Earlier this week, a federal judge issued a temporary injunction, seeking to circumvent the Trump administration’s immigration policy. The injunction requires children under 5 who were separated from their parents at the border be reunited in 14 days. Older children are to be reunited within 30 days.
The border separation problem is a highly contentious issue. The discussion surrounding the problem is unproductive, largely lacking in facts, but heavy on emotional reactivity.
At the encouragement of Rep. Maxine Waters, administration and agency officials are being targeted and harassed. While progressives are screaming demands, no one has bothered to survey the entire landscape of the border problem, let alone talk to the men and women on the ground tasked with enforcing immigration law and policy.
Lee Whitt is a 39-year-old former border paramedic from East Texas. Whitt flew for “Air Evac, which has more border bases than any other air medical services in Texas,” and loves “the Mexican people, their culture, and their customs.” He married a woman from San Antonio who is of Mexican descent, making his sons half Hispanic.
In a lengthy Facebook post, Whitt stood up for Customs and Border Patrol, the Texas DPS, and himself, explaining they are “all part of the separation of children from their parents on the border.”
Whitt began, “My heart is often broken seeing their plight as they take the ardent journey north for a better life. But… there is another side to some of the immigrants that most people don’t witness.”
In horrifyingly graphic detail, Whitt explained why so many children are separated from their families at the border:
Most of the children that started coming across the border 3 or 4 years ago were alone or with smugglers that worked double duty with the cartels. The adults that were with them often lied and said they were the parents which was not true. Even the children that were with their parents or parent were often times in dangerous situations. These children were separated back then and are still separated to this day. It is heartbreaking to see such events unfold and nobody, from the Border Patrol, Texas Law Enforcement or Texas EMS professionals were happy to be tasked with such work. We did not abuse any children. Instead, we cared for them. We fed them and gave them water, clothes, medical care and comfort.
All of these kids were sick or ill. It might be something as simple as dehydration but often times it was more than that. Much more……..
Such as the 10 year old girl that I flew who had been raped no less than 10 times on her journey. Her private parts torn by the continued trauma inflicted each night of her stay in the desert. Her screams and cries of mistrust still haunt me to this day when I think about it.
Then there was a little boy who was only 5 years old covered in scabies, flees, and abscesses with a broken jaw from being hit by a smuggler for crying.
There were many kids that were so malnourished and dehydrated that they could not hold any solid food down and were delirious from sun exposure. Most of these kids had never slept under a roof their entire lives. They certainly never slept in a bed as they often slept on the ground with animals in their home countries.
At the centers where these children were housed they cried aloud. Why wouldn’t they? Most had been on a journey that no human should ever go through. Most have never been able to trust a single soul their entire lives, even their parents. They were afraid of the future.
Whitt also took up for everyone looking after these children. The same ones who have been vilified by progressive open-borders advocates:
what these professionals did at the centers was phenomenal work. They fed these kids. They immunized these kids. They LOVE these kids. They have counselors on hand to help with these children. Some of these kids are put into the foster care system which, while not the greatest it could be, is almost certainly better than where they came from and the abuse they have suffered at the hand of cutthroats and drug cartels.
The people that are actually working this crisis are good people. In fact, they are better than most people. They put their lives on hold to help children that they don’t even know while spending months at a time without seeing their own families. These people probably save more lives than anyone else in the US right now.
Whitt’s Facebook post went viral. At the time this post was published, it had been shared over 100,000 times. Local news reached out to Whitt:
The entire discussion could benefit from Whitt’s parting suggestion:
So I encourage you all to look at all sides of this situation. There are no winners but please don’t take up an opinion that comes from a media source that only has one agenda in mind: to discredit the current president.
Personally I could care less what you think of President Trump but where I draw the line is when we start taking down innocent people and painting them as villains in an effort to destroy someone else. These GOOD PEOPLE working on this crisis have done so for the past 15 years without one word from anyone else until just recently.
Ask yourself why?
God Bless you all.
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