It’s about time Republicans do far more than voice objection, that they grow a spine and send Trump a message by telling him he has to stop holding hostage people who were innocent kids, who had no say in coming here, and who are totally acclimated, better educated and more patriotic than he, and strangers to their homelands.
He’s happy to let the “Dreamers” twist in the wind as he cages the new kids who have arrived, shamelessly lying that it’s Democrats who are doing it (which media should call “lie” not “assertion”), to kids just as innocent as the Dreamers, separating them from their parents, showing what Jews experienced in Hitler’s Germany, to America’s everlasting shame—and the Republican party’s, which is writing history to stand with the Japanese interments and the McCarthy Hearings!
Republicans need to act like responsible, compassionate adults—a concept alien to Trump—and work with Democrats to craft an immigration-reform bill that will have the bipartisan support of sufficient members to not only override Trump’s veto and solve the problem, but just as important, to tell him once and for all that America’s government is not his and is not about his way or the highway!
Will Republicans do what they were elected to do and join with Democrats to govern, to provide the constitutional check on Trump their oaths demand? Democrats, Independents, and Republicans who haven’t drunk the Kool-Aid or joined the fringe of insanity and hate are watching… and waiting to vote!
German Leaders Delay Migration Showdown, Seeking Solution in E.U.
Same problem as we have here.... Europe is waking up, but I fear to LATE......
Interesting that our fervently Christian Vice President Pence is conspicuously silent. Where are those Christian values that Pence loves to flaunt? What would Jesus do?
11
It’s about time that Republicans do more than voice objection, that they grow a spine and send Trump a message by telling him he has to stop holding hostage people who were innocent kids, who had no say in coming here, and who are totally acclimated, better educated and more patriotic than he, and strangers to their homelands.
He’s happy to let the “Dreamers” twist in the wind as he cages the new kids who have arrived, shamelessly lying that it’s the Democrats who are doing it, to kids just as innocent as the Dreamers, separating them from their parents, showing them what Jews experienced in Hitler’s Germany, to America’s everlasting shame—and the Republican party’s, which is writing history to stand with the Japanese interments and the McCarthy Hearings!
Republicans need to act like responsible, compassionate adults—a concept alien to Trump—and work with Democrats to craft an immigration-reform bill that will have the bipartisan support of sufficient members to not only override Trump’s veto and solve the problem, but just as important, to tell him once and for all that America’s government is not his and is not about his way or the highway!
Will Republicans do what they were elected to do and join with Democrats to govern, to provide the constitutional check on Trump their oaths demand? Democrats, Independents, and Republicans who haven’t drunk the Kool-Aid or joined the fringe of insanity and hate are watching… and waiting to vote!
2
How can Melania, an immigrant, walk out cool and calm, and say practically nothing of substance while little innocent children are screaming because they were wrenched from their parents at the border? Advocate for children?.......My respect for her is now gone and down to zero.
4
Imagine something terrible happening here in our country. Our citizens forced to flee their homes and head to the borders. Depending how our relations would be with Canada and Mexico, the only other choice would be to look at the ocean.
We spread the ideals of democratic values all around the world. We stood against apartheid, and other forms of discrimination. We have fought side by side with our allies to liberate people from the hands of cruelty and oppression
Why are we looking at all of that differently, today. Instead of moving forward with the same beliefs we all stand for, we are on a reverse course.
This is no 'America First', and not a way to 'Make America Great Again'.
4
That's some "top Republicans" right there.
Why, The Mooch worked at the White House for 10 whole days!
2
Since the the United States entered the age of Trump, it now exists in an Orwellian time warp; up is down, good is evil, lies are truth. Let there be no doubt, Trump revels in the disarray he's created, and he will continue to do so until the US is reduced to but a shrinking shadow of its once glorious past.
Trump's goal is simple: divide and conquer. All Trump cares about, all he's ever cared about, is himself. Trump is mentally incapable of caring about anyone else. He most certainly does not give a hoot about the poor babies, the children who sit in squalor.
Trump is using children for God's sake as pawns, in his selfish determination to force Democrats to fund his ridiculous paranoid border wall. Trump will use and abuse anyone who gets in his way of getting his way. Trump is a clear and present danger to society. And the sixty million who voted for this demagogue should not be able to sleep a wink tonight as the lay their heads down to sleep. How dare Trump do this. But even worse, how dare the Americans who continue to support Trump to do nothing. I'm old enough to remember 1930's Germany: first, they came for the Jews.
Here we are in 2018 in the United States of America, and all I am thinking is: first they came for the children. Shame on Trump and shame on all who continue their mindless support of this creep.
DD
Manhattan
11
Mr. Trump is using the 'Family Separation' problem as a leverage to force Congress vote for the border Wall. Previous attempts to seek funding for the Wall failed.
