After graciously thanking the young lady for her question, Congressman DesJarlais coldly replied, "The answer still kind of remains the same, that we have laws and we need to follow those laws and that's where we're at." The crowd erupted in cheers and applause, most assuredly crushing this already shaken child.

According to ProgressivePopulist.org:



Josie's father is currently in deportation proceedings and she is undergoing therapy to deal with the anxiety.

The whooping and cheering of this Tea Party crowd must have been devastating to Josie. I want to cry for her. I want to hold her. I want to tell her how frightened I would be if I were in her shoes. I want to square off with everyone who cheered her family's demise, and ask them, "Have you no compassion???". And I want her Congressman to care. But clearly he doesn't, so I want to do everything I can to help a Democrat win that seat in Congress.

As it turns out, Congressman DesJarlais is quite embattled with scandal. According to Raw Story:



Desjarlais is a former physician and anti-choice crusader who was fined $500 by the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners after it came to light that he had engaged in multiple extramarital affairs with female patients. When one woman became pregnant, the staunch anti-abortion conservative pressured her into terminating the pregnancy. Another patient charged that Desjarlais prescribed narcotic painkillers to her for recreational use and frequently smoked marijuana with her.

But court transcripts released the week after last November's election revealed that he admitted under oath to eight affairs, encouraged a lover to get an abortion and used a gun to intimidate his first wife during an argument.

Enter State Senator Eric Stewart.



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According to The Murfreesboro Post:



Less than a week after winning the Democratic Party primary, state Sen. Eric Stewart is pushing for his Republican opponent to participate in three debates... ...As of Tuesday afternoon, DesJarlais had not yet commented on whether he has decided to participate in the debates...

"When nursing mothers are torn from their babies, when children come home from school to find their parents missing ... when all this is happening, the system just isn't working and we need to change it," Obama declared during his first run for president in 2008. A year ago, he told a Texas audience that deportation should target "violent offenders and people convicted of crimes; not families, not folks who are just looking to scrape together an income."

My first question for Senator Eric Stewart: How would he respond to young Josie Melina? Let's hope it would be a compassionate response. Something like what Obama might say Which brings us back to the plight of Josie Melina and her family.

I began to search for answers for this young girl and her family. I came away from my research even more despondent for Josie than when I began. I ran across an AP article written almost exactly a year ago titled, "Parents Deported, What Happens to US-Born Kids?" In heart-wrenching detail it describes what can happen to these families.



Nearly 45,000 such parents were removed in the first six months of this year, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Behind the statistics are the stories: a crying baby taken from her mother's arms and handed to social workers as the mother is handcuffed and taken away, her parental rights terminated by a U.S. judge; teenage children watching as parents are dragged from the family home; immigrant parents disappearing into a maze-like detention system where they are routinely locked up hundreds of miles from their homes, separated from their families for months and denied contact with the welfare agencies deciding their children's' fate. At least 5,100 U.S. citizen children in 22 states live in foster care, according to an estimate by the Applied Research Center, a New York-based advocacy organization, which first reported on such cases last year. And an unknown number of those children are being put up for adoption against the wishes of their parents, who, once deported, are often helpless to fight when a U.S. judge decides that their children are better off here.

This is the easy part of the story, as this part is filled with statistics and data. The rest contains anecdotal stories that will tear your heart out. I encourage everyone to read this article, as hard as it is.

I leave you with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network's video of the entire exchange between a very brave Josie Melina, her despicable Congressman, and the horrendous Tea Party response. I'm sure this video will work wonders for the Republicans as they reach out for the Hispanic vote: