{"id":104071,"date":"2019-07-10T09:32:46","date_gmt":"2019-07-10T13:32:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=104071"},"modified":"2019-07-16T12:45:13","modified_gmt":"2019-07-16T16:45:13","slug":"letter-lights-for-liberty-vigil-planned-for-7-p-m-friday-july-12-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=104071","title":{"rendered":"LETTER: \u2018Lights for Liberty\u2018 vigil planned for 7 p.m. Friday, July 12, 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

To the Editor:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I sit down to write this letter having just tucked my\nchildren into bed. It was already late, so I made my youngest close her book\nand turn off her light. I reminded her of the fun things she would get to do in\nthe morning. I sang her a lullaby, smoothed her hair, kissed her goodnight then\nrepeated the same for my middle child. I emailed my oldest good night, knowing\nshe was safe at a friend\u2019s house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nearly every night when I put my children to bed, it breaks\nmy heart thinking of the families who are separated at our southern border. It\nhas been a whole year and more, and still our federal government runs an\ninhumane situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Children and adults are warehoused in overcrowded U.S. Customs\nand Border Patrol detention facilities in violation of federal rules. An uncle\nnot allowed to wash his nephew\u2019s baby bottle for days, so he has to feed him\nwith a dirty bottle. A teenage mother denied clean clothing when her infant has\ndiarrhea, so she has to wrap him in a plastic hospital pad with his little body\nsticky and dirty. Rooms of detainees at standing-room-only capacity, standing\non the toilet for breathing space. Guards putting toddlers in the care of 8-year-olds.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can\u2019t find it in my heart to blame the parents who are\nmigrating looking for a better life. I know what it\u2019s like, in small measure,\nto move my family thousands of miles to an unknown place. We were only escaping\nhigh housing costs and long commutes. No one had threatened to kill my children\nor husband. The police didn\u2019t laugh when women complained of abuse. There were\njobs. So how can I, who chose to migrate for lesser reasons, have anything but\nunderstanding for those who need to migrate for urgent reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t want to blame one political party or another for how\nwe ended up a nation that violates our constitution\u2019s Eighth Amendment,\n\u201cExcessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel\nand unusual punishments inflicted\u201d \u2013 on children, on infants. But here are the\nfacts: Ports of entry are being metered to allow only a limited number of\nasylum-seekers per day, and they have to choose between waiting for months in\nunsanitary conditions or making an unauthorized border crossing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. Department Homeland Security implemented a policy\nof separating children from their parents without first coming up with a plan\nfor keeping track of whose child was whose. Border Patrol has thousands of\nemployees who participated in a Facebook group mocking detainees and\nthreatening a member of Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The federal government can do better than this. But they\nhave shown that they won\u2019t unless we push them to. That is why I will be\nstanding with my friends on Route 5 near Lenox Avenue at 7 p.m. Friday, July\n12, 2019, during Lights for Liberty, a national vigil to end human detention\ncamps: because everyone should have the luxury of seeing their children\ncomfortable in their own beds at night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Margaret\nMilman-Barris, Oneida<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To the Editor: I sit down to write this letter having just tucked my children into bed. It was already late, so I made my youngest close her book and turn off her light. I reminded her of the fun things she would get to do in the morning. I sang her a lullaby, smoothed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23678,23808,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-letterstotheeditor","category-opinion","category-top-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/lettertotheeditor_logo.gif?fit=873%2C369&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43meu-r4z","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=104071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/69874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=104071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=104071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=104071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}