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family separation

Joy

10 things that made us smile this week

Upworthy/@alison.retelle/Instagram, Buitengebieden/Twitter

Upworthy's weekly roundup of joy and delight.

When the world is heavy—and it is right now, very much so—it's wise to try to balance digesting the 24/7 news cycle with some positive things. Not because we should ignore reality or turn a blind eye to tragedy, but because we are human beings with emotions and psyches, and focusing on what's going wrong all the time isn't good for us.

In fact, joy and laughter can be incredibly healing, even in the midst of struggle or sadness. That's really the whole point of these weekly roundups—to provide some wholesome, healthy endorphin-pushing delight when you need a little lift.

Fair warning: At least one of the things in this list might evoke some unexpected emotions, so you might want to grab a tissue. Not sad tears, just … well, you'll see. Totally worth it, I promise.

And with that, off we go.

Who broke this cat and why is this so funny?

The way this cat eats.. pic.twitter.com/b0xatDFXUG
— Buitengebieden (@Buitengebieden) 1645341028

I've had over a dozen cats in my lifetime, and I've never once seen any of them do anything like this. Seriously, what? And the way it falls over backward? Hilarious.

Journalist's mom interrupts him while he's working and it's too precious.

See on Instagram

Myles Harris is an Ohio-based journalist for ABC and he shared this video of his mom Sandi's drive-by hello. "HI BABY!!!" People loved it. Sandi is everyone's mama.

Middle schoolers' homemade boat sailed all the way from New Hampshire to Norway.

A group of middle schoolers in New Hampshire launched a homemade boat into the ocean in October 2020. Miraculously, 462 days and 8,300 miles later, a group of Norwegian sixth graders found it. Amazing. Read the full story here.

Oh, this little sweetheart big brother and his big feelings.

See on Instagram

This is what true love looks like. That is one lucky baby sister.

Indiana Jones themed Rube Goldberg video is super cool.

@enbiggen
Indiana Jones

When you first watch this video, it may not be apparent that it's computer generated, but if you see how perfectly it loops from the end back to the beginning, it's pretty clear. Still a super cool video. Read the full story about it here.

Did you know baby x-rays are the cutest thing ever?

See on Instagram

Scroll through and wook at dose widdle bones in the widdle hand! And the widdle bones in the widdle footsy! And the kid in the x-ray machine? Oh my goodness.

Don't you just hate it when you get the static hair flyaways?

It\u2019s so dry in here\u2026Humidifier, Hello?! pic.twitter.com/VjDiWk8pDs
— Fred Schultz (@Fred Schultz) 1645305227

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. [Deep breath.] HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Be right back, gotta go get myself a pet squirrel.

\u201cPlease don\u2019t stop\u201d pic.twitter.com/1IiF1U82ol
— Buitengebieden (@Buitengebieden) 1645743173

Any time I'm feeling stressed, I'm just going to put this video on repeat. Talk about soothing. Sheesh.

Grab a tissue and watch this fixer of beloved stuffies get to work.

See on Instagram

Don't say I didn't warn you. I didn't expect it either. Oof. So sweet.

And finally, this is just about the cutest thing I've ever seen. Like, ever.

What the world needs right now..pic.twitter.com/TYpPQ3b5I6
— Buitengebieden (@Buitengebieden) 1645482434

You think it's just an unbelievably cute puppy standing next to a painfully cute chick, and then the puppy starts falling asleep (which isn't even fair), and then the chick tucks itself under the pupper's chin, and then you pass out because no one can handle this much cuteness.

There you go, friends. I hope that brought a little brightness to your day and a little joy to your weary hearts.

From Your Site Articles

Parents separated from their kids in 2018 finally reunited on judge’s orders. It's 18 months too late.

Every Last One/Facebook

David Xol hadn't been able to hug his son Byron in a year and a half. When they were finally reunited last week in Los Angeles, on orders from a federal judge, Xol dropped to his knees and tearfully held his son for three minutes straight. Byron, now 9 years old, beamed.

The father and son had arrived together on U.S. soil in 2018 and Xol. Charged with illegal entry, Xol signed a document that border agents told him would allow him and Byron to be deported together. But then they took Byron away anyway and deported Xol to Guatemala alone.

Byron, age 7 at the time, was held in government facilities for 11 months, until the family's lawyer convinced a federal court to force the U.S. to let Byron go live with a foster family in Texas. Holly and Matthew Sewell took him in last May.

According to the Los Angeles Times, more than 4,000 children have been taken from their parents as part of the "zero tolerance" policy implemented by the Trump administration in the spring of 2018. From teens to infants, children who have already been through hardship were subjected to further trauma at the hands of the U.S. government. And make no mistake, being separated from parents in a foreign land with no idea where they've gone or when you'll see them again is, by definition, trauma.

