Ethical issues in the United States (U. S.) and society can change over time.
Write a 500- to 650-word paper that discusses one of the ethical issues below. Use the headings and/or subheadings below for clarity to ensure that you have covered all required points in the paper. Your paper should:
Include an introduction, current status, and conclusion.
Describe your topic, including current research, news, and information.
Explain the ethical issues related to your topic.
Explain any human subject protections related to your topic (if any).
Recommend at least two strategies professionals in organizations could use to be more socially responsible for trying to correct any legal and/or ethical issues related to the topic.
Provide a brief description of each strategy.
Select one of the strategies discussed and explain why it is the best strategy for professionals to use in reference to the topic you selected.
Select one of the current public or professional topics below:
Protection of the U. S. Border
Torture and Terrorists: A Moral Predicament
Family Separation at the U. S. Southern Border
Medicaid in Texas Communities
Corporate Welfare Across the U. S.
Legalizing Medical and Recreational Use of Marijuana
Mandatory Child Immunizations
Health Care: A Right or a Privilege
The Grocery Gap, Food Deserts, and Obesity
Mental Health and Suicide Prevention
Caring for an Aging Population
An Ethical View of Gun Control
Cite 3 scholarly, reputable references used to create your paper. One reference must be your textbook. Reputable references include trade or industry publications, government or agency websites, scholarly works, journal articles, or other sources of similar quality.
Format your paper according to APA guidelines.
Family Separation at the U. S. Southern Border
Introduction
One of the current issues that have been the center of contention across the country is family separation at the U. S. Southern Border. The current regime has adopted a policy that allows and has embarked on family separation where children of illegal immigrants are separated from their families. As much as the policy and the undertaking are aimed at discouraging illegal immigration to the United States, the ethical dynamics relating to the issue make the policy appear inhumane and unethical. Children are supposed to be with their parents regardless of the actions of their parents, and it is wrong for authorities at the Southern border to separate them in the event that their parents are caught trying to get into the nation using illegal means (Slack et al., 2015). In this paper, the ethical dynamics of this policy is critiqued to showcase whether the country is ethically correct to carry out family separation. In addition to this, a series of recommendations are presented with the objective of offering alternative measures that can be taken to reduce the prevalence of people getting into the country through illegal avenues.
Ethical Issues
Described by some as the most horrific policy to be ever adopted by the government, there are various ethical issues relating to it that have led to the poor branding of the policy. It is the ethical obligation of authorities to ensure that they guarantee the safety and well-being of children. However, the government detention or relocation system has been described by many as unaccountable and children are likely to be exposed to an unsafe environment. For example, there is the psychological distress that children go through once they cannot see their parents. In so doing, their psychological well-being is jeopardized (Linton et al., 2017). In addition to the above, the U.S has the ethical obligation to ensure that children (who are innocent and helpless) are not exposed to any form of torture. The separation of families, however, acts contrary to this ethical obligation. In the detention centers, children cannot move freely, and they cannot go about the normal activities that children deserve such as playing. Therefore, most of the humane, ethical obligations of the agencies involved in this process are overlooked which is wrong.
Table 1
Table 1, below, showcases the reasons behind the adoption of the policy and the objectives that the policy is meant to achieve. This new policy is also compared to other policies that have been used the past to ascertain its effectiveness. Retrieved from (https://justiceforimmigrants.org/what-we-are-working-on/immigrant-detention/family-separation/legislation-impacting-family-separation-at-the-us-mexico-border-senate/)
Graph 1
The graph below showcases the rate at which illegal immigrants have been removed from the country.
Retrieved from (https://www.factcheck.org/2018/06/illegal-immigration-statistics/)
Human Protections
Children, according to the human rights doctrine, should be allowed to access food, shelter, and clothing as part of their fundamental rights. However, they are denied the opportunity to proper meals, and the detention centers are not a proper shelter for children (Williams, 2015). Therefore, it should follow that the government should work to ensure that children are afforded the basic human rights which include food, shelter, and clothing.
Strategies to address the ethical issues
In trying to deal with the issues related to the matter, the agencies involved (DHS, HHS As well as the Justice Department) could ensure that the detention centers offer proper shelter, they offer food, and clothes for the children. This would help to ensure that the well-being of the children is enhanced (Williams, 2015). Apart from this strategy, DHS, HHS As well as the Justice Department could take a different approach other than separating families. They could simply deport the family as a whole to the nations they are coming from. It would involve getting in touch with the mother countries from which the families come from and tasking them with the role of prosecuting illegal immigrants (Bonizzoni, 2018). This would be the best practice as it would save the U.S resources used in detaining the children and suing their parents. It would also ensure that the ethical responsibility of children staying with their parents is achieved.
Conclusion
All in all, the country has been struggling with the crisis at the Southern Border. However, the increase in the number of immigrants is not reason enough need for drastic measure that are inhumane. The country should see to it that ethical issues are addressed regardless of the approach they take to deal with the issue of illegal immigration.
References
Bonizzoni, P. (2018). Policing the intimate borders of the nation: a review of recent trends in family-related forms of immigration control. In Gendering Nationalism (pp. 223-239). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-76699-7_12
Linton, J. M., Griffin, M., & Shapiro, A. J. (2017). Detention of immigrant children. Pediatrics, e20170483. Retrieved from http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/139/5/e20170483.abstract
Slack, J., Martínez, D. E., Whiteford, S., & Peiffer, E. (2015). In harm’s way: Family separation, immigration enforcement programs and security on the US-Mexico border. J. on Migration & Hum. Sec., 3, 109. Retrieved from https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/jmighs3&div=8&id=&page=
Williams, J. M. (2015). From humanitarian exceptionalism to contingent care: Care and enforcement at the humanitarian border. Political Geography, 47, 11-20. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0962629815000025
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