We're better than this. . .

To say again that the U. S. needs comprehensive immigration reform is beyond question.  However, when you understand the "on the ground" realities for families and communities, the game changes.  We can do so much better than this.  Have we forgotten who we are as a people?  Can we so easily turn our backs on our history and heritage?  I am ashamed. 
How about you?

Study: 5,100 Kids in Foster Care After Parents Deported
November 3, 2011, 2:01 pm ET by Gretchen Gavett

“Even if the [immigration] law is executed with perfection, there will be parents separated from their children,” White House Director of Intergovernmental Affairs Cecilia Muñoz told us when we interviewed for her our recent film Lost in Detention.

And while she stressed that the solution is comprehensive immigration reform, a new report from the Applied Research Center [ARC], which advocates for immigration reform, has found that, in the meantime, an increasing number of children are being placed into foster care when a parent is deported.

At least 5,100 children in 22 states are currently in foster care, and if the current pace of deportations continues, ARC expects that number to rise to 15,000 children in the next five years. Nearly 397,000 people were deported in fiscal year 2011 — up from more than 392,000 in 2010. Since Obama took office, his administration has deported more than a million people.

The record number of deportations is in part attributed to federal-local partnership programs like Secure Communities and 287(g), which track the immigration status of people booked in jails across the country. According to ARC, foster care children in counties participating in 287(g) are 29 percent more likely to have parent who has been detained or deported.

This trend worries some, including Lake County, Ill., Sheriff Mark Curran, who was an initial . . .

To read entire report click here.