RELATED: The trauma will be long-lasting for kids separated at the border. Here's what you need to know.

Research has proven this over and over, but every parent knows it on a gut level. I still remember the terror on my son's face the time he thought he'd lost us in public once, and that was only for a few minutes. Children can endure all kinds of challenges when they are secure in their parents' care. Taking away that security without necessity isn't just wrong—it's unforgivably cruel.

"People want to make this a heartwarming story, but it's not. It's devastating," Holly Sewell, Byron's foster mother, told the LA Times. "There is just no good reason why we had to do this to this child and this family. And he symbolizes thousands of others who have been put in this exact same position."

Xol was one of nine parents who arrived in Los Angeles to be reunited with their children last week after a federal judge found that the U.S. government had illegally prevented them from seeking asylum. Let's repeat that for those who are inevitably going to show up in the comments of this article saying, "They should go through the process legally!" The U.S. government broke the law here.

According to the law, one has to be on U.S. soil or at a port of entry in order to request asylum; it can't be done from an embassy or consulate in another country. And one's immigration status, by law, has no bearing on whether or not they can request asylum. Here's the actual wording from the U.S. Customs and Immigration Services website:

"To obtain asylum through the affirmative asylum process you must be physically present in the United States. You may apply for asylum status regardless of how you arrived in the United States or your current immigration status."

In addition, at the time these parents arrived, no other country they may have passed through on their way to the U.S. had "safe third country" status, meaning asylum-seekers didn't have to request asylum in those countries. For many asylum-seekers, the U.S. is the only safe option, and for those with family already in the U.S., the option that makes the most logistical sense as well. Legally, these parents were allowed to request asylum and had the right to go through that process.

Even if you have an issue with someone entering the country illegally and then legally requesting asylum, taking their children away from them is a punishment that does not fit the crime (which is technically a misdemeanor on first offense). Family separation is cruel and unusual, both to the parents and to the children. And when you add on the reported depraved conditions of detention facilities and the fact that children have died in them on our watch, it's even worse.

However, one bright spot in this whole scenario is the humanity it has uncovered, as thousands have rallied behind these families to provide them legal protection and representation. The fact that ordinary Americans have to pool our own resources to protect vulnerable people from our own government is enough to make your head spin, but that's where we are.

RELATED: This group raised $1 million in just 9 hours to help kids at the border. Here's how.

Together Rising is one organization who has made an ongoing push to keep families together.

"Although it is a travesty that the administration of this country tore these families apart, Together Rising is committed to representing the heartbroken, angry women of this nation who are standing up to bring these families back together," says Glennon Doyle, founder and president of Together Rising, a grassroots fundraising organization. "Together, we have raised more than $8.5 Million — including $80,000 in 90 minutes this week — to equip boots on the ground warriors, like the heroes at Al Otro Lado, who are finding and reunifying these families, and supporting, and advocating for detained children."

The combined efforts of various non-profit, advocacy, and legal aid organizations to defend the rights of these parents and children are making a difference one family at a time, and bravo to all of them. But how frustrating is it that the U.S. government isn't solving the problems it caused itself? How is it possible that they didn't keep meticulous records of what parents and children were separated, or where they were sent after these separations? Why are we having to raise money and voices and red flags and scramble together lawyers in order to reunite the families our government unjustly tore apart?

There are simply some lines we all have to agree not to cross, no matter what. Cruelty to innocent children is one of those lines. Our country has committed this injustice on our watch, and if we don't speak out and do something to remedy it, then who and what are we?

From Your Site Articles

immigration

When more than 2,000 children were taken from their families at the border, Julie Schwietert Collazo found it increasingly difficult to sleep.

And as the spouse of a refugee, immigration issues were already intensely personal for her family.

One night, Schwietert Collazo was listening to the radio and heard an interview with the lawyer of a detained Guatemalan mother. Yeni Gonzalez had been separated from her three children at the border while seeking asylum.

Yeni Gonzalez speaks at a press conference. Photo by Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images.

"Something he said connected the dots for me about how some parents can be reunified with kids," says Schwietert Collazo. "He explained that Yeni was in a detention facility in Arizona and her kids were known to be in a center in NYC, and that, technically speaking, they could be reunified. She just needed to get to NYC."

Schwietert Collazo wondered what might happen if she tried to make reunification possible for this one family.

She, her husband, and some friends brainstormed and decided they wanted to try to raise bond for Gonzalez, get her to New York City, and support her until her case was heard.

