The Roots of Trump’s Policy of Separating Children from Parents

I have zero sympathy. These parents knowingly broke the law after it was announced that it would be rigorously enforced, they endangered their children by crossing illegally into the desert where many children have died making the crossing.

Also many of these “parents” are not actually parents but Child Traffickers. Such scum deserve all that is coming to them.

Also this outrage is ridiculous. We separate criminals from their children while they are in detention and no outrage is expressed over that and it is perfectly legal and correct.

The blame is squarely on the those illegally entering the US with children. Since the children are minors, they are separated as they aren’t being charged and placed in a processing area before DHS can take charge of them in their facilities before Fostering them out. ICE does not have the facilities for children and hence why initially they are put in cages till DHS can take them and provide health screening, etc. They also confirm whether the children are being trafficked or not as well. If the former, they try to find the kid’s parents and repatriate the kid or if that is not possible, foster the kid out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzat9MRNIlg&t=95s This is where the kids end up once DHS takes charge of them. Due to the Backlog, they are setting up more stations at US military bases which allows them to use the military logistics network to provide services to these kids.

If Congress wants this to stop, they need to fund the wall so the only way across the border is through proper entry points for legal visitors and illegal visitors can be turned right around before they enter US soil.

The most rational rationalization I’ve heard, of white evangelical support for Trump, is that he’s being employed by God to do his dirtywork. He’s fighting for evangelical causes in ways the moral evangelicals themselves could not. It’s like paying Satan to work for Jesus – trickin’ the trickster to fight for what’s good and right. Or some shit.

If Trump has to try and scapegoat the Democrats as the cause these children pens, to force them to get what he wants, it’s the Lords will, somehow. I’m finding it amazing how many possibilities there can be when a sanctioned sociopath is in power.

Let me be clear, I do not approve of the policy of separating children from their parents. I do not approve of doing it at the border, and I do not approve of it as it has been practiced throughout the nation for decades. There is a great deal about our border policy that I find despicable.

But let’s not be naive and pretend that this media and political crusade has anything to do with some great moral cause of “saving the children.” It does not. It is a cudgel being used to bludgeon Trump and anyone who dares to speak in support of him.

Thank you. This is what I’ve been trying to tell people.

On one hand this situation is pretty terrible, but the drive in the media is obviously identity politics. I’m pretty sure if we ran the numbers we could come up with 2000 children murdered per month for the MIC. Supported by both part parties without comment for the most part in the media who are ‘shocked!’ that our bureaucracy could be so cruel as to take children from their parents though we’ve been doing it since we were colonies. Never mind as bad as these people have it, we have people here already that face the same amount of suffering. I’m speaking specifically to domestic violence. The death squads are supported bipartisan, Pelosi’s only real regret is that they missed some. Now, the flyover people don’t like immigration, having been the tool of robber barron’s since forever.. Bunch of sad sacks that don’t vote the way we like and who would have guessed, another chance to call them racists and rally behind the Democrats. I’m having a hard time falling for it these days though.

Standard neo-libral playbook, guilt them into taking refuges you create so you can lower wages for everyone and play the ol’ “I just don’t know if we’ll have money for Social Security” game in the next news cycle. Honestly, the parents and children would be better off if we shipped them to Canada. I’m sure they’d be welcomed. There are jobs, health care, nice people, and you don’t have to worry about the heat. We’d save money on incarceration, the refugee’s would get less guns and mass shootings. It’s a win-win.

I agree it’s evil, but it seems like its a lesser evil. That’s like catnip to a neo-libral Dem.

Bill H

“But let’s not be naive and pretend that this media and political crusade has anything to do with some great moral cause of “saving the children.” It does not. It is a cudgel being used to bludgeon Trump and anyone who dares to speak in support of him.”

The naivety is yours not the rest of us. I live in one of the most red places in America and there are loads of Republicans incensed with this immoral policy. It is not just that the ‘policy’ is not actual law, or that the Bible does not justify this (looking at you Mr. Racist Sessions), but more to the fact that this policy was deliberately put in place as a way of trying to exert leverage upon the Democrats. This means that, all the lying aside, that Trump deliberately chose to harm children as a tool being used to gain political advantage.

This is not just wrong and immoral. It is evil pure and simple. No person who holds real religious views or has any reasonable sense of morality can see it any other way.

You and Tom need to do some soul searching. If the two of you have no limits at all, as it would appear, then you have little to offer your country or civilization.

Thanks for linking to that thread which I read earlier today, for the immigration/Obama policy substance within it, but also because although it is brutally painful to read very deeply, for the light it shows on internal Democratic dissension. I don’t think I can take being called racist, misogynist, Trump-enabler, and Putin-puppet anymore for trying to push the party left. Maybe there is a way to do that by staying positive and without criticizing any Democrats or Democratic policies, which in a way seems to be what the Clintonites in the thread are demanding. As always, the Clintonites will attack Sanders and Leftish policies, so it gets hard.

