Family Separations and the Judge

No child should be separated from their Mother, rather we should work on means to keep them together!! No matter what. There are very few children who wind up truly unwanted. Most of the issues their parents face are temporary and, with proper support, the family can be preserved.

Republicans have suggested that one of the reasons she should be given a lifetime appointment on the highest court of the land is that she has seven kids. Constantly bringing up how many kids she has is part of an attempt on Republicans’ part to (1) draw a distinction between Barrett and what they view as childless heathen Democrats, (2) claim that any opposition to her confirmation is anti-mom, and (3) suggest that since she’s a mother, she must be a good person who couldn’t possibly issue rulings that would hurt millions of people.

One of the problems with Coney Barrett is her own worldview – according to her own opening statement in the Judiciary Committee hearing, her own biological children are super intelligent but the black children she adopted were damaged, ie she “saved” them. This is known as white saviorism.

In one of the only discussions of immigration to arise during the confirmation hearings, Barrett declined to say whether she thought it was wrong to separate migrant children from their parents to deter immigration to the United States. “That’s a matter of hot political debate in which I can’t express a view or be drawn into as a judge,” Barrett said in response to a question from Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.). Booker said he respected her position but asked again: “Do you think it’s wrong to separate a child from their parent, not for the safety of the child or parent but to send a message. As a human being, do you believe that that’s wrong?”

Barrett told Booker she felt as if he was trying to engage her on the Trump administration’s border separation policy. Under the policy, immigration officials applied a “zero-tolerance” approach to undocumented immigration and separated families crossing the border through Mexico. “I can’t express a view on that,” Barrett said. “I’m not expressing assent or dissent with the morality of that position—I just can’t be drawn into a debate about the administration’s immigration policy.”

Booker responded that, actually, he was simply asking “basic questions of human rights, human decency, and human dignity,” which one might think a staunchly pro-life individual and mother of seven might be able to answer.

Jill Filipovic described Barrett as “Pro-life until birth” which is the real problem with a lot of Pro-Lifers. Filipovic goes on to say about the Judge – “Booker wasn’t asking about the family separation policy as a legal matter. Like her views on abortion, she could presumably separate her personal feelings from her legal ones. She’s been happy to put her views on abortion forward. Why so quiet on family separations?”

Where is Kaya ?

Imagine. This girl has been “missing” for at least 8 years. If not for the behavior of her adoptive parents, Jose and Gina Centeno, her disappearance would still be under the radar.

An investigation was prompted after her adoptive parents were accused of harming her siblings, a 17-year-old girl and 15-year-old boy. It was these children who made authorities aware that they last saw her when she was between 8 and 12 years old. She was a student at John Reed Elementary School when she was removed in second grade, purportedly to be homeschooled. As a parent who’s children have been educated at home, I always hate these sensational stories (and of course, grieve these things happen) because they cast a bad perspective on the practice of educating one’s own children.

In July, authorities in Mexico notified Sonoma County child protective services of allegations of abuse against the parents by the Centeno children after they were sent out of the country about 1.5 years ago to live with a family there. Neighbors of the family’s members alerted Mexican authorities about the alleged abuse.

The Centenos had adopted five children: three siblings and later on, twins. Gina and Jose separated and Gina has been raising the twins, according to police. Prosecutors have charged the pair with felony kidnapping, alleging that they concealed the three older siblings to obtain adoption assistance funding, according to court records.

Jose and Gina Centeno gave Kaya’s younger sister and brother an explanation for why she disappeared, although that information has not been publicly revealed. Investigators did find evidence in the family’s home “to corroborate the victims’ statements about the abuse,“ police said.

Thankfully, the Centenos are being held in the Sonoma County Jail on $18 million bail and are expected to make another court appearance on Oct. 5. They each face life sentences, if convicted.

To report information about the case, call the Rohnert Park Public Safety Department at 707-584-2612.

Not An Uncommon Experience

I was surprised to find an adoption story in Isabel Allende’s new book A Long Petal Of The Sea. It is a “familiar” story for me, steeped as I am in Georgia Tann lore. It happened often that a young woman was told by Tann her baby had died when in fact it had been taken and adopted out. My own mom believed she had been taken from her original parents by a deceptive story and then transported from Virginia to Memphis TN.

The young woman in Allende’s story is unwed and has been sent away to have her baby in secrecy at a convent. Though initially willing to give her baby up for adoption she then announces that she will not give her baby up for adoption. She says that she plans to raise it. So then, she is drugged senseless, which continues for some time even after the birth. When she is lucid again, she is told the baby died shortly after birth, strangled by the umbilical cord.

I will have to finish the book to see if that baby turns up later in the story as having actually having been adopted. That would not surprise me in the least.

I read a rather harsh criticism of this book but as a lover of history and other cultures
with some hispanic background having grown up on the Mexican border, I am enjoying her story immensely. It is decidedly a woman’s kind of tale.