Mr. Trump was very enthusiastic to push for the tax reform bill. Anything to do with immigration, to seek solutions, does not have the same interest.
We are losing our grip in trying to preserve the rich traditions and values are country stands for. This distorted 'policy' only says that we do not care or have feelings for other human beings.
5
Are they doing it because it's so reprehensible, or because it's going to hurt their brand?
1
Mrs. Trump seems not to have the personal capital with her husband to tell him outright to stop this outrage.
5
If this policy does not deter the ‘brown unwashed masses’,whats next in the policy armament of Trump,Jeff ‘Jesus’ Sessions and company?
What will they do to restore America to its glorious pristine white days?
The Final Solution ?
Just wondering.
10
When future generations look back,they will be aghast at this,just like we are now when we look back at the Holocaust and slavery.
8
Checks and balances of our "democratic" governing system just prove to be a complete and utter mirage.
If white nationalist punk like Stephen Miller can institute and implement such policy there is not much left to say.
Calling all Moms of America to fiercely fight this scandalous gang in a WH.
6
Melania is COMPLICIT in her husband’s lies. The fact that she continues spinning the lie that it is the Democrats fault while pretending to care is very telling. I would not be surprised ifTrump asked her to say something, seeing how the country and the world has responded to this abomination. All Trump family is rotten.
18
Misleading headline, "leading Republicans".
4
Both parties should push Trump out of the White House !!!
8
Who is paying for these childhood concentration camps?
Who is profiteering from the internment of children?
Where is the money coming from?
Where is the money going?
8
Who are these leading Republicans the Times is speaking of?
3
Side splitting humor.....
Stormy Trump calling for following the law.
We are still all awaiting the presser where Melanie puts to rest the fact that she worked here in the Fatherland on a visitors visa.
A violation of the law.
The law that must be followed.
Speaking of the biblical necessity to follow the laws of the heaven appointed government,
Germany had "Jewish laws".
Our very own Motherland had "fugitive slave acts".
Divine right makes these laws moral and mandatory?
Just saying.
4
Mrs. Trump pretends not to understand that her husband (the chief executive of the U.S. government) has only to call his employee (the attorney general) and tell him to stop this inhumane practice. His failure to do so reflects either his tacit approval of the practice or his fear of calling his employee to task.
4
The politicians defending this policy are saying " as a mother/father" and "it breaks my heart" before they dig in with how justified this action is and lawful--"law" is used over and over.
When we as mothers and fathers turn our backs to this or worse, support it and speak out as if it's right/lawful, America has lost another piece of what we once stood for.
Save the broken heart cliche for those who own it--when their kids left to take baths and didn't come back.
4
I implore all the First Ladies and Senators to go to the border and do civil disobedience. Trump expects words, words, words. He loves the attention. He doesn't expect high profile women and men to put their lives on the line. You will be exonerated. You will be applauded. Please, just do it.
5
We all should! It’s time for everyone to get off their IPhones and IPads and into the street!
3
Steven Miller only serves trump. He needs to go!
4
May these immigrant children grow to be strong contributors to our democracy, and bring with them the memories of this brutality.
4
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen's press briefing was as disgusting a demonstration of human disregard as ever display. Her stance amounts to subjecting small children to emotion damaging fear of beeing separated from their mothers and is done so to blackmail members of Congress to supposedly address some greater problem that is propagandized into existence.
11
These “leading Republicans” include:
A woman who has never held elected office from a family that does oppose Trump and hence has no influence within the party
Some vague statements from the current First Lady that — as the story concedes! — essentially advances Trump’s narrative that Democrats are forcing him to pursue a policy he could in fact end unilaterally
A senator who is not a “leading Republican” and has also defended the policy to constituents and opposes the Democratic proposal to limit them, but is certainly in favor of concerned tweets and joining Jeff Flake in some brow-furrowing.
3
Trump is clearly trying to blackmail Democrats to fund his asinine border wall by using these children as pawns. And the GOP congress leadership showed it utter spinelessness, again, by not stopping him cold. If Ryan was a Christian he would let a simple short law be passed by bipartisan support that forbids this abysmal separation practice. It would also easily pass the senate IF McConnell had the integrity and decency to put it to vote. However, it became very clear that neither Ryan nor McConnell are Christians, they both worship only Trump and power. When will true Christians finally turn against these fakes?
7
Even if you agree with Trump supporters that "this is what he said he would do, and he's doing it"...
BUT-
-Why is he trying to blame it on the Democrats? Why can't he and DHS accept that "zero tolerance" is their policy, and own it?
-Why is this being administered so ineptly? OSS and ICE don't even communicate; a child is taken away during the arrest and goes into the maw of HHS. The parent (and ICE) have no idea what has happened to them, or how, in the future, when the "crime" is resolved, they can reunite with their kids. They just disappear. That brings it from the level of bad policy to stupidity and cruelty.
