A Sin to Despair

Written by Saul Austerlitz

For the past three years, the drumbeat of horrific governmental misdeeds, the erosion of trust in our institutions, and the steady increase in latitude extended toward the ugliest elements in American society make me wonder whether there is a path back to decency in this country. 

But of all of this administration’s profanations of American ideals, none can approach the cruelty of the treatment of asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexican border. Parents have been separated from their children. Children have been held in brutal conditions, lacking soap, shampoo, bedding, toothpaste, and other essentials. ICE and Border Patrol agents have mistreated, assaulted, and abused detainees. Nothing pains me more than to think about the children who are hungry, cold, and scared. 

I have two children, 7 and 3, and I firmly believe that as a parent, and as an American living through this inhumane era, it is a sin to despair. Our country has gone off its moorings, but it is our job—each and every one of us—to help right it. It is my belief that each of us must do what we can to combat the xenophobia that appears to rule in certain powerful corners of American life.

Earlier this year, my wife and I hosted a fundraiser at our apartment for the Young Center. It was an opportunity to support an organization that does worthy, unheralded work, looking after the immigrant children punished for the crime of their family’s seeking safety and a better life. The news of family separation was breaking, and journalists were learning that hundreds, and possibly thousands, of children had been taken away from their families and brought to overcrowded detention facilities. It was not clear whether the government had adequately prepared for the crisis they had done so much to create, nor whether they had kept accurate records of where those children they had stolen from their families had been sent to. 

We wound up raising more than $10,000 that evening, less a reflection of our fundraising prowess or the financial might of our friends than of the sheer helplessness so many people like us were feeling at the prospect of this nightmare, and all we had learned about the Young Center. We heard about their remarkable efforts to find and assist children otherwise lacking representation. The Young Center guides them through the system, and helps them determine and achieve their goals, whether it is reunification with their families in the United States or a return to their country of birth. Our guests felt good to know that they had been able to contribute to a tangible effort to begin undoing the disaster that our own government had caused in the name of “protecting” our borders.

I am the grandchild of immigrants. My paternal grandfather fled Vienna after Adolf Hitler took power in next-door Germany and was lucky enough to be able to come to the United States and start a new life. I know, in the marrow of my bones, that it is only the sheerest accident of history that it is other people’s children, and not my own, wailing for their missing parents in places of horror like Clint.

It is our collective responsibility to attempt to fix this damage, both right now and in a post-Trump future. I am deeply grateful to the Young Center for showing up to do this deeply necessary work, and for granting us the opportunity to help. This fight is real. No one is exempt from the battle to make America a better, more welcoming, more humane place.

Saul is a writer and Young Center supporter residing in New York. To read more of his work, please visit www.saulausterlitz.com.