by The zero tolerance policy was an immigration policy created by the Trump administration in order carefully and efficiently separate immigrants at the Southern Border. The separations at the border generally consist of parents being separated from their children because they were separating illegally. One of the biggest fears of keeping families together at the border is the fact that parents aren’t always parents. A lot of times, children cross the border with people who aren’t their parents, also known as Coyotes. Coyotes are people who are paid to smuggle children across the border for purpose that’s aren’t for their safety, like Human trafficking. The separations at the border are done in order to ensure their safety by scanning for predators. The children that are separated from the border are put into containment facilities where they are processed.
The most impressive effort to provide those immigrant children with a new life is that they are given to foster families and allowed to truly appreciate the American dream. For example, a Salvadoran immigrant by the name of Wilder was sent back to El Salvador away from his foster family at a very young age. When he crossed the border with his father, he was taken from him and put up for adoption. After he was received into care by a foster family, he experienced life like he never had before. Everything from toys, warmth, emotional security, creature comforts, and even something as mundane as pizza. This child was truly able to experience the American dream to the fullest as a gift for his parents trying to make a 7 month journey over the American southern border. The foster parents he received loved him like he was their own and they provided every form of comfort a child could have. His father, Hilario Maldonado, was taken to a detention facility an hour away from his son. Though the Father was processed and sent back home, the child remained.
The zero tolerance policy is such that it helps to extrapolate children from potentially harmful smugglers and gives them a chance at a better life in United States security facilities. However, this policy also works to the betterment of poor families that cross the border. Whereas the parents need visas and naturalization paperwork to build a life for themselves in the United States, the children don’t need such paperwork. They can appreciate the American dream illegally without worrying about getting deported. The one thing that most people can appreciate about the zero tolerance policy is the fact that many of the children who are separated at the border are sent to foster homes, where they are given love, warmth, and comfort like they’ve never known before.
Though the Zero tolerance policy efficiently handles illegal immigrants into this country in such a way that children can truly experience the american dream, parents are sent back. Curiously, after international outrage, a federal judge made it so that the children being separated at the border were returned to their parents. This policy is designed to counteract all the good that was performed by the zero tolerance policy. Truly, the act to reverse the actions done are lunacy.
An excellent example of this was when a little Salvadoran girl called Alexa was relocated from the southern border to the Barr family in the state of Michigan. They had a fantastic home life for her. Understandably, the Barr family gave Alexa everything she ever wanted in regard to creature comforts and emotional support. She even began to take on English as her main language. The Barr Family had taken Alexa to therapy to determine if she had received any abuse from her mother prior being adopted by her new parents. Unfortunately, they determined that the child may potentially have suffered abuse. Alexa’s mother, Mrs. Ramos, made complaints known to the United States which prompted the Barr family to fight the adoption recall in court. Though the Barr family was convinced that Mrs. Ramos, a resident of El Salvador, was Alexa’s abuser, they had to release Alexa back to El Salvador at the age of 5, even though she was taken from her mother at the border and put up for adoption at the age of 2.
The sad part about this encounter is that Alexa truly had a fantastic life ahead of her with her foster family only to be sent back to her mother Mrs. Ramos. The Barrs family had taught Alexa English, gave her a foster family with foster siblings and gave her much in the way of material possessions and emotional support. However, they were certain that Mrs. Ramo’s was Alexa’s abuser. The poor girl was returned to her mother after a long and arduous court case where it was decided that all children separated from their parents must be returned to their parents.
This conundrum of the anti-zero tolerance policy is such that even though the illegals should rightfully have possession of their children when they cross the border, it is never a certainty that the parents will be with the children and they will be separated to ensure the child’s safety. In order to ensure the protection of the child, the zero tolerance policy removes the child from the custody of potentially harmful people, such as the hypothetical scenario that the Barr family believes was what Alexa had encountered with her mother, Mrs. Ramos. However, it’s important to understand that not every illegal immigrant can be processed into the United States without naturalization papers. The zero tolerance policy allows children to experience the american dream instead of being sent home to their parents in poverty stricken areas of Central and South America.
Indeed, the Zero Tolerance policy has shown that there are alternatives to illegal immigration that allows for the offspring of the parents stricken in poverty to experience a better life. In this manner the opposition that the zero tolerance policy has experienced is in many ways irrational as it pulls children who have built lives for themselves back into poverty. Children much like Alexa, who have come to learn, live, and love, a happy family and a strong education. Though it’s not a perfect solution, the zero tolerance policy at least gives the offspring of central and south american parents a chance at a better life. Away from the potential harm from child abuse, drug smuggling, or human sex trafficking. Were the United States to let families of illegal immigrants come in, in force without documentation, the economy would not be able to handle the excess population.
In following the zero tolerance policy, at least kids of illegal immigrants families have a good chance to find a better home away from the poverty they were born into. In the years to come, the regions of Central America and South America will one day be relieved of their poverty, with financial aid from Countries like the United States and those around the world.