If you're going to institute a policy that most people hate, do it right, and own it.
6
Melanie Trump, the anchor baby of her family. has about as much credibility on immigration as Eva Braun did on religious freedom in the 1930's.
10
Are the mighty in our government embarrassed at their coarse and inhumane actions regarding the fates of parents and children at our borders. Our government announces that people must cross the border at specific legal crossings and then closes these, forcing many to cross into our country "illegally" elsewhere. The president claims that the zero-tolerance policy is based upon earlier laws. AG Sessions' May announcement was arbitrary and not backed by any law. Not even by holy scripture.
Mrs. Bush is absolutely right: the separation of children from parents is immoral. What kind Christian souls (as many in the president's supporters claim to be) would condone this senseless action that costs taxpayers more and disrupts families? It does severe psychological damage to toddlers and young children, not to mention parents. It seems that the only tool in the president's administrative arsenal is a hammer and so he can only pound nails at hour southern border. No nuances there. Meanwhile, illegal traffickers in drugs and people continue to operate throughout our country. We don't hear much about his administration's efforts to stop their activities. Instead, we hear about the president's mean pronouncement of tariffs against Canadian, Mexican, and other nations' exports. Isn't this a wonderful country? Chaos, as Steve Bannon once said, is the president's goal. And even the president seems confused about possible immigration legislation. Who's on first?
6
There's lots and lots of Melania-bashing in these comments, which I find inexplicable. There seems to be a belief she's responsible for her husband's behavior, does anyone seriously believe she has any influence over him? This all reminds me of the hatred of another First Lady, who also was blamed for her husband's behavior--how was she supposed to stop him?
I'm thinking you're all believers in personal responsibility. Why not act like it and blame Mr. Trump, he alone can end this horror overnight.
1
The bashing is because Melanie reaffirms her husbands lies. She is complicit.
6
The Gang of Three (Trump, Sessions, and Miller) have a problem with the optics of the situation they created. Stephen ("the powers of the president will not be questioned") Miller must be aware that there are underutilized black-ops detention centers worldwide that provide plausible deniability to the location of children separated from their parents.
Trump's boys apparently feel they should never waste an opportunity to make enemies of our friends and wall ourselves from our neighbors. It shouldn't take more than 10-15 years for the blowback from our neighbors to hit the homeland.
5
This is the result of a President who lies with fluency, frequency and callous disregard for the consequences. MANY current and former members of the administration, including evil hobbit Jeff Sessions have admitted this is supposed to pressure immigrants into staying away.
They can't have it both ways, but the way it really is shows how nasty, how evil they are. This is a human rights violation of the most fundamental kind, one the framers of the Constitution would be ashamed of.
7
Does the US legal system separate children from their parents when their parents are sentenced to jail? What part of entering the US do you not see as illegal and a violation of law?
4
They try to put those kids with family or in hopefully supportive foster homes, not compounds where the caretakers aren’t allowed to touch the children except to change diapers.
Please explain why the immigrant children should be punished. In interviews with parents at the border, many are unaware that their kids will be taken, so “the plan” isn’t working. It’s hard to deter someone with a punishment they don’t know exists until after it happens.
Besides, many would come anyway as it’s at least a better option than being murdered by gang members or living near sewage. Nice pat answer, though.
7
Applying for admission as a refugee is not a crime. Crossing illegally is a misdemeanor. Neither of which require imprisonment. Seizing children and removing them from their parents is torture. The UN high commission on refugees has condemned us. This is being used by toddler drama queen Donny to get a wall, he is criminal and we,by allowing this are complicit.
11
Yes Karen obeying existing law is always a "pat answer" to some!
The Republican Party used to pretend- a couple or more decades ago - to be the party of family values and religious morality.
That pretense is long gone - not so much for the reason that the Republican Party dropped the pretense - more for the reason that people aren't as stupid over the long term (you can fool .... you know the rest of the Lincoln quote).
So for the Love of God, people, vote Democrat. You want America to be the shining example we were? You really want us great again? Then I implore you in the name of all this is holy to vote Democrat.
6
What a surprise, you left off, believes in the Constitution and the nation's sovereignty, too. Nice cultural Marxist try, though.
Seems the NY Times tells part of the truth, the WaPo a bit more of the truth. USA Today is telling much more of the truth. Does USA Today have a larger staff?
USA T 2014: "Taxpayers are footing the bill for relocating what could be as many as 90,000 children this year from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras who are crossing the U.S. border without their parents.
"About 1,100 are being housed temporarily at a facility at Lackland Air Force Base here.
"In recent years, the number of children younger than 18 found trying to cross the Mexican border without their parents has skyrocketed. Between 2003 and 2011, between 6,000 and 7,500 children a year were landing in the custody of Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee Resettlement program. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/06/13/migrant-children-h...
