Over 20,000 children a year are put into foster care because their American parents are taken to jail, 10 times the number of those separated when illegal immigrant parents try to sneak into the U.S. but are caught, according to a commissioner on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

However, unlike the congressional outcry over President Trump’s zero-tolerance policy targeting illegal immigration, there has been no mass protest of or investigation into the separation of children from those in jail.

In a letter to Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, Peter N. Kirsanow, a commissioner on the United States Commission on Civil Rights, said that in fiscal year 2016 alone, 20,939 children of incarcerated parents were put into foster care.

“Separating children from their parents is regrettable. It is not, however, unique. American parents are separated from their children every day when they are arrested or incarcerated,” the lone Republican on the commission wrote. His letter is shown below.

“According to HHS, during Fiscal Year 2016, 20,939 American children entered foster care because their parent is incarcerated. This is more than ten times the number of children who have been separated from their parents due to entering the United States illegally. People who cross the border illegally have committed a crime, and one of the consequences of being arrested and detained is, unfortunately, that their children cannot stay with them,” he added.

He took note of the lack of protests in the past over children of incarcerated parents. Kirsanow told Secrets, "The fact that the media and open borders advocates have never expressed outrage that incarcerated American parents have been separated from their children demonstrates that it doesn’t serve the political narrative of the day (the twin objectives of which are open borders and attacking President Trump/ Republicans). Occasionally, some prison reform advocates will lament the effect black incarceration rates have on black families, but there isn’t the outage we’re currently witnessing about illegal immigrants."

Kirsanow suggested that in the current debate over the children of illegal immigrants there is a bias toward treating the alien children better than those of American citizens. But, he wrote, “there is no super-statute that decrees that aliens must be treated better than Americans. If Congress decides to change the law, that is its prerogative. But until such time as Congress changes the law, the Department of Justice should continue enforcing existing law and prosecute every case of illegal entry.”

In his letter, he also pointed out that immigrants who enter the country properly and through legal ports and ask for asylum generally do not have their children separated from them.

“People who have potentially valid claims for asylum can present themselves at ports of entry and request asylum. They will be processed normally and will not be separated from their children because they are following the law,” he wrote.

