Letter to the Editor

Don't split up immigrant families

I served my nation as an educator for 44 years. There is political wrongdoing being perpetrated on vulnerable children in the name of politics.

Separating refugee children and parents should not occur in a nation that has for centuries accepted refugees without inflicting irreparable harm to the weakest and youngest of that group. Families should not be split apart and inhumanly kept ignorant of the location of their parents or children.

As an educator, I know that when children lose touch with their family, they face mental health issues. Children thrive when they have a secure family life. Separating mother and child, no matter the age, is an atrocity, mean-spirited and evil.

This shameful “Republican error” — children in pens — will be chronicled by historians and rebuked by future generations.

If these were Jason Smith’s children, his grandchildren, his nieces or nephews, he would be doing everything in his power to protect their lives. Becoming a refugee is not a criminal event!

We accepted refugees in World War II with hardly a barrier. How can we now, as a free nation, turn away desperate families? Every voting mother, grandmother and aunt will be watching how Smith acts in this crisis.

What thinking voter chooses a heartless representative who stands uncaring for the refugee and the honor of our nation? Rep. Jason Smith should join bipartisan efforts to change the orders and reunite families. Immigration laws should not bring shame on our country.

BEVERLY HENRY, De Soto, Missouri