Readers React: A father’s tearful reunification with his son shows the effects of Trump’s inhumanity

To the editor: During the past few months, the children of asylum-seekers have been ripped from the arms of their parents, exposing them to suffering and feelings of abandonment. Often, those who have been reunited with their families show signs of deprivation: weight loss, bruises, rashes and vacant eyes.

Long after the Trump administration began separating immigrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border, there is still no feasible plan in place for reuniting children and parents.

Contrast the administration’s inhumanity with the treatment of the Thai boys trapped in a cave, who faced certain death but were rescued as the whole world watched. Contrast the administration’s inhumanity with the nighttime search in Montana last week for a missing baby who was found underneath a pile of sticks. One of the rescuers reported swaddling the child and kissing his forehead before loading him into an ambulance. “My fatherly instincts kicked in,” he explained.

Where are the Trump administration’s fatherly instincts? Where is the humanity?

Cynthia Weitz, Laguna Niguel

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To the editor: What a beautiful, moving article about Guatemalan asylum-seeker Hermelindo Che Coc finally being reunited with his 6-year-old son in Los Angeles. But what about the other children who still need to be sent back to their parents?

This a blot on the history of the United States that can never be erased.

Karla H. Edwards, Santa Clarita

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To the editor: I read with disbelief that Christopher Meekins, a Health and Human Services deputy assistant secretary, said a streamlined vetting approach for reuniting families would result in situations that were not “consistent with the mission of HHS or my core values.”

Are we to believe this administration is really concerned about the safety and welfare of these children? Where were HHS’ and Meekins’ core values when they took part in punishing immigrant parents by taking away their children? Where were these core values when there was an acknowledgment that some kids may never be reunited with their parents?

I suggest that everyone involved in this debacle be forced to take a crash course in early child development and the impact of forced separation on the parent-child bond. But most importantly, everyone involved in separating children and parents should go in search of their humanity, for it is certainly lost.

Beverley Morgan-Sandoz, Pasadena

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