Reporters and Members of Congress have been given limited tours in a few child prisons. They have seen a few infants, mixed in with older children, at some part of the process. (Some of these children have already been moved several times.) But basically the infants are being hidden. Which raises the question: why?
So where are the babies? What kind of care are they receiving? What is the state of their health? How many have been hospitalized? And a question that by now is extremely pertinent: have any of them died?
Some of the captive children are in foster care homes (as in New York, where they sleep in foster homes and report for duty at the prison during the day.) How were these foster homes selected? What standards did they have to meet? On what basis were children accepted into these homes? Are they in the charge of "foster parents?" What is the status of these babies?
This has gone on a long time and it is likely to go on much longer. Reporters can't find evidence that the government can really even match parents with their children, so reunification, if indeed it occurs, will take much more time. In one prison the average time children have been in captivity is over 50 days now. With new camps being prepared to imprison families and to separately imprison children on military bases, how much longer are they going to be hidden in these black sites, as if they are terrorists? Or are they already on the baby market?
Until there is a complete public accounting of these children, especially these infants, all speculation as to their welfare is reasonable.
The United Nations should be sending in teams to do an accounting of these babies as an emergency humanitarian mission. For this is not just a national scandal, it is a matter of global relevance.
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