Only on La La Land

[BmorePat87]

(11-11-2019, 11:00 PM)bfine32 Wrote: The law addressed in the OP does not pertain to legal asylum seekers; it pertains to those that broke the law and crossed our border illegally. But don't let that fact stop you in calling others disingenuous or trolls. 

If this forum was unbiased in the least; they's expose the true trolls in this forum. 

Which is why I said "legal asylum seekers who were treated the same way" since it's a demonstrable fact that a number of them were, despite the policy not actually covering them. 

I appreciate the mature reply. 

[*bfine32*]

(11-11-2019, 11:18 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Which is why I said "legal asylum seekers who were treated the same way" since it's a demonstrable fact that a number of them were, despite the policy not actually covering them. 

I appreciate the mature reply. 

Of course no one is talking about legal asylum seekers but you in this example. The OP and those discussing it are talking about those that broke our laws and were subject to our policy. you're arguing something not asserted. As far as I know there's no policy in place to separate families and incarcerate the parents of those how sought to seek asylum by legal means. 

But as I've said from giddy up anyone who entered this country legally and then was incarcerated and separated from their families simply for entering this county legally deserve compensation. 

You're welcome.  

[BmorePat87]

(11-11-2019, 11:33 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Of course no one is talking about legal asylum seekers but you in this example. The OP and those discussing it are talking about those that broke our laws and were subject to our policy. you're arguing something not asserted. As far as I know there's no policy in place to separate families and incarcerate the parents of those how sought to seek asylum by legal means. 

But as I've said from giddy up anyone who entered this country legally and then was incarcerated and separated from their families simply for entering this county legally deserve compensation. 

You're welcome.  

That chain actually did address legal asylum seekers. You should know since you were involved in it and mentioned them too.

Don't bother responding. It's a waste of my time. 

[*bfine32*]

(11-12-2019, 12:24 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: That chain actually did address legal asylum seekers. You should know since you were involved in it and mentioned them too.

Don't bother responding. It's a waste of my time. 

The only reason the "chain addressed it" was because you and AU introduced an argument not made (aka a red herring). Most likely because you couldn't argue the point made in the OP.

No bother on my part responding and I'm unsure how my taking the time to respond wasted your time. 

If you want to discuss the merits of the OP fine, if you want to make up a point and then dispute the point you made up, fine. Either way I'm enjoying the absurdity and it's definitely not a waste of my time. 

[BmorePat87]

(11-12-2019, 01:24 AM)bfine32 Wrote: The only reason the "chain addressed it" was because you and AU introduced an argument not made (aka a red herring). Most likely because you couldn't argue the point made in the OP.

No bother on my part responding and I'm unsure how my taking the time to respond wasted your time. 

If you want to discuss the merits of the OP fine, if you want to make up a point and then dispute the point you made up, fine. Either way I'm enjoying the absurdity and it's definitely not a waste of my time. 

The court ruling your OP was lambasting would include those legal asylum seekers who had been subjected to the separation, so it was quite relevant and not a red herring. 

As to the claim that I "couldn't argue the point made in the OP" I will direct you to the first posts made by myself and AU, posts that you responded to.

I said

Quote:But even those attempting to cross illegally, such a pathetically, inhumane treatment cannot be excused. So many children who may never find their parents again because the administration, in addition to subjecting them to subhuman treatment, failed to even keep track of families they separated.

AU said

Quote:I'm not sure why this is a shock though, criminals still have rights. The idea that someone did something illegal so we don't have to treat them humanely is an archaic view and one that adds to the recidivism rate we see in this country.

The merits of your OP were debated. We also included the reality that legal asylum seekers were also subjected to the treatment in question as it was relevant to the ruling and provided further context to who was impacted. 

Move on. I'm done with this thread. 

[Mike M (the other one)]

(11-12-2019, 10:01 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: The court ruling your OP was lambasting would include those legal asylum seekers who had been subjected to the separation, so it was quite relevant and not a red herring. 

As to the claim that I "couldn't argue the point made in the OP" I will direct you to the first posts made by myself and AU, posts that you responded to.


The merits of your OP were debated. We also included the reality that legal asylum seekers were also subjected to the treatment in question as it was relevant to the ruling and provided further context to who was impacted. 

