545 Children Without Parents

On October 21, 2020, The New York Times Twitter account featured this headline: “Breaking News: The parents of 545 migrant children separated at the border by the Trump administration still haven’t been found, court documents show.” That same day I started this project. I sourced and severed 545 snapshots representing parents and children separated at the United States-Mexico border. I cut each photograph in two. About sixty children were under the age of five when separated.

I found an old accounting record book, each page in triplicate and numbered in red: two lined pages, one blank. I taped the snapshot splinters inside. I found an immigration case file folder. It became the cover. As I taped, the book got broader and harder to read. It no longer closes. Shadowy image fractures puncture every page. It is a visual record of unsolved cases. An overstuffed filing cabinet. A temporary shelter.

It is the most beautiful and tragic photographic object I’ve made. I consider each spread a unique photograph since every page is perforated and can be removed easily, just like the people the pictures represent.

Some parents cannot be located because they are back in their home countries. Some identified have decided that their children are safer in the United States. They have elected the children to stay in new homes with friends or family who agreed to sponsor them.

The White House, Homeland Security. ‘House’ and ‘home’ are words full of meaning and emptied of meaning.