'Pulitzer' award John Moore, who has been capturing the harsh reality of migrants trying to reach the border for a couple of years.
"As a father, this photograph was especially difficult for me," said photographer John Moore.Public response to the photographs of this scared little girl from Honduras has been overwhelming for me to see. I thought I would share the images that led to the key moment that touched many of you, as it did me. A Honduran asylum seeker, age 2, cries as she and her mother are taken into custody by federal agents near the US-Mexico border. The mother said they had been traveling for a month to reach the United States. They had just crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico and were then transported to a US Customs and Border Protection processing center. The Trump administrations zero tolerance policy for undocumented immigrants calls for the frequent separation of parents and children while their cases for political asylum are adjudicated, a process that can take months - or years. This is a series of photographs I took while on a ride-along with the Border Patrol in Texas Rio Grande Valley last week. #gettyimages #undocumented #gettyimagesnews
The one we see in the photo is a two year old Honduran girl whose mother was arrested by federal agents near the border between the United States and Mexico. The photographer explains that they had just crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico when they arrested her, and that she would later be transported to a Border Protection processing center.
"The Trump administration's" zero tolerance "policy for undocumented immigrants requires separation of parents and children while their cases of political asylum are resolved, a process that can take months or years," explains the photographer. "All I wanted was to take care of her, but I couldn't," he adds.
This is one of the series of photographs he took while traveling with the Border Patrol in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.
A Honduran asylum seeker, 2, and her mother are taken into custody by federal agents near the US-Mexico border. They had just crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico and were to be transported to a US Customs and Border Protection processing center. The Trump administrations zero tolerance policy for undocumented immigrants calls for the separation of parents and children while their cases for political asylum are adjudicated, a process that can take months - or years. As a father myself, this photograph was especially difficult for me to take. It is one from a series i took while on a ride-along with the Border Patrol in Texas Rio Grande Valley. #gettyimages #undocumented #gettyimagesnews