Move on. I'm done with this thread. 

Uhm, Trumps zero tolerance policy affects those who enter Illegally, we've covered that.

What's not covered is the fact that even IF they enter legally, there are rules already in place that CAN separate parents from children.


What you, the media and many others are implying is that your trying to tie the Trump ZP rule to those exceptions to the legal entry rules. When in fact, kids were being separated long before the Trump ZP rule.


https://www.dhs.gov/news/2018/06/18/myth-vs-fact-dhs-zero-tolerance-policy


Myth
DHS has a policy to separate families at the border. 

Fact
DHS does not have a blanket policy of separating families at the border. However, DHS does have a responsibility to protect all minors in our custody. This means DHS will separate adults and minors under certain circumstances. These circumstances include:

1) when DHS is unable to determine the familial relationship,
2) when DHS determines that a child may be at risk with the parent or legal guardian, or
3) when the parent or legal guardian is referred for criminal prosecution. 

• Familial Relationship – If there is reason to question the claimed familial relationship between an adult and child, it is not appropriate to detain adults and children together.
• Human Trafficking and Smuggling – If there is reason to suspect the purported parent or legal guardian of human trafficking or smuggling, DHS detains the adult in an appropriate, secure detection facility, separate from the minor.  DHS continues to see instances and intelligence reports indicating minors are trafficked by unrelated adults, posing as a “family” in an effort to avoid detention.
• Safety Risk – If there is reason to suspect the purported parent or legal guardian poses a safety risk to the child (e.g. suspected child abuse), it is not appropriate to maintain the adult and child together.
• Criminal Prosecution – If an adult is referred for criminal prosecution, the adult will be transferred to U.S. Marshals Service custody and any children will be classified as an unaccompanied alien child and transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services custody.
  

In recent months, DHS has seen a staggering increase in the number of illegal aliens using children to pose as family units to gain entry into the United States. From October 2017 to February 2018, there was a 315 percent increase in the number of cases of adults with minors fraudulently posing as “family units” to gain entry.

Myth

DHS has never separated families for prosecutions before – this is a new policy in this Administration. 

Fact
Illegal border crossers, including family units, were referred for prosecutions, as appropriates, under the previous Administration. The average referral rate for amenable adults from FY10 – FY16 was 21 percent.

[*bfine32*]

(11-12-2019, 03:23 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: Uhm, Trumps zero tolerance policy affects those who enter Illegally, we've covered that.

What's not covered is the fact that even IF they enter legally, there are rules already in place that CAN separate parents from children.


What you, the media and many others are implying is that your trying to tie the Trump ZP rule to those exceptions to the legal entry rules. When in fact, kids were being separated long before the Trump ZP rule.


https://www.dhs.gov/news/2018/06/18/myth-vs-fact-dhs-zero-tolerance-policy


Myth
DHS has a policy to separate families at the border. 

Fact
DHS does not have a blanket policy of separating families at the border. However, DHS does have a responsibility to protect all minors in our custody. This means DHS will separate adults and minors under certain circumstances. These circumstances include:

1) when DHS is unable to determine the familial relationship,
2) when DHS determines that a child may be at risk with the parent or legal guardian, or
3) when the parent or legal guardian is referred for criminal prosecution. 

• Familial Relationship – If there is reason to question the claimed familial relationship between an adult and child, it is not appropriate to detain adults and children together.
• Human Trafficking and Smuggling – If there is reason to suspect the purported parent or legal guardian of human trafficking or smuggling, DHS detains the adult in an appropriate, secure detection facility, separate from the minor.  DHS continues to see instances and intelligence reports indicating minors are trafficked by unrelated adults, posing as a “family” in an effort to avoid detention.
• Safety Risk – If there is reason to suspect the purported parent or legal guardian poses a safety risk to the child (e.g. suspected child abuse), it is not appropriate to maintain the adult and child together.
• Criminal Prosecution – If an adult is referred for criminal prosecution, the adult will be transferred to U.S. Marshals Service custody and any children will be classified as an unaccompanied alien child and transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services custody.
  

In recent months, DHS has seen a staggering increase in the number of illegal aliens using children to pose as family units to gain entry into the United States. From October 2017 to February 2018, there was a 315 percent increase in the number of cases of adults with minors fraudulently posing as “family units” to gain entry.