But it’s not about me, I suppose, although too fragile and vulnerable to put my body on the line. And terrified of casual conversations with the Democrats who would standing next to me at the protest. Yeah, terrified, I have been baited past my breaking point.

Anyway, this is some agonizing soul-searching about the upcoming midterms from Counterpunch.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/06/15/midterms-coming-antinomy-ahead/

I doubt this policy will stand long, although both Trump and Miller seem to think this civil war will help them in November. And it may be a negotiating tactic. We’ll see.

I have zero sympathy. These parents knowingly broke the law

Yeah, ok, but aren’t you kind of dismissing proportional response out of hand? Illegal immigrants are typically coming to America in search of greater economic prospects than their homeland, and their presence here isn’t causing anything nearly so bad as the trauma that comes from forcefully separating parents and children. If you break the law by speeding, would that justify the cutting of your achilles tendon in your right foot?

America is evil beyond redemption

Probably, but American exceptionalism is bad whether it’s about the good value of America or the bad value of America. Wild guess here, but the reason this blog focuses mostly on America and secondarily on other primarily English-speaking countries is that Ian doesn’t live in or next to China, Russia or Germany. I’m not saying this to try to shame your judgment – which I think is correct – but rather to point out that the actual problem that needs to be fixed is deeper than this one instance, and that even if America should somehow be broken up into whatever you think a good result would be, the actual problem would still be out there ruining the world.

Re Sessions’ invocation of Romans 13, Paul was making a very particular, and fairly specious, argument to Christians not to provoke the Romans. He argues that the brutal Roman authorities should be obeyed because all authority flows from God and that therefore they are instituted by God, that is art of God’s plan. Yet it is interesting that, as a former tax collector, the only specific Roman act he counsels is paying your taxes.

He then goes on and takes it into the Christian context: Obey the commandments. Oh yeah, and love thy neighbor because love is the fulfillment of the law. Oh yeah, and the end times are at hand so don’t fret over details.

As others have noted, the obey the authorities argument was used by Lutherans to justify obeying the Nazis and by slaveowners to justify slavery. It is interesting too that the conservative Sessions is identifying with the Romans and not the Christians they were persecuting. Ironic much?

But why is there so much racism and why is it such a determining force of elections now in such an ugly way?

To paraphrase from my most recent kerfuffle:” I don’t care about Bob’s politics, knowledge, policy positions, or activism…I care how he speaks to me.”

Politics have now become entirely interpersonal.

Examples are obvious everywhere. Sanders history on civil rights, or that his policies were better for blacks didn’t matter, at all, what mattered how he treated particular black persons who got in his face. Obama could do almost anything he wanted. What’s important about Trump is his behavior to individuals or as individuals interpret his general behavior as reflecting and “recognizing and respecting” them. Macron demands a little kid use his title.

This isn’t clientalism, this is grassroots and bottom-up. Methodological individualism is reaching a peak.

Policy or outcome doesn’t matter except as expression, fashion, and sorting mechanism. Spectacles generated constantly are means to intensify and accelerate the process.

Sorry. Last one.

“Obamacare sucks” is always and only an insult or compliment to the person you say it to. Saying it to each other here is flattering, saying it to Clinton Democrats is a personal insult. Obviously the truth is irrelevant, or connects in complicated ways.

How interpersonal relationships aggregate frex on social media is something we are still studying.

The people who internalized “the personal is political” fifty years ago have advantages and skills.

@Che Pasa and Wyoming

Of course Trump’s move is political. Arguing such does not in any way prove that his opponents are driven by noble motives. It is entirely possible, and I assert it is the case here, that both sides have mud on their skirts well above their knees. A pox on both their houses.

Trump loves to do things that will make his opponents go batshit crazy. And, Wyoming, don’t think that Republicans are not included in “his opponents.” They are the “establishment.”

And the establishment never fails to oblige him, casting aside everything that even resembles sanity. Nancy Pelosi is comparing our southern border to Auschwitz, for god’s sake.

Frankly am a bit shocked by some of the racist/nativist replies I see here. Immigrants never took my job (H1-Bs, perhaps), instead they did the work I would not/could not do. Open borders are the only humane way to deal w/this.

@bob mcmanus,

Nixon is said to have perfected the art of the “non-denial denial”. And the DLC Democrats have perfected the art of the “non-opposal opposal”.

