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Call to service

As a Christian, wife, mother and human, I am called to help reunite the children separated from their parents at the southern border of my country. But as I pray, I've wondered what can I do, as I'm just a local government bureaucrat. And, bingo, this crisis has a solution local government can serve as model for. Scarce federal government resources often force local governments to find the solutions ourselves, to be innovative and resourceful. So, here are ideas for potential solutions that can happen at the local level and help save our country and our neighbors who come here for help:

• Send our state National Guardsmen. When they were called to be sent a few months ago, governors declared what their guardsmen would be responsible for. Can the guardsmen now be sent and take the lead on finding the children still kept in cages or sent to state foster care?

• Call on local and national civic hacking groups to help build an emergency database. A need for data is central to reuniting these families.

• Children are being sent to foster care systems across the U.S. Can we not deploy emergency resources to help systems process the influx of children and take up the task of restoring these families?

• Let's start a public-private partnership with tech companies and airlines to build a solid network so we can deploy it across state lines and use it to connect children to parents and get flights rolling that bring families together.

Can we do this on our own, offer help to our federal government even if it isn't what they requested? Let's find out, let's serve and protect and preserve the foundations what has always made and will continue to make this country great.

Hillary Beata

Mount Prospect

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