Myth

DHS has never separated families for prosecutions before – this is a new policy in this Administration. 

Fact
Illegal border crossers, including family units, were referred for prosecutions, as appropriates, under the previous Administration. The average referral rate for amenable adults from FY10 – FY16 was 21 percent.

This has been presented numerous times; however, the Red Herring is easier to defend.

[BmorePat87]

(11-12-2019, 03:23 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: Uhm, Trumps zero tolerance policy affects those who enter Illegally, we've covered that.

What's not covered is the fact that even IF they enter legally, there are rules already in place that CAN separate parents from children.


What you, the media and many others are implying is that your trying to tie the Trump ZP rule to those exceptions to the legal entry rules. When in fact, kids were being separated long before the Trump ZP rule.


https://www.dhs.gov/news/2018/06/18/myth-vs-fact-dhs-zero-tolerance-policy


Myth
DHS has a policy to separate families at the border. 

Fact
DHS does not have a blanket policy of separating families at the border. However, DHS does have a responsibility to protect all minors in our custody. This means DHS will separate adults and minors under certain circumstances. These circumstances include:

1) when DHS is unable to determine the familial relationship,
2) when DHS determines that a child may be at risk with the parent or legal guardian, or
3) when the parent or legal guardian is referred for criminal prosecution. 

• Familial Relationship – If there is reason to question the claimed familial relationship between an adult and child, it is not appropriate to detain adults and children together.
• Human Trafficking and Smuggling – If there is reason to suspect the purported parent or legal guardian of human trafficking or smuggling, DHS detains the adult in an appropriate, secure detection facility, separate from the minor.  DHS continues to see instances and intelligence reports indicating minors are trafficked by unrelated adults, posing as a “family” in an effort to avoid detention.
• Safety Risk – If there is reason to suspect the purported parent or legal guardian poses a safety risk to the child (e.g. suspected child abuse), it is not appropriate to maintain the adult and child together.
• Criminal Prosecution – If an adult is referred for criminal prosecution, the adult will be transferred to U.S. Marshals Service custody and any children will be classified as an unaccompanied alien child and transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services custody.
  

In recent months, DHS has seen a staggering increase in the number of illegal aliens using children to pose as family units to gain entry into the United States. From October 2017 to February 2018, there was a 315 percent increase in the number of cases of adults with minors fraudulently posing as “family units” to gain entry.

Myth

DHS has never separated families for prosecutions before – this is a new policy in this Administration. 

Fact
Illegal border crossers, including family units, were referred for prosecutions, as appropriates, under the previous Administration. The average referral rate for amenable adults from FY10 – FY16 was 21 percent.

Nothing here changes the fact that legal asylum seekers were subjected to this policy (even though the policy did not cover them) for reasons outside how children would normally be separated. 

The ACLU is representing multiple parents who legally sought asylum at ports of entry, with no criminal record, and with identifying documents showing that the children were their's, and they had their children separated from them for months. There are additional accounts beyond that too. 

Those are all facts. If you're willing to acknowledge that reality, I'm willing to discuss this more in the next thread about this topic. I have nothing left for this thread that hasn't been said 5 times over, but I didn't want to leave you hanging. That'd be rude.

[GMDino]

(11-12-2019, 09:06 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Nothing here changes the fact that legal asylum seekers were subjected to this policy (even though the policy did not cover them) for reasons outside how children would normally be separated. 

The ACLU is representing multiple parents who legally sought asylum at ports of entry, with no criminal record, and with identifying documents showing that the children were their's, and they had their children separated from them for months. There are additional accounts beyond that too. 

Those are all facts. If you're willing to acknowledge that reality, I'm willing to discuss this more in the next thread about this topic. I have nothing left for this thread that hasn't been said 5 times over, but I didn't want to leave you hanging. That'd be rude.

The policy was so great that Trump denied he had anything to do with it (he lied) and then took credit for ending it (he lied).

I'll just say again that America used to BETTER than other countries in how we treated people...even "illegals".  But the seedy underbelly of hate has seen a lot of growth over the years.

