There is no justifying the unrelenting trauma the U.S. government is purposely inflicting on children and parents separated at the southern border as an explicit deterrent to immigration from Central America. It is an unconscionable use of overt cruelty as governmental policy. And many Americans, even ardent Trump supporters I have spoken with, say they find this policy abhorrent.
If I Saw a Child Mistreated Like ICE Is Doing, I’d Call the Authorities
The bandwagon of child care and health professionals who have characterized the federal government’s forced separation of migrant children from their parents as “child abuse by government” is overflowing. It would indeed be difficult to concoct a more traumatizing experience for already vulnerable infants and children then what these kids have gone through.
The fact is that, as a pediatrician, if I saw a child being subject to the terror these kids are experiencing I would be ethically and legally obliged to contact the authorities. But wait: The authorities are the perpetrators!
Melania Trump and Jeff Sessions need a heart-to-heart
Even assuming the worst, it is hard to imagine that anybody — even in this White House — planned to have Melania Trump’s seemingly heartfelt public statement about cherishing and protecting children utterly neutralized — almost mockingly — by Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ s ice-cold reiteration of protocols for dealing with immigrant families seeking asylum status in the United States.
We still haven’t made things right in Flint
In many ways my trip last month to Flint, Mich. — now the symbolic epicenter of how bad decisions, bad politics and ill-advised money-saving measures can seriously and permanently harm children — was more depressing than the first time I visited that struggling city in 2016.
You’ll recall that in 2014, the state of Michigan, led by Gov. Rick Snyder (R), replaced Flint’s clean, safe water from Detroit’s system with improperly treated water from the Flint River. Lead leached from pipes into the water supply. The state’s irresponsible — in fact, criminally negligent — decision precipitated one of the worst public health crises in recent U.S. history.
Kids in Crosshairs as House Votes to Repeal and Replace Obamacare
Some 35 million would have their access to quality health care threatened if the American Health Care Act passes the Senate and becomes law.
For the past two decades, steady progress has been made in ensuring access to affordable health care for all children. The Child Health Insurance Program, passed in 1997, provides affordable coverage for children in low-income families who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid and not enough to afford private coverage. The Affordable Care Act—“Obamacare”—passed in 2010 expanded coverage to millions of children who are poor or near poor.
Lousiana Awaits Help as Media Moves On
Covering Recovery: The Challenges of Preparing for Major Disasters
The seemingly increased prevalence of catastrophic events, from natural disasters, biological threats, large-scale industrial accidents to infrastructure failure and terrorism, has created many challenges for journalists. Beyond the obvious stories focused on the immediate drama of a massive storm, the threat of Zika virus or the fatalities of a mass shooting, there are deeper issues that need to be explored by the press.These are the investigative reports that will help policy makers and the public understand critical underlying factors, clarifying what happened and what should be done in the future.
Domestic terror and the race for the White House
Over the past year we have seen acts of terror perpetrated by individuals in Orlando and San Bernardino inspired by ISIS. We have also seen more coordinated teams of attackers in Brussels, Paris and elsewhere. These attacks strike to the heart of communities, and have rekindled concerns among the American public about the threat of terrorism. The timing of the latest attacks is also affecting the intensifying U.S. presidential race.
National investment, leadership needed for school preparedness
Recently the GAO released a report examining the state of emergency preparedness in k-12 schools. The conclusions in this report are alarming, as it uncovers a lack of strategic coordination among federal agencies for preparing schools for emergencies. It also finds a lack of clear leadership at the federal level for coordinating these activities, and schools are left having to choose between preparedness and core educational activities.
Children and The Global Migration Crisis
Today, half of the 60 million people displaced worldwide are children—the greatest number of total displaced people since World War II and the greatest percentage who are children in over a decade. Despite a harsh winter, the first months of 2016 have seen record number of refugees arriving in Europe. For the first time since European refugee crisis began, the number of women and children exceed males. In the aftermath of terrorism in Paris and San Bernardino, this period has also been marked by tightened border control measures in many countries, limiting legal pathways to asylum and family reunification.