In keeping with the current administration’s apparent goal of becoming literal cartoon villains, ICE and DHS are currently targeting unaccompanied children for deportation. ICE agents have been using the noble-sounding guise of “welfare checks” to discover whether children are, in the Guardian’s phrasing, “viable to be deported.” This cynical and manipulative tactic is what one advocate calls “backdoor family separation.”

One such “welfare check” happened in Washington state earlier this month. A 16-year-old girl was visited by ICE and immediately called her sponsor, Samuel Smith, director of immigrant legal aid at Manzanita House. Smith said, “Both the text messages sent and the tone of communication when talking on the phone, was of a child who was incredibly scared… She had no idea what was going on and was worried that her life would be flipped upside down.”

Words fail to express the cruelty on display here.

(Taken from an email sent to me by Never Again Action.)