[Mike M (the other one)]

(11-12-2019, 09:06 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Nothing here changes the fact that legal asylum seekers were subjected to this policy (even though the policy did not cover them) for reasons outside how children would normally be separated. 

The ACLU is representing multiple parents who legally sought asylum at ports of entry, with no criminal record, and with identifying documents showing that the children were their's, and they had their children separated from them for months. There are additional accounts beyond that too. 

Those are all facts. If you're willing to acknowledge that reality, I'm willing to discuss this more in the next thread about this topic. I have nothing left for this thread that hasn't been said 5 times over, but I didn't want to leave you hanging. That'd be rude.

Then that's a little bit different, and as we all know some will slide thru.  The system is far from perfect just because Humans are running it and involved. Of course we can always make it better, but I hate that anytime someone feels violated, they want to sue. Shouldn't we be suing the countries they came from for letting them leave in the first place?

I really hate to seem like an ass, but really there is a proper way to do things and in improper one, the ones that do it improperly ruin it for those that are trying to do it the right way. I will give credit to USCIS they have been making small changes that really speeds up the legal way. What I don't like seeing is my tax dollars going to supporting illegals when we have our own citizens to support. It puts everyone in between a rock and a hard place. At some point, you have to acknowledge that enough is enough. Not only that, illegals haven't been vaccinated and cleared medically and record checks performed.

(11-12-2019, 09:33 PM)GMDino Wrote: The policy was so great that Trump denied he had anything to do with it (he lied) and then took credit for ending it (he lied).

I'll just say again that America used to BETTER than other countries in how we treated people...even "illegals".  But the seedy underbelly of hate has seen a lot of growth over the years.

Meh, things have been bad there for a long time. but seem to now be coming to a head were as in the past the current POTUS never really pushed one way or another about it since Reagan.

[GMDino]

It's not just that Trump's policy separates even those seeking legal asylum...it's how they separate them, what happens after they are separated and how they keep them apart even after.

"Christian Nation" my ass.

https://apnews.com/015702afdb4d4fbf85cf5070cd2c6824?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP&utm_campaign=SocialFlow

Quote:US held record number of migrant children in custody in 2019 Aug. 23, 

Honduras (AP) — The 3-year-old girl traveled for weeks cradled in her father’s arms, as he set out to seek asylum in the United States. Now she won’t even look at him.


After being forcibly separated at the border by government officials, sexually abused in U.S. foster care and deported, the once bright and beaming girl arrived back in Honduras withdrawn, anxious and angry, convinced her father abandoned her.


He fears their bond is forever broken.

“I think about this trauma staying with her too, because the trauma has remained with me and still hasn’t faded,” he said, days after their reunion.

This month, new government data shows the little girl is one of an unprecedented 69,550 migrant children held in U.S. government custody over the past year, enough infants, toddlers, kids and teens to overflow the typical NFL stadium. That’s more children detained away from their parents than any other country, according to United Nations researchers. And it’s happening even though the U.S. government has acknowledged that being held in detention can be traumatic for children, putting them at risk of long-term physical and emotional damage.


Some of these migrant children who were in government custody this year have already been deported. Some have reunited with family in the U.S., where they’re trying to go to school and piece their lives back together. About 4,000 are still in government custody, some in large, impersonal shelters. And more arrive every week.
___
This story is part of an ongoing joint investigation between The Associated Press and the PBS series FRONTLINE on the treatment of migrant children, which includes the film “Kids Caught in the Crackdown” premiering on PBS and online Nov. 12 at 10 p.m. EST/9 p.m. CST.

The nearly 70,000 migrant children who were held in government custody this year — up 42 percent in fiscal year 2019 from 2018 — spent more time in shelters and away from their families than in prior years. The Trump administration’s series of strict immigration policies has increased the time children spend in detention, despite the government’s own acknowledgment that it does them harm. In 2013, Australia detained 2,000 children during a surge of maritime arrivals. In Canada, immigrant children are separated from their parents only as a last resort; 155 were detained in 2018. In the United Kingdom, 42 migrant children were put in shelters in 2017, according to officials in those countries.

“Early experiences are literally built into our brains and bodies,” said Dr. Jack Shonkoff, who directs Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child. Earlier this year, he told Congress that “decades of peer-reviewed research” show that detaining kids away from parents or primary caregivers is bad for their health. It’s a brain-wiring issue, he said.