The Republicans all by themselves may have the brute-force majority to pass their budget. But if they don’t, the Catfood Clintonites in office will make very sure that enough Catfood Clintonites are detailed to vote with the Republicans to get that budget passed . . . with just enough Catfood Clintonites “non-opposal opposing” it in public to lend a cardboard-replica appearance of credibility to the Catfood Clintonite party. That libetarian journalist who used to work at the Guardian whose name I forget called it ” the rotating villains and rotating heroes” trick.

About racism in the election . . . many little differences added up and every little difference can claim that IT was THE CRUCIAL difference. One such group of ESPECIALLY CRUCIAL difference-makers would be the two-time Obama voters who turned around and voted for Trump in Wisconsin and Michigan. They smelled the Clinton and they smelled the Trump, and the Trump smelled like The Lesser Evil. So they voted for it.

Another group of ESPECIALLY CRUCIAL difference makers might be the northern urban black voters who avoided voting this election. Black non-voters in Milwaukee apparently outnumbers the margin-making difference of Trump voters in Wisconsin. Why did those black non-voters non-vote? Here are three links about that.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/11/why-black-voters-in-milwaukee-werent-enthused-by-clinton.html

https://www.yahoo.com/news/milwaukee-hard-pressed-black-voters-dumped-clinton-221227365.html

and here is a long and somewhat tedious you-tube by leftist Jimmy Dore about why the Milwaukee blacks did not vote. If you can endure the tediosity, you might find the material informative. One of my many take-aways is that part of the Racism which mattered in this election was the Billary Clintonite racism of long-decades standing . . . which finally earned its long-delayed backlash from the non-voting black voters from Milwaukee. Here is the link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lletTq4I54U&feature=youtu.be&a=

There is a lot of blame to go around. Certainly there is a racist and nativist element within Trump’s base but would it be so virulent without the economic problems that many Americans face? Partisan Democrats like to make fun of “economic anxiety” as if it is totally unrelated to nativism but I find this hard to believe. It is easy for affluent liberals to practice telescopic philanthropy because they usually do not experience the downsides of immigration. If anything they benefit from cheap labor in the form of nannies, cooks, landscapers and other hired help. For poorer Americans they will face more competition for jobs and likely have their public services and schools burdened with more costs.

Trump’s immigration policies are cruel and ham-fisted and likely won’t solve the immigration problem. Neither party has any interest in solving the problem because they benefit from the issue. Republicans make all sorts of noise about immigration to rile up the nativist portion of their base while turning a blind eye to the fact that their business allies love cheap labor. Democrats are cynically using the immigration issue as part of their identity politics campaign, hoping that demographic change will help them ride into office without actually doing anything to improve the lives of working Americans.

At this rate America is going to become a racially and ethnically balkanized cyberpunk dystopia. Both parties seem dead set on a politics based on racial/ethnic blocs, which is never a good thing. I expect racial polarization and hatred to get worse in the future while conditions for ordinary working Americans continue to decline.

Immigrants never took my job (H1-Bs, perhaps), instead they did the work I would not/could not do. Open borders are the only humane way to deal w/this.

Undocumented immigrants took the jobs my nephews could have done, H1-Bs took away friends/relatives jobs, and outsourcing took my job. But who cares about the needs of mine and my own, as long as you get yours.

From a practical perspective, the authorized caging of small refugee children is not what our ailing culture needs.

Ah but “the law is the law and must be enforced in full.” Of course that’s horse manure, but it makes a good sound bite. Oh so very tough.

But it’s meaningless. Laws are subject to interpretation, discretion, and change. They can be and are defied, protested, ignored, and overturned. Who is — and isn’t — subject to full (or any) enforcement is a matter of race, power, money, gender, and connections. The Law is applied unequally and always has been.

So long as it isn’t your ox being gored, why should you care what happens to someone else in the clutches of The Law, right?

So El Caudillo issues an edict, a diktat as it were, countermanding his previous order regarding the little children and their migrant parents, and voila! The issue of family separations at the border is solved. In reality, it’s made worse, but that’s how these things tend to go. There will be court challenges taking forever to resolve, many of the children already separated from their families will never be reunited, and the families held together in detention camps — for as long as that is allowed– may find themselves in near permanent limbo.

The cries will fade and we’ll go on to the next outrage/crisis. Which is no doubt already in the boiling pot.

Ending this regime does not mean ending the cycles of woe that are in motion. The wheel may turn a little slower after these freaks are gone, but the wheel will still turn.

Now that Trump has backed off, but problems still remain, a word or two on the immigration hysteria behind it all and the economics.

First, immigration from Mexico and Latin America is not now a problem. In recent years that net immigration has been close to zero. About as many people are crossing the border in each direction. The Wall is a symbolic gesture.

