In consuming national news today, one is trekking through a minefield of potential emotional reactions. Every day it seems, no matter which side of the political aisle you’re on, there is a new crisis to frighten and enrage us, a new scandal to shock us, a new revelation to exhaust us. It can be tempting to tune out, take a breather. Save your strength.

But Leigh Anne Freeman went another way.

In slightly less than two weeks, the Bainbridge Island mother of two young boys went from outraged to determined.

Determined, that is, to hold a community event to raise awareness of, and money for, localized efforts working against the recent enacting of government policies she, and many others, view as deplorable — specifically, the separating of children from their parents during the apprehension and incarceration of undocumented immigrants.

“These last 17 months have been difficult but, politics aside, on Tuesday [June 19] it was like 10 o’clock at night and I was reading about the United States pulling out of the [U.N.] Human Rights Council and I just couldn’t believe it,” Freeman said.

A graduate of the University of Washington, with a law, economics and public policy degree, Freeman said she understood better than most what a significant change of course that was for the country.

“We looked a lot at children’s rights and human rights,” she said. “So, when I was thinking back on being in these classes and talking about what an integral part the United States plays in children’s rights, and then to hear that our country was pulling out of [the council], it just kind of broke in a way. And I’m not one of those people who breaks and gets depressed; I’m one of those people who breaks and is just like, ‘Something’s got to change — now.’”

Her nebulous ambition and uncertain path to action became clearer when Freeman called her friend, island lawyer Evangeline Stratton, to vent.

“I just started spit-balling with her and talking with her about what I could do,” Freeman said.

Putting her faith in the judicial system, one of the things in this country which Freeman said “still has power,” the two decided to organize a fundraiser for a group working specifically to uphold human rights in a capacity that was currently in greater demand than ever: Kids In Need of Defense.

“I thought I want to do something that’s going to help on the legal front with these kids,” Freeman said. “They are a nonprofit organization that works will all different immigrants and refugee children coming into our country,” Freeman said.

“Right now they do have people down at the SeaTac federal detention center helping there … and so for me it was about finding an organization that was both national and local that we could have a direct impact on trying to reunite the children with their parents.”

Kids In Need of Defense (KIND) staff, and pro bono attorney partners at law firms, corporations, and law schools nationwide, represent unaccompanied immigrant and refugee children in their deportation proceedings.

According to group officials, more than 50 percent of children arriving in the U.S. haven no one to represent them in immigration court, and children without such legal aid are five times more likely to de deported back to potentially lethal situations in their home country.

KIND provides lawyers to represent children during deportation proceedings and, if they are ultimately unable to stay in this country, assists in reintegrating them safely in their home countries, too.

Day of protests

The Bainbridge fundraiser/rally will — as part of a larger event consisting of many such gatherings, marches and protests around the country — take place from 4 to 6 p.m. Saturday, June 30 at Town Square (between city hall and Bainbridge Performing Arts, the location of the farmers market). T-shirts will be available, in return for donations. Search “KIND (kids in need of defense) Fundraiser” on Facebook to learn more.

In addition to collecting donations and spreading the word about KIND, Freeman said the rally will feature live music and a craft station, where attendees can write cards and letters to detained children and parents which will be personally delivered by select volunteers. At least one Spanish-speaking volunteer will be on hand to translate messages.

The event’s lineup also boasts several guest speakers, including Jay Stratton, of Stratton Immigration, to answer questions about family separation and the legal work being done to address it; Gillian Ehrlich, an Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner certified in functional medicine to discus how trauma and inequality impacts health across generations for all involved; and Clarence Moriwaki, president of the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community.

Not identical

The correlations between what is being done to immigrant families today and the incarceration of those of Japanese descent, many of them U.S. citizens, in post-Pearl Harbor panic during World War II are obvious, Moriwaki said. Though, there are significant differences as well.

Differences, he said, which give him hope.

“The motto of the [Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion] Memorial is ‘Let it Not Happen Again,’” he said. “That was a real deliberate choice.

“There’s parallels, but there’s not,” Moriwaki explained. “One of the good parallels is that on this island we had Walt Woodward who was the editor [of the Bainbridge Island Review]. He was a lone wolf in that he was the only newspaper editor in the country who editorialized against this from the get-go … This time around, the media’s on board; the media’s calling foul. So there’s a lot of Walt Woodwards around today that didn’t exist 75 years ago, which is a better place to be.”

“People are coming out and you feel brave [enough] to do it, whereas it was silent … when Roosevelt signed his executive order, Congress was silent. You could hear a pin drop. Nobody opposed it. If anything there were those that were fanning the flames.”

Even today, obviously, some do fan similar flames, and the road from conception to incarceration was surprisingly rapid.

In May, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a “zero tolerance” policy toward border crossers apprehended between ports of entry. Under the policy, officials with the Department of Homeland Security are to refer every individual apprehended near the border to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution for illegal entry or illegal re-entry.

According to KIND: “The government made clear that such referrals for prosecution may include individuals seeking asylum, despite the fact that prosecution inhibits access to protection and despite recent reports that many asylum seekers who instead seek asylum at ports of entry have been denied the opportunity to present themselves. It also means that adults traveling with children will be separated. Although the policy focuses on prosecution, it is clearly a de facto family separation policy — something the Trump Administration has long threatened and been rumored to consider. It also follows on a growing trend of family separation that advocates have observed for months — including as documented in an administrative complaint and lawsuit.”

An exact number of children affected and taken from their parents remains uncertain.

According to KIND: “Even before the zero-tolerance policy was implemented, the New York Times reported that 700 children had been separated from an adult claiming to be their parent from October 2017 to April 2018. More than 100 of these children were under the age of 4. These numbers have since grown exponentially. On May 23, 2018, a Customs and Border Protection official testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that 638 parents traveling with 658 children had been ‘processed for prosecution’ under the new zero-tolerance policy between May 6 and May 19, 2018. Given that the Administration has said that parents referred for prosecution will be separated from their children, the testimony means that more than 600 families have been separated under the new policy in less than two weeks.”

Bainbridge reaction

The local community has been extremely supportive, said Freeman, who has been on something of a whirlwind backup-gathering drive throughout the past week. Only a few businesses, and almost no individuals, have pushed back against the idea that additional action was required.

“Because of the polarization of our country right now, everything is political,” Freeman said. “That’s what I’m hearing from some businesses: ‘Oh, we just don’t want to be too political.’ But I’m like, ‘When did caring about human rights or children’s rights become political?’

“This is definitely an across-the-aisle [effort],” she added. “I don’t want people to feel not welcome, or not willing to all be joining in, regardless of our political views on something that’s so basic as children’s rights.”

Ideally, Freeman would like to raise about $10,000 for KIND’s efforts, but said the importance of a unified presence alone cannot be overstated.

“We don’t need to constantly be like, ‘You’re wrong, you’ve done bad,’” she said. “Whenever we do the othering and shaming there is no more communication. So if any of these things can be broken down on however many levels that we need to do, I just feel more optimistic about where our country and we as a human race are going.”

“Whether people donate or not, just come,” Moriwaki agreed. “It’s important to participate.

“Showing up, you physically there, you think, ‘I’m just a person listening to stuff.’ But when there’s an image and, I don’t know, maybe one of those kids or one of those families sees that there were 400 people in this town and 1,000 people here … then they realize they’re not alone, that people have their backs. That you’re literally and figuratively trying to support them with your presence.

“Presence matters, and it does matter who shows up,” he said.