“Stable and responsive relationships promote healthy brain architecture,” Shonkoff said. “If these relationships are disrupted, young children are hit by the double whammy of a brain that is deprived of the positive stimulation it needs, and assaulted by a stress response that disrupts its developing circuitry.”


Younger children are at greater risk, because their biological systems are less developed, he said. Previous harm and the duration of separation are also more likely to lead to trauma.

One Honduran teen who was held in a large detention center for four months before reuniting with his mother said that, as each day passed, his fear and anxiety grew.


“There was something there that made us feel desperate. It was freedom. We wanted to be free,” he recalled. “There was despair everywhere.”


Another Honduran teen, who arrived in the U.S. at 16 and was detained in a series of increasingly secure shelters for more than a year, said he saw his peers harm themselves.


“They would cry sometimes, alone, or they would hit themselves against the wall,” he said. “I thought that was because of them being here for such a long time.”

The teens spoke on condition of anonymity out of concerns for their safety.


The 3-year-old Honduran girl was taken from her father when immigration officials caught them near the border in Texas in March 2019 and sent her to government-funded foster care. The father had no idea where his daughter was for three panicked weeks. It was another month before a caregiver put her on the phone but the girl, who turned 4 in government custody, refused to speak, screaming in anger.


“She said that I had left her alone and she was crying,” said her father during an interview with the AP and Frontline at their home in Honduras. ”‘I don’t love you Daddy, you left me alone,’” she told him. The father agreed to speak about their case on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.


What the little girl didn’t, or couldn’t, tell her dad was that another child in her foster home woke her up and began molesting her, according to court records. As the days passed, she began urinating on herself and seemed unable to eat or drink, a foster parent said in the records.


“She’s so small for something like that to happen,” said her father, who found out about his daughter’s abuse while he was in detention. “I felt like I couldn’t do anything to help her.”


Desperate to see his daughter, he begged for a DNA test which, four months into his detention, proved their relationship. Still the government kept them apart. In June, he gave up and asked a judge to reunite him with his daughter and deport them. The government sent him back to Honduras alone. His daughter followed a month later in mid-August.

On an August afternoon in their hometown, the little girl had her hair tied up in pigtails. Her dress was a frilly lavender and her pink sneakers were decorated with bows. She played with her younger sister and snuggled up beside her grandfather, but ignored her father’s entreaties and refused to hold his hand, convinced he tried to leave her for good.


“When I wanted to cradle her in my arms she started to cry,” he said.


He didn’t know of any psychological support in their town to help her process the abuse she suffered.


“For now we’re going to try to give her more affection, more love and then if there isn’t a change we’re going to try to find some help,” he said.


The U.S. government calls migrant children held without their parents “Unaccompanied Alien Children” — UAC in bureaucratic jargon. Federal law requires the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement to provide them food and shelter, and medical and mental health care. But the HHS Office of Inspector General found there aren’t enough clinicians or specialized care in shelters holding migrant children.


HHS spokesman Mark Weber said that, with the largest number of migrant children in their program’s history, “you must give credit to the Office of Refugee Resettlement and the shelter network staff for managing a program that was able to rapidly expand and unify the largest number of kids ever, all in an incredibly difficult environment.”


In an urgent request to fund an emergency shelter earlier this year, HHS warned “Without a way to provide these services, there is an unacceptable risk that thousands of UAC would be without their basic human needs, which would result in injury/death of children.”


In the September issue of the journal Pediatrics, the American Academy of Pediatrics says migrant children who are detained “face almost universal traumatic histories.” The group recommends specific therapies to help children recover and reunite with their families, warning of serious consequences if left untreated. But few of the thousands of children separated from their parents are receiving therapy after being deported back to Central America. Many are from impoverished communities where there are few, if any, accessible mental health resources.


The U.S. is now being sued for hundreds of millions of dollars by some families who say their children were harmed by being held in detention, and on Nov. 5 a federal judge ordered the government to immediately provide mental health screenings and treatment to immigrant families traumatized by family separations. The judge found attorneys for separated families presented evidence that the government’s policy “caused severe mental trauma to parents and their children” and that U.S. government officials were “aware of the risks associated with family separation when they implemented it.”


