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April 18, 2008

"Children Should be Treated Like Refugees"

John Moritz:

A child protection expert says the children -- and the children of those children -- who are now in state custody should be cared for in the same way as refugees from Southeast Asia who migrated to the United States after the fall of Saigon.

Families from South Vietnam and Cambodia were kept intact, a social safety net was set up around them and they gradually assimilated into mainstream culture, said Richard Wexler, who leads the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform.

"One thing that we as a society know how to do is provide for refugees, and that's exactly what we are dealing with here," Wexler said Wednesday from his office in Alexandria, Va. "These children live in a very isolated world of their own and they have no idea of the world they suddenly find themselves in."

Wexler, who has criticized Texas' policies regarding the placement of children in foster homes in recent years, urged state officials to do their best to keep families together as long as they are out of reach of anyone who might abuse them.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at April 18, 2008 10:00 AM
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