The Crying Kids Game

By Michael Reagan I understand why the national media is so obsessed over the story of children of illegal immigrants being separated from their parents at the Mexican border. Its a heartbreaking sight to see photos of innocent little kids traumatized and crying - even when they were taken in the Obama era. Its also great TV. I also get why the Democrats cant stop using the crying border kids as a political weapon. Its the only issue they have left. The Pelosi Party cant very well complain about the booming Trump economy the low-low unemployment rates for blacks and Latinos or the threat of the president starting a war with North Korea. The Democrats are so desperate theyre still trying to blame President Trump and his mean immigration rules for making the border kids cry. But the American people know better. In every poll Ive seen they place the blame squarely where it belongs - on the crying kidss irresponsible parents. I really dont mind that much that the dominant national media keep showing crying kids who are being temporarily separated from their parents. But I wish the news media - and the politicians of both parties -- would spend as much time covering the crying children of America who are taken away from their parents every day and put into our broken and harmful foster care system. Heartbreaking images of crying little Americans dont show up on CBS MSNBC or Facebook. They arent championed by politicians of either party. No protestors march on city hall and demand they be returned to their parents. But at any given time there are about 400000 American children placed in our horrible government-run foster care system. When they were taken from their abusive or drug-addicted parentss homes - sometimes in the middle of the night - many of them suffered the same trauma as the border kids. But half of our foster kids will never be reunited with their parents and only 20 percent will be adopted. Many will grow up being bounced around from foster home to foster home - as many as five 10 or even 15 times - until they age out at 18. Their stay in foster care hell doesnt end there. About 60 percent of foster care kids who age-out end up on the streets in jail or are quickly recruited by human sex traffickers - many of whom are ex-foster kids. You never get the tragic infuriating and decades-old story of our failed foster care system told in the dominant media. All you get are crickets. Our government foster care system is broken harmful - and stupid. It takes young innocent children and turns many of them into bad kids and criminals. Today it has more than 100000 kids waiting to be adopted. A disproportionate percentage are black. But government rules and concerns about mixed-race families make it so hard to adopt black children out of foster care that adoptive parents who are white are forced to go overseas. Its clear governments dont know how to take proper care of children. Our foster care system which proves that every day should be ended or radically reformed. But thats never going to happen until the people who are so deeply concerned about crying immigrant kids at the border show the same sympathy and outrage for the hundreds of thousands of American foster kids who cry off camera. Unfortunately when it comes to foster care the people who are always saying Weve got to take care of the children are oblivious or AWOL. Where is the mainstream media? Where are the great churches? Where are the weeping celebrities politicians and pundits? Where are the angry protestors? Where are the black leaders? Where are President Obama and Maxine Waters? Do they really care about crying children?