The sound of families being ripped apart

Breaking apart families and ripping children from their parents is no way to achieve secure borders.

The audio is haunting. It is the wailing of kids being separated from their parents.

That happens to be our current policy as the Trump Administration stands firm in the Immigration War.

A defiant President Trump is blaming Democrats for what he termed a “horrible and tough” situation.

He got that part right. What he gets wrong is that this is the “Democrats’ law.” That’s not really the case.

Democrats are countering that there is no law to support this unconscionable action, that this is instead a crisis that has been fomented by the Trump Administration in its hard-line stance on immigration, one that could be rectified by a single swipe of the president’s pen.

Caught in the middle are the children and families trying to enter the country.

The “zero-tolerance” policy means border agents who stop those attempting to enter the country illegally are separating children from their parents.

Under the policy, those caught crossing the border are referred for prosecution.

But the process separates kids from their parents. Adults wind up in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service, while their children are taken to facilities run by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Under previous administrations, those caught were routinely simply referred for civil deportation proceedings, which does not require the separation.

The president this week asserted those looking to cross the border illegally with their children “could be murderers and thieves and so much else.”

He took to his favorite form of communication, Twitter, to suggest undocumented immigrants could increase gang crime.

“The United States will not be a migrant camp, and it will not be a refugee holding facility,” Trump said in a speech.

So far more than 2,300 children have been taken from their parents in the border crackdown between May 5 and June 9, according to statistics released by the Department of Homeland Security.

It has created a political firestorm – and rightly so.

Naturally, with the midterm elections looming, Democrats have seized on the issue, with many of them actually visiting the bulging detention centers in Texas and other border states where children are being housed. Now even some Republicans are joining the Democrats in speaking out about the policy.

All four living former first ladies have condemned the action.

It does not come as a surprise that Rosalind Carter, Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama, all spouses of Democratic presidents, have all expressed horror at the situation, which also drew the attention of the current first lady. Melania Trump said in a statement that she “hates” to see families separated at the border.

But her Democratic predecessors went further, with Clinton calling it a “moral and humanitarian crisis.”

Michelle Obama said, “Sometimes truth transcends party.”

But none of their words carried the impact of those of Laura Bush, who penned an op-ed piece in the Sunday Washington Post, calling the stance “cruel.”

“I live in a border state,” Mrs. Bush said. “I appreciate the need to enforce and protect our international boundaries, but this zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart.”

But the real heartbreak comes with hearing the sounds of children crying out for their parents.

“Papa! Papa!” one child can be heard on an audio recording of one of the encounters.

Today President Trump plans to meet with Republican leaders as the conflagration surrounding the policy builds. Two new bills could be considered. It can’t come quick enough.

We all want secure borders. But accomplishing it by breaking apart families and ripping children from their parents is not the way to achieve it. This is not what America does.

At least until now.