Trump, Sessions seem proud to imprison kids
WASHINGTON >> The moral outrages from the Trump administration blur together, but this one stands out: The unconscionably cruel policy of ripping the children of wouldbe immigrants away from their parents at the border.
Officials do not even try to hide the fact that the purpose of this inhumane practice is to instill fear. “If you cross the border unlawfully, even a first offense, we’re going to prosecute you,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said. “If you’re smuggling a child, we’re going to prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you, probably, as required by law.”
“Smuggling” a child, Sessions said, as if referring to chattel. There was a time when my ancestors were forcibly taken from their mothers’ arms and sold on the auction block. Make America Great Again!
According to CNN, a Honduran woman at a Texas detention center was breastfeeding when the child was snatched away. Other migrant families have said their children were purportedly led away for showers and clean clothes — but never returned. This is the kind of behavior we expect from monstrous totalitarian regimes such as the one led by North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, not any nation that strives to be a “shining city on a hill.”
Trump has no such aspiration and Sessions has been a consistent anti-immigrant xenophobe throughout his career. But most Americans — and virtually all Republican office-holders — once at least
professed belief in U.S. exceptionalism.
I suppose the Trump-Sessions border policy might be called exceptional, but only in the sense that the rest of the world can only be appalled.
The practice of separating parents from their children flows from the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy of prosecuting every single would-be migrant caught crossing the border without proper documents — a misdemeanor offense.
The parents are hauled away to detention to await a court appearance and “the children will be taken care of — put into foster care or whatever,” said White House chief of staff John Kelly. “But the big point is they elected to come illegally into the United States, and this is a technique that no one hopes will be used extensively or for very long.”
How extensively the “technique” is being applied is unclear. By law, would-be migrants who are seeking asylum — a group that includes many Central American families fleeing rampant gang violence — must be admitted to the country and should be released pending a hearing. This distinction, however, reportedly is not being properly respected.
Sessions wants to erase the distinction entirely. On Monday, abusing his authority over the nation’s immigration courts, Sessions ruled that asylum claims on the grounds of gang or domestic violence “generally … will not qualify.” Sessions proclaimed that few such applicants will even meet the “credible fear” standard for obtaining a hearing — meaning they can just be turned away at the border.
In Central America, gangs often give teens a choice: join or be killed. Parents trying desperately to save their children’s lives are not welcome in Donald Trump’s America.
Earlier this month, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., tried to visit a Brownsville, Texas, detention center where immigrant children are being held — and was turned away. The Facebook Live video of this outrage went viral.
This week, reporters were allowed into that center, where nearly 1,500 boys were being held. The boys, ages 10 to 17, were well cared for — but could not leave. It was a prison for Spanish-speaking children. Trump and Sessions must be proud.