Americans Offer to Replace Parents Separated from their Kids

For more than a decade, Erika Andiola has been at the front of the immigrant rights movement. She is the chief advocacy officer for RAICES, a Texas based nonprofit that defends immigrants. Andiola, 33, talked to IDAR/E about the misguided gesture of trying to adopt separated children and what a Biden/Harris administration, if a reality, must do before an inauguration.

Q: The name IDAR/E is inspired by Jovita Idar, a journalist who in the 1900s was standing up to racist violence. How does it make you feel that the same dynamics of white supremacy are still playing out a century later?

A: It’s frustrating because we’re not only seeing that white supremacy is still present in this country, but also that more white supremacists have power. They are now running the White House. So it’s not just theoretically scary, it’s now a reality that a lot of policies we are seeing in immigration come out of that ideology.

Q: What is the story of women in this fight for humane treatment of immigrants?

A: The really cool and amazing thing about the immigrant rights movement, the Dreamer movement specifically, when a lot of younger immigrants started organizing about 10, 15 years ago, is that a lot of these incredible women are also queer women. The way in which we started talking about coming out of the shadows, sort of a symbolism of us losing our fear and speaking out, was pretty much created by a lot of our queer women who decided that was a really great way to talk about intersectionality. It’s been powerful to see the majority of folks who have taken leadership in this movement have been really powerful women.

Q: How do you see feminism shaping this movement?

A: A lot of us are rooted in compassion, we’re very rooted in caring for the humanity of other people. I don’t know if that is specifically a characteristic of women but I know that it has made it so much easier for us to focus on that and be rooted in that, more than in power or anything else that a lot of movement organizations end up focusing on.

Q: The separation of families, the disappearing of children – this sounds like something that everyone would be calling a human rights crime if it was happening elsewhere? Why aren’t we hearing it labeled as such?

A: Look, I think right now there is a lot of simplification of what’s happening.

There’s so much complexity to it, so you are, of course, only going to hear about the cages and this very specific number of kids who can’t find their parents but it’s a bigger problem than that and it’s absolutely rooted in this belief that immigrants are not as human as other people, and therefore, human rights violations are happening every single day in America at the border.

Family separation is still happening.

We are seeing a lot more families being detained. And right now, the majority of the families who are being detained in family detention centers are Black. There are lot of migrants who are coming from Haiti, Cameroon, from African nations.

“When there are literally stories saying that these children have parents...our first reaction should be – why are we not reuniting them?”

When people sort of remember [this issue] because a story is blowing up about family separation, we get a lot of messages from Americans wanting to adopt a child. This reflects the lack of clarity on what is happening. When there are literally stories saying that these children have parents, that they are looking at them or they are separated because a parent was deported, our first reaction should be – why are we not reuniting them?

Q: Years ago, the rallying cry was for comprehensive immigration reform. The Migrant Justice Platform takes a different approach?

A: The focus by so many groups was on passing a really big bill. We have tried so many times and it has not been able to happen. If Biden wins the election, we start with reversing all of the policies Trump has enacted. And also reverse what Obama did as well. That means not only pushing for Congress to act on a path to citizenship but that we also end every single program that allows ICE to work with local police. Those programs can end right away.

Q: What action steps should a Biden/Harris Administration take in its first 100 days?

A: Even before the inauguration, we have to see the right people in power. Right now, we have a white supremacist, Stephen Miller, who is advising Donald Trump on immigration.

A lot of the people who are lined up to go back to the White House if there is a Biden Administration are the same people who worked with Obama. To me, that’s the first mistake. You can’t have the same people who were working to deport people in record numbers come back.