There is a recent photo taken by Kim Kyung-Hoon that has surfaced a lot of conversation and controversy. It is a photo of Maria Meza, a 39 year-old mother holding the hands of her 2 daughters as they attempt to desperately escape tear gas that was released on a crowd of peaceful immigrants.
“I felt sad, I was scared. I wanted to cry. That’s when I grabbed my daughters and ran, I thought my kids were going to die with me because of the gas we inhaled.” Maria told Buzzfeed in a recent interview. Tear gas isn’t like mace or pepper spray. It causes severe damage to eyes, skin, and respiratory tract. Serious cases can cause long term and significant damage, and even blindness.
These were just a few of many innocent immigrants attempting to flee their violent homelands. Trump has made it very clear he wants none of them in the country. He claims them to be criminals and terrorists without any further evidence or research.
Many democratic lawmakers have deemed these acts against the immigrants unlawful and inhumane. Many of them have been trying to ban tear gas. Representative of Colorado Diana DeGette stated “Federal agents’ use of tear gas on innocent civilians, many of them children, at our southern border is a shocking and heavy-handed use of force that we must condemn and heavily scrutinize…”
Here is a link to a number of ways you can help immigrant children recently separated by their families.
Some ways you can help with the crisis include:
Join local and national rallies and protests. There are a ton at FamiliesBelongTogether.org
Contact congress via phone or social media. The ACLU has a great tool to get in touch with Senators and the American Immigration Lawyers Association has tools to contact Congress. Herd on the Hill hand delivers letters to Congress.
Volunteer near borders and of course donations of all kinds will help. These people feel alone and attacked by a country who’s showing little compassion towards them. It’s our job to help when no one else will.