Opinion: U.S. laws are based on kids' best interests. Trump's border policies aren't.

Directed by President Donald Trump, the federal government has ripped thousands of immigrant children from their parents, only to warehouse them in detention centers where, as one worker described, "they feel like animals in a cage." 

In one of the largest of these facilities — a former Wal-Mart in Brownsville, Tex, —children are kept indoors 22 hours a day. Many of them have no contact with their parents, unsure when, or whether, they will see their mothers or fathers again.

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Any mental health professional can tell you that placing children in such conditions after separating them from their parents is perhaps the most toxic and cruel sanction a government can inflict on a child.  And any community that cares about children would avoid punishing families in this way.

That's why federal and state child welfare laws allow the government to remove children only as a last resort, when physical separation is necessary to assure their own safety. It's unlikely the seizures now taking place routinely at the border could  pass such a strict test.

Safe at home  

Federal law requires child welfare agencies to make "reasonable efforts" to prevent kids from being removed from their parents. That may involve providing families with supports, or arranging for children to live informally with relatives while parents address their issues.  

Most states only allow children to be placed in foster care after a finding that a child is in imminent danger of serious or substantial harm, and that no other condition short of removal can safeguard the child’s well being.  

When child welfare agencies believe that a child faces extreme danger and must be removed, a court must review the agency’s decision, usually between 24 and 72 hours after the removal. And at that removal hearing, both children and parents are typically provided with an attorney, who can demand that the government produce evidence to justify the continued detention of the child.

Even when a court agrees that a child cannot return home immediately, laws requires child welfare agencies to keep the child connected with family. Agencies must look for relatives to care for the child before placing the child with a stranger or an institution.

Frequent contact between the child and parents must be maintained, even when a parent is incarcerated. And to ensure these mandates are complied with, trial courts convene frequent hearings. Those decisions can be reviewed by appellate courts.

The United States foster care system is far from perfect. Too many kids needlessly enter the system and remain apart from their families for lengthy periods. (In all candor, I am frequent critic of this system.)  

But the laws that govern the process are sound, reflecting our national consensus that children should only be taken from their parents when it is absolutely necessary to protect them.

No country for young kids

But apparently this consensus only applies to those kids lucky enough to already be in America.  For the children trying to cross the border — now housed at the former Wal-Mart and other detention centers — none of these protections apply.  

Instead, the government can immediately take those children from their parents. It need not demonstrate that the children face any risk of being harmed by their parents. No court must review the decision to determine whether the government’s actions serve the children’s best interests. No lawyers are appointed to advocate on behalf of the child or the parent.

And as a result, the government never has to justify its life-altering decision to destroy a family.  

This nation has always served as a moral beacon for the rest of the world. But our treatment of these children — who have done nothing wrong other than accompany their parents seeking a better life — is a disgrace that reflects on all of us.  

Until each of us demands that our government respect the dignity of all of God’s children, this disgrace will continue to haunt us.

Vivek Sankaran is a professor at the University of Michigan Law School.