The news that the Trump administration is aggressively pursuing policies separating undocumented migrant children from parents has caused a groundswell of justified revulsion. Congressional Democrats are attempting to introduce legislation curtailing the practice, and a variety of figures – including former first lady Laura Bush, wife of Republican president George W Bush – have criticized as inhumane the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policies.

The sooner we can reverse these policies, which victimize already vulnerable people, the better. But this human rights crisis is not new, nor unique to the Trump administration. It is a systemic, deeply rooted problem, ensnarled with powerful vested interests.

According to a report by the Daily Beast, the US federal government has engaged the services of the defense industry to facilitate its strategy of tearing migrant children from the arms of their mothers as a deterrent to improper entry to country. Defense contractors’ intended role in this madness? Childcare providers.

I took the opportunity to review the website of one such contractor, Virginia-based MVM, Inc. The website includes an impressive list of services and expertise – not including childcare. As an immigration lawyer who frequently represents unaccompanied minors in immigration court, and as a father of two, I find it unconscionable that an industry that principally serves the needs of the military and federal law enforcement agencies would be charged with overseeing the health and wellbeing of children.

“Every part of separation is deliberately designed to make a buck,” Bridget Cambria, an immigration lawyer who works with detained children, told me. And to protect that business, the government and private contractors make it as difficult as possible for those affected to seek legal recourse.

Calling the process an “administrative monstrosity”, Cambria explained that the ultimate goal of separating parents and children is deportation of both parent and child, while generating money in the meantime. “Each day, moment, and second a child or parent is in this crazy custody chain – people profit, and they profit a lot.”

The result of separation, Cambria said, is that parents, frantic to do whatever it takes to get their children back, usually give up and accept deportation. She says that the Trump administration’s strategy of family separation places parent and child on two different legal tracks, with the parent likely quickly removed without their child. This results in children (sometimes infants) awaiting proceedings without their parent, in the custody of government contractors.

After seeing the impact of the Trump administration’s family separation policy firsthand, Dr Colleen Kraft, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, released a statement saying: “Separating children from their parents contradicts everything we stand for as pediatricians – protecting and promoting children’s health. In fact, highly stressful experiences, like family separation, can cause irreparable harm, disrupting a child’s brain architecture and affecting his or her short- and long-term health. This type of prolonged exposure to serious stress – known as toxic stress – can carry lifelong consequences for children.”

Dr Kraft doesn’t stand alone.

Both the American College of Physicians and the American Psychiatric Association have released statements condemning the Trump administration’s family separation policy.

Others are fighting back, as well. On 31 May 2018, the Texas Civil Rights Project, Women’s Refugee Commission, University of Texas School of Law Immigration Clinic, and Garcia & Garcia law firm filed an Emergency Request for Precautionary Measures with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) on behalf of parents separated from their children at the US-Mexico border. Senate Democrats have introduced the Keep Families Together Act to limit the separation of families at or near ports of entry, and are desperately hoping to attract Republican support. And, of course, immigration lawyers like Bridget Cambria are in the trenches in immigration court, giving hope to those near losing it.

Unfortunately, the situation we find ourselves in is not new. Many of the current policies against refugee children were a dirty open secret during the Obama administration, which used criminal law to aggressively enforce immigration policy. At the time Obama left office, 52% of all federal criminal prosecutions were for immigration-related crimes of the exact nature that Trump and the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, are now focused on prosecuting. That the Trump administration is pursuing this morally abhorrent policy of family separation is at least in part because the Obama administration’s policies filled family detention facilities to maximum capacity.

But the point isn’t which administration was worse to immigrants. They both abused refugee children and their parents – and now is the time to do something about it. That’s why I urge Americans to contact your senators and representatives in Congress to demand their support for the Keep Families Together Act.