Child trauma expert Ryan Matlow at Stanford University says toxic stress in children is associated with higher rates of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress syndrome, heart disease, cancer, and even early death.


“So we want to be a country that inflicts further trauma on individuals who are experiencing intensive adversity and are seeking refuge and help in a neighboring nation?” asked Matlow, who has met with detained migrant children inside several of the largest migrant detention facilities. “Are we ok with the implications of doing harm to vulnerable children - to 2 and 3-year-olds and to teenagers as well? Is that something that we can accept?”


This year President Donald Trump signed a law approving $2.8 billion for the government to house, transport and care for migrant children. Nine out of 10 come from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, with fewer than 3% from Mexico. They’re fleeing Central America often to save their own lives, because violence and abuse, even murder, are committed with impunity under corrupt governments the U.S. has supported for decades.

While children have been arriving alone at the U.S. border for more than a decade, the number of children in government custody has grown sharply over the last two years, largely because they have been held for longer time periods. A few months after Trump took office, the federal agency was caring for about 2,700 children, reuniting them with awaiting relatives or sponsors in about a month. This June, that topped 13,000, and they stayed in custody for about two months.


U.S. immigration authorities have separated more than 5,400 children from their parents at the Mexico border, before, during and after a controversial “zero tolerance” policy was enacted and then ended in the spring of 2018.


Eskinder Negash, who heads the nonprofit U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, knows the trauma of separation and detention all too well, and has spent his life seeking solutions.


“I was a refugee, I know what they have gone through,” said Negash, who fled Ethiopia alone as a teen after his country was thrown into chaos by a military coup.


Negash also knows what it’s like to suddenly have to care for tens of thousands of migrant children caught at the border. He was heading the Office of Refugee Resettlement in 2014 under the Obama administration when more than 60,000 children surged over the border, mostly unaccompanied. Negash and his team scrambled to shelter them in a variety of situations, including on military bases. The fallout, at the time, was harsh: human rights advocates who today decry the way children are treated in government custody were, under Obama, frustrated with their care and urged that children be swiftly granted asylum.
Leaving government to head the nonprofit refugee support agency USCRI, Negash wanted to do better for children, both in the U.S. and abroad.


In El Salvador, USCRI now runs the Livelihoods project, teaching young adults who were deported from the U.S. skills to support themselves. On a recent visit, students clustered in small groups around workbenches to practice building circuits that would make small motors run. They learn everything from residential and commercial electrical installation to building substations and transformers. Other career tracks include auto mechanic, chef and bartender. Since 2016, about 400 young adults have graduated from the program, which is a partnership with the El Salvador government.

“I don’t think about migrating anymore,” said José Fernando Guillén Rodríguez, 21, who was apprehended in the U.S. at 18 and spent time in adult detention before being deported. Now he’s completed a year of daily electrical classes and works as an apprentice at an electrical construction company.

José Fernando Guillén Rodríguez, 21, left, practices building circuits with other students around a workbench in San Salvador, El Salvador.
Meanwhile, in the U.S. this summer, USCRI also opened what Negash hopes is a model government-funded shelter in southern Florida, just down the road from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club. Rinconcito del Sol, which translates to “A Little Corner of Sunshine,” is different than other facilities holding migrant children.

There is no uniformed security guard at the entrance. The residents, girls 13-17, can call their families as needed, staff say, and there are more therapeutic services — including intensive treatment for victims of trafficking and abuse — throughout the week. They sleep two to a room, and are free to wander in a large, outdoor area, or “shop” in a store filled with donated items. Case workers hustle to reunite them with family in the U.S. quickly, averaging four weeks. And costs to taxpayers are a third of the $775 per day costs at large, emergency shelters where kids sleep 100 to a room.


“Here, we change lives,” said shelter director Elcy Valdez, who worked as an ORR federal field specialist visiting a variety of facilities for six years. She saw a variety of operations, and took note of best practices. Today they hope to share their practices with some 170 shelter programs in 23 states.


“The girls come in very sad, nervous, not knowing what to expect, unsure what the future holds for them,” she said. “We give them that sense of security, of safety for the first time.”