美国国家公共电台 NPR Children's Cries Brought Down Walls Of Indifference

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(SOUNDBITE OF CHILDREN CRYING)

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Cries of children pierce our hearts. Scientists say they're meant to. They move us to love and protect children. Their response is healthy. It's human. And it keeps humanity going. Dr. Marc Bornstein, at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, says the infant cry and the caregiver response have developed together to ensure the survival of the species. Public figures, including the Pope, bishops¹, senators of both parties and every living spouse² of a president, spoke³ out against the Trump⁴ administration policy that separated 2,300 children crossing the border from their families. Laura Bush called the policy cruel. It is immoral⁵, she said, and it breaks my heart.

But the cries of children from a recording⁶ of the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol facility, obtained by ProPublica, seemed to reach into and wrench⁷ so many hearts. The cries of children brought down walls of indifference⁸. Politicians, including Republicans, rushed to distance themselves - if not outright⁹ denounce policies that caused such manifest pain. Governors, including a couple of Republicans, withdrew their National Guard units from border areas to avoid being a part of those policies. Airlines said they would refuse to fly groups of children who had been taken from their families. Several airline attendants said they would walk off any flights that tried to transport those children to keep them from taking off. The cries of children pricked¹⁰ consciences across the country. It made people look into their lives and wonder what they might do - what they should do to help those children.

The executive order signed by the president to end family separation apparently¹¹ does nothing to reunite the 2,300 children who've already been torn from their parents. Some of those children have been moved hundreds - even thousands of miles away into detention¹² centers that have not been opened to the press - and, public officials say, for a carefully approved visit of the kind Melania Trump made on Thursday. But we know and must find a way to report about the children and families who are still locked up and being kept apart. There are still cries to be heard.

(SOUNDBITE OF SLEEP DEALER'S "THE WAY HOME")