USA T 6/13/2018: "Tens of thousands of unaccompanied children and families have been taken into custody since 2014, when a surge of Salvadoran, Honduran and Guatemalan mothers and children crossed into the U.S., fleeing violence and poverty.
"The unaccompanied children are generally turned over to family or held in an HHS shelter, like a detention center or tent city. Now, children who arrive with their parents are also being separated from them and sent to HHS shelters or sponsor families, leading to the problem of overcrowding.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/06/13/military-bases-eyed-
4
Why does the child pay for the parent's sins? If the roles were reversed and we had to flee into a different country we would want our children to be treated with decency and kindness. This will come back to haunt us one day...
4
One role of the first lady is to be a humanizing influence on the President. In the current case, this represents quite a challenge.
2
A 500% increase in these incidents imply a coordinated effort. One has to wonder who is doing the coordinating, and who is funding it?
2
The most hideous thing to me is that the care workers are not allowed to touch the children. No holding them, no picking them up no matter how miserable they are. It's the deliberate crushing of their innocence. These babies and children are being traumatized for Trump's political gain.
11
I wonder about the reputedly multi-millions (not sure of the figure but it's a large sum) contract to a private entity to set up tent camps in the desert to house children separated from their parents?
All of a sudden the profit motive is involved and wouldnt it give an impetus to maintain this horrible policy?
Also I cant help wondering if Trump absurd compliments to Kim Yong un might be motivated by the potential opportunity to make money out of a deal, as for instance building a resort that could be profitable even as the population was starving?
----Similar to what Trump had tried to do in Latvia but eventually was thwarted by that country anti-corruption laws that affected his would be Latvian partner. Could this explain why during a campaign speech Trump singled out Latvia as a country that wasn't paying its share for NATO protection, thus implying that Trump's regime was ready to throw not just Latvia but the other 2 small Baltic countries under the proverbial bus?
I'm a Holocaust survivor and I couldn't imagine that the US ("the leader of the free world"), in spite of the horrible breaches of civil rights that I assumed the US had left behind, would be repeating those atrocities by taking babies from their mothers. It affects people who lawfully come to the border applying for asylum. Check out the ACLU report of such cases happening before Session and the rest of the Trump REGIME ordered it to be standard policy ....
8
Let's stop the blame game and get this awful policy removed. I can't understand who would ever conceive of during something like this in the first place. In my 86 years, I haven't never seen anything this bad except of course the Japanese internment and the holocaust in other countries. This is America we don't treat strangers like this.
7
I urge everyone to vote in the upcoming elections. That is the only way this madness will stop. And your ending quote from K. Conway is purely laughable. God help the Catholics if she is one. She should have been struck already for all the lies she's told.
3
Up until now, it was impossible to decide which of this administration's heinous policies is most deplorable.
This is it. Congress, take immediate action to stop the separation of children from their families.
5
When you take children from their parents it is kidnapping, hostage-taking or both. Here it is primarily hostage-taking, with the negotiation about the Wall.
5
I am pleased to say that the Empire is fighting back, like we always have. It's a hard, long, tedious road. But here we are, on it, doing what we need to do. We can do this! We have a long history of Doing Just This.
My father, a grumpy old German-American history buff, always told me as a kid that at least with the KKK or Evangelicals, you knew where you stood, so you could act accordingly.
Well, this administration is so open about their hate for humanity, and have such limited knowledge on how government runs or laws work, that we know exactly what we are dealing with and how to deal with them.
We have a playbook - its called the Underground Rail Road, it's called the Boston Tea Party, it's called the Civil Rights Movement, the movement against Apartheid, its called journalism and a free press and kick-starter campaigns for Andy McCabe's legal fees, it's called #metoo, March for Our Lives, Black Lives Matter, its called Moonlight wins best picture and Black Panther has the highest gross revenue at the box office. We have tools. We are novel, enterprising. We know how to resist and persist. Just keep going.
Maybe one tool we can add is getting fair-minded judges in office. We can do that, too!
Now don't get me wrong, I am angry that I have to defend humanity every day in such visceral ways. I'm exhausted and sometimes I feel helpless.
We just have to remember what Michelle Obama says "When they go low, we go higher."
Then vote.
8
Leading Republicans? The headline is misleading. Melania and Laura Bush are not leading Republicans. Nor is W. And Bill Clinton is not a Republican. There's no one mentioned here who can actually do something about the current travesty at the border. And do you really think that was Melania's statement? it wasn't strong and it was released most likely to soften, however softly, her husband's cruel policy.
3
What's all the fuss about? According to Ben Carson, Secretary of HUD, did not Africans cross the Middle Passage in the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries for tours of the New World? After choosing to be slaves were they not bred and had their offspring sold and sent away? Surviving progeny have been lynched, bombed, shot and abