Many of us Americans live busy lives, caught up in the helter-skelter of accelerated change and an unceasing information blitz. Maybe we hear in passing about the collateral damage caused by drones. Or we read about another American corporation’s exploitation of a third world nation’s natural resources. Perhaps we shake our heads disapprovingly and admit America is not perfect. What happens in foreign lands seems so remote and less relevant to our daily lives. But we cannot ignore what is happening in our name and in our country. We have an Administration that is terrorizing asylum seekers. And that crime is happening at our doorstep.

Men in uniform are taking children from the grasp of their parents and incarcerating them in temporary internment camps. Please stop and visualize that moment of separation. The parents are told they have only two choices: either agree to deportation with their children or deportation without them. In either case, our Government succeeds in forcing them to forego their request for asylum. Meanwhile, their children are lost in our bureaucratic maze as they are relocated to all four corners of the continental United States. How do we feel about children being used as leverage against their parents and as deterrents for future refugees? How can we accept the now evident fact that the Administration had no plan to reunite them with their parents? But, if there was no plan, then there was either no intent to return these children or a total disregard for their welfare.

The Administration has blatantly violated the 5th and 14th Amendments of our Constitution. Asylum seekers are being held without due process. Their children are seized and held in some unknown location. And they are not even able to comfort their children by phone. Our government, by order of our duly elected President, is criminalizing our Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In addition, America is now guilty of a form of terrorism by violating our international obligations to respect the rights of asylum seekers. These rights include the right of a state to grant asylum, the right of an individual to seek asylum, and the right of an individual to be granted asylum. Are we Americans prepared to don the cloak of an international pariah? I think not!

As a famous historian once said, “Americans are better than their leaders.”* We must challenge our government to undo the misery and pain it is inflicting on these innocents. It must obey the court order to reunite these children with their parents. And it must cease its attempts to make the situation worse. Examples of the latter include forcing parents to forego their asylum request to win return of their children, continuing deportations without hearings on asylum cases, forcing under age children to appear before an administrative judge without legal representation, and adjudicating misdemeanor border crossings in mass, sometimes as many as 40 defendants at a time. Are we a country that disregards human rights? Are we a country that subjugates law to the whim of a dictatorial Administration? And are we a country of “kangaroo courts?”

This Administration’s inability to return these children to their parents is totally unacceptable. It now admits to having about a hundred children under 5 years old and maybe as many as 3 thousand older children in a hundred or so locations throughout America. Now we hear there may be as many as a thousand additional children surreptitiously taken under a pilot program in advance of the zero-tolerance policy’s enactment. These estimates not only expose ineptitude, but crass indifference. A small country like Thailand can pull together its resources in a matter of days to rescue children trapped in mountain caves, but America cannot return children already in their custody at government operated locations. Does anybody believe this level of obtuseness? Or worse, is it deceit?

Private citizens and local elected officials are volunteering their assistance. Lawyers from across the nation are offering their services pro bono. But our government not only does not welcome outside assistance but at times has shown itself uncooperative. There must be enumerable suggestions on how to overcome the bureaucratic maze in which these parents and children are trapped. I am no expert, but even I can suggest one. Why not photograph all the children held in custody, put those photos with captions provided by the children on a secured web site, and give parents access to that site for the purpose of identifying their children? Whatever information the children can provide—like their name or the name(s) of their parent(s), their age, or where they came from—could be used to corroborate any claim by a parent. The search algorithms could be arranged by name, age range, and country of origin. If insufficient web access devices are readily available, it would not be difficult to provide rented or donated devices. Parents would easily recognize their own children. In the suspicious, though remote, circumstance of multiple claims for the same child, then normal investigative procedures should be used to resolve the case, perhaps even time-consuming genetic testing. Instead of being hamstrung by the necessity to resolve individual cases without any reference points, the process of reuniting families would then be using the only references that matter, that is, the children and their parents.

Maybe someone amongst my 10,000 subscribers can improve on my suggestion. Yesterday the Administration told the court that it could only identify 59 of the 100 toddlers it was ordered to reunite with their parents. These children are lost in our bureaucracy and may not be able to provide much identifying information about themselves or their parents. But their mothers could still identify them in a photo. If after 2 weeks the Administration could only identify 59 of the 100 children under the age of six years, how long will it take to identify the thousands still held hostage? There has to be a better way forward.

Can we live with what has been done in our name? If I know my American readers, you will agree with me that we must right this wrong. For my readers from other countries, I must ask your forbearance. We are not unlike you. We do care for children and respect families. But, like people from many lands, we do not always agree with our leaders—even though they are our elected leaders. Democracy can run afoul of itself but, thankfully, allows for course correction. It just requires a responsible electorate . . . and the next election.

*Footnote: I am quoting Alexis de Tocqueville from memory. Though I do not have a page reference, you can find many interesting insights from this 19th century historian in his book, “Democracy in America.”