Second, the economic stagnation of the working class in the US is a real problem, but it is more the result of income being siphoned off at the top than from jobs being taken at the bottom. Not that the two phenomena are not related, but it is the people at the top who have the power. Tax breaks for the rich do not induce them to create jobs at home. If they did, their increasing incomes in the past 40 years would have had the same effect. It did not. The people in power are playing the working class and immigrants against each other. Both groups lose.

Third, the fact that the US, among other developed countries, has too low a birth rate to replace its population means that it needs immigrants to maintain its economy. So the present problem of immigration is nil, and the future problem is to increase immigration.

Ché Pasa, when Trump talks about the law, it is to laugh. He spent his whole career in New York real estate where the business model is based on fraud, bribery, money laundering, tax evasion, mob connections, and flouting labor and immigration laws. It’s not did he or didn’t he break the law. He broke the law every damn day, –and he got away with it. Why? because law is for us rubes, not the Donald. So we get this weird spectacle of the Lawbreaker-in-Chief railing against lawbreakers: zero tolerance, defenseless four month olds and their parents cast as dangerous gang members who must be crushed, and all done with a straight face and not a hint of self-awareness.

Embarrassing, Paul came from a family of tentmakers. Matthew was the tax collector. Paul before his conversion did take part in the persecution of Christians, including Stephen.

Why does Middle America support Trump on immigration? Total mystery! Paging Willy: ethics lecture needed.

If you are getting mothers and per-adolescent children, you can be confident that those mothers and pre-adolescent children are non-rapists.

The population among which to look for incoming rapists would be young-to-middle-aged men, most likely single. Do the governments in the countries they come from have enough marginal functionality to know which of them might be rapists or rape suspects if given the names? What per cent of incoming refugees from Central America are rapists? Does anyone have any figures on that?

dc, it’s unethical to discriminate against people whose only crime is having temporarily misplaced their documents, such as birth certificate and arrest warrant(s) for rape.

I just wanna know the ethics of providing sanctuary to those seeking asylum from rape, rape indictment(s), and/or 3 children and a husband with a good job.

The United States was founded in the Original Sins of black chattel slavery and Native American genocide and spent a good deal of its history perpetuating them.

Do you deny it?

Che Pas, yes, I deny that the imagined concept of “Original Sin” is relevant here. I also deny your implication when using the word “founded”. The US was “founded” on a lot dynamics. Slavery was one of them. It was an element. Not THEE element.

I do not judge ‘times’ by my standards today. I think it silly and hypocritical to do that.

And even if I did, look at the past through such tainted standards, I would not employ the words “Original Sin” given the general meaning of the term.

Compared to the rest of the world, taking the very long view, the US looks pretty good to me. Far from perfect…..but good.

@Blizzard OfOzzz,

I wish I had a mind fast enough to keep up with you as you try changing the subject from second to second to second. I guess I am still stuck on what you wrote a second ago.

Here’s what you wrote a second ago.

” BlizzardOfOzzz PERMALINK
June 22, 2018
dc, it’s unethical to discriminate against people whose only crime is having temporarily misplaced their documents, such as birth certificate and arrest warrant(s) for rape.

I just wanna know the ethics of providing sanctuary to those seeking asylum from rape, rape indictment(s), and/or 3 children and a husband with a good job.”

And since I can’t keep up with you as you try changing the subject from second to second to second . . . I can only repeat a third time the question your first comments still leave me with.

Ready? Here goes . . .

“different clue PERMALINK
June 22, 2018
@BlizzardofOzzz,

People in flight from serious threat of death ( such as people targeted by gang members in el Salvador) may leave in such haste as to not take ( or not even have) birth certificates, arrest records and such things.

Is there any reason to think that women and pre-adolescent children could be rapists and would have conveniently forgotten arrest records showing that they are?

What per cent of the young and middle-aged single men coming over might be rapists in their home country? Are there any general facts and figures on percentages? And how would that be relevant to the women and pre-adolescent children in question here? “

I could cite you a review of peer-reviewed reviews by Scheckelhoffer and Diamondstein (2015) entitled “What is the Ratio of Rapists to Rapees seeking Asylum at the Mexican Border…

No you could not.

BOO’s belief in science goes as far as ‘proving’ that you’re on the other team and calling “I know you are but what am I” a peer review.

Not very compelling.

Sometimes it seems like one side wants to let em all in regardless of how illegal they are, while the other side wants to keep ‘The Other’ ones out regardless of how legal they are.

Is this yet another episode of “Senseless Debate Designed To Keep The Focus Off The Things Elites Are Doing To America That Are Ruining Everybody Else’s Lives” ?

Whatever happened to Trump’s hopeful-changeful anti-elite messaging anyways?

There are these things called rule of law and due process. So no, you can’t beat up on the Mexican rich like them or not to solve your problems without doing fundamental damage to your society. What we need are realistic, legal policies, not temper tantrums.