Take a good look.

Imagine these children, or children who look just like them, being torn from their parents and shipped off, by the thousands, to "shelters" where not even US Senators are allowed to enter and view the conditions under which they are being held. Imagine that their parents came to the USA seeking asylum because the capitalist forces of the USA had destabilized the government in their home country; gangs, climate disasters, and corruption made their lives impossible. So they made the long journey north to the USA, hoping to find safety. And instead they found ICE agents who separated children and parents and moved them far from where they were found and far from each other--so the parents despair of ever finding their children again; they are tormented by the fear that the children are hungry, and cold, and may be experiencing physical and sexual abuse. No one will tell them where their children are. This is terrorism. This is what the USA is doing right now.

I spent the afternoon and evening with Cristina and the two children, and my love for them feeds my rage at any entity that would do what the US government is doing to children right now. I want to be an advocate for the children. I want to know why we cannot see the conditions of the prisons in which the children are being held. I want to know who is changing their diapers and comforting them. I want to know what will happen when (not if) the bureaucracy loses some of children. When (not if) the children get sick and need medical care. When (not if) the children are so severely traumatized that they become mentally unstable. I look around me at dazed Americans asking, dumbfounded, "How can this happen? What can we do? Where are the children? Who has jurisdiction over the children?" I am not content to shake my head and tsk-tsk about the sad state of the world. I am going to find someone who knows what to do about these children, how to protect them. I will turn comments back on, although I have not finished my Medium article. I'm turning them on because if you or anyone you know, has any idea how to protect the children, I want to hear about it. I will not stop till I get some answers.