Reprinted with permission from Shareblue.
Trump’s family separation policy was an unmitigated moral catastrophe — so naturally, the Trump White House is talking about reviving it.
“The White House is actively considering plans that could again separate parents and children at the U.S.-Mexico border,” reports the Washington Post.
The move to reintroduce a policy former CIA Director General Michael Hayden compared to Nazi Germany comes from Stephen Miller, one of Trump’s most viciously racist and anti-immigrant advisers.
Miller has so much contempt for immigrants that he once attacked the Statue of Liberty. His fringe xenophobic views are so reprehensible, even his own family has condemned him for them.
According to the Post, there have been several high-level meetings at the White House about bringing back the cruel policy with only a few minor tweaks.
One option would be to detain parents with children for the legally allowed 20-day limit, and then force parents to make a heart-wrenching decision: Remain together as a family in a government detention facility for months or years waiting for their immigration case to move forward, or volunteer to be separated from their child so that other relatives or guardians in the United States can seek custody.
The original policy, which drew massive protests and generated worldwide condemnation in the summer of 2018, introduced the world to the term “tender age facilities,” the euphemistic term used to describe baby jails.
The Trump administration knowingly risked tremendous harm to thousands of children, some just months old, by separating them from their family and jailing them in facilities across the country.
Eventually a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration must reunite the kidnapped children with their parents. More than two months after the court-ordered deadline, however, more than 130 children were still separated from their families.
It’s shocking that the administration would willingly re-embrace this cruel policy. Not only does it risk sparking a new wave of public outrage, it also faces numerous policy hurdles.
For one, the Post reports, the administration could get tied up in court battles. It might not be legal to tear families apart, even if parents sign waivers allowing their children to remain in government custody.
The Trump team will also have difficulty finding adequate facilities to detain thousands more immigrants, many of whom are fleeing violence and seeking asylum in the United States.
To solve this conundrum, one member of Congress, Rep. Steve Knight (R-CA), went so far as to propose legislation to create internment camps for immigrant families, similar to those used during World War II to unconstitutionally detain Japanese and Japanese-American citizens.
The easiest solution, of course, would be to simply not tear families apart.
But as several officials who were briefed on the matter told the Post, “Miller and others are determined to act.”
While most Americans are appalled at the idea of separating children from their parents, some members of Congress still defend the policy.
Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) made up fake information about human trafficking to defend the program in the past.
And Rep. Lou Baretta (R-PA), who is running for Senate, went on television defending the policy.
It wasn’t long ago when Republicans attempted to brand themselves “compassionate conservatives.”
But with Trump at the helm, compassion has been officially replaced by abject cruelty.
Published with permission of The American Independent.