Coordinating with Gonzalez's lawyer, the group immediately launched a GoFundMe, setting an arbitrary goal since they didn't yet know what Gonzalez's bond amount would be. The next morning, they learned it would be $7,500. They had already raised well beyond that overnight.

But money wasn't the only obstacle to helping bring Gonzalez and her children back together. Somehow, the group had to get her from Arizona to New York.

It wasn't as simple as planning a cross-country move. Gonzalez doesn't have a photo ID, so that eliminated the simplest and most obvious option of buying her a plane ticket. The next option — ground travel by Greyhound or Amtrak — could have put her in danger as a lone traveler. So the community got creative.

Schwietert Collazo and the group set up a rideshare relay, moving Gonzalez across the country in vehicles driven by volunteers and stopping in volunteer host homes along the way.

On July 2, Gonzalez arrived in NYC to see streets lined with supporters cheering for her. Accompanied by two elected officials and her lawyer the next day, Gonzalez visited with her children for the first time since their separation.

Gonzalez embraces Janey Pearl, one of the volunteers who helped drive her cross-country to NYC. Photo by Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images.

A nationwide injunction in June 2018 ordered all separated families to be reunited within a month. The logistics of that order, however, are proving to be nothing but pure chaos.

The injunction ordered all children under 5 to be reunified with their parents within 14 days and all older children to be reunited within 30 days. Even with the private funds and community help she received, Gonzalez's case will likely take longer than that.

For other families, the challenges of reunification are even more overwhelming.

For starters, kids — some of them preverbal — have been moved all over the country with little to no documentation that would be able to link them back to their parents. Additionally, immigration advocates and lawyers report that many parents are simply giving up their asylum claims out of desperation for reuniting with their children.

Some organizations, like the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center (MIRC) are stepping in to help clean up the mess surrounding separated families.

Previously, MIRC handled cases of "unaccompanied minors," defined as adolescents and teenagers who crossed the border alone. Now that very young children separated from their parents are included in that category, MIRC's work has grown more complicated.

Additionally, MIRC managing attorney Susan Reed says that most of the cases she sees unfortunately don't pertain to parents who are eligible for bond, like Gonzalez.

"It's relatively uncommon that people are getting bonds and being allowed to move forward with asylum claims," says Reed. That's because when Attorney General Jeff Sessions eliminated domestic violence and gang violence as grounds for asylum last month, he made it increasingly difficult for anyone to be granted asylum.

In addition, Reed says, prosecutors at the border are aggressive about trying to get people's paths to asylum cut off as quickly as possible.

"So far our clients who've been reunited have been reunited with parents who either have already been deported or are being deported," says Reed. "And even that hasn't been going that well."

As cases like Gonzalez's become less common, it's more important that individuals like Schwietert Collazo to step in and help with reunification where possible.

Getting Gonzalez closer to her children started with one person moving from compassion to action.

[rebelmouse-image 19478286 dam="1" original_size="1200x1083" caption="Gonzalez walks with members of the team that is helping her reunite with her kids, including Julie Schwietert Collazo, in back. Photo via Sen. Mike Gianaris/Twitter." expand=1]Gonzalez walks with members of the team that is helping her reunite with her kids, including Julie Schwietert Collazo, in back. Photo via Sen. Mike Gianaris/Twitter.

The most important thing, says Schwietert Collazo, is to trust the grassroots process.

"Each person who has shown up has been totally empowered to 'own' their part of the process and to be responsible for it," she says. "We haven't needed to lean on or involve any government representatives, and my experience is that when you trust your team, you can get things done more quickly." Her team's plan went from idea to full fruition in less than a week.

Schwietert Collazo hopes that her team's action plan can act as a model that others can use to support more detained parents reunite with their children.

In fact, on July 4, the group launched two more GoFundMe campaigns for two more moms, each one already approaching their $25,000 goal. Her efforts make it possible for others to contribute to the reunification effort by supporting her team or by starting a reunification project of their own in hopes that, eventually, all families separated at the border can be brought together again.

Thousands of protesters marched together to support reuniting families torn apart at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Cities all over the country were filled with engaged citizens on Saturday, June 30, 2018, as thousands of protesters marched together to support reuniting families torn apart at the U.S.-Mexico border.

In May and June, thousands of families were split apart after the Trump administration issued a zero-tolerance immigration policy that resulted in several thousand children being taken away from their parents and held in detention centers. Families Belong Together, an organization resisting the Trump administration's zero-tolerance immigration policy, organized a march on Washington to protest the troubling policies. Citizens around the country marched in solidarity in their communities to drive home one simple message: #FamiliesBelongTogether.