Thread by @kazweida

There’s lots of Obama blame in response to #WhereAreTheChidren

Let’s be really clear.

Obama took UNACCOMPANIED minors at the border & put them with sponsors.

Trump is taking kids from their parents & placing them in detention centers.

Here’s the difference.
(THREAD)

(2)The Obama administration placed unaccompanied minors with sponsors, preferably family if they could find them, because kids needed to stay somewhere until their case went through immigration court.

It’s certainly preferable to juvenile detention.
But it was problematic.

(3) Because HHS didn’t have a appropriate resources or processes set up to vet and follow up on these sponsors, some of them ended up in the hands of human traffickers.

We knew it was a problem as long ago as 2013.
HHS said they’d handle it better.
They haven’t.

(4) There are three things driving this to an immediate crisis point that is endangering children.

1: Sessions decision to prosecute every person who crosses the border will bog down courts and make detentions in for profit centers much longer for both children and parents.

(5) 2: We’re separating all children from their parents at the border, which means these kids aren’t older children capable of traveling alone. They are infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. And they aren’t being placed in homes but in detention centers, already at capacity

(6) 3: Not only are we losing kids in the system, but there’s been an effort within this administration to stop tracking abuse at detention centers and an increased lack of accountability.

This is compounded by recent rhetoric about kids crossing the border as “not so innocent”

(7) If you want to blame HHS under Obama for losing kids in the system by placing them with their families or sponsors and not following up, that’s fair.

If you want to know who is terrorizing immigrant communities by incarcerating children, the blame lies with Trump.

Source: teenvogue.com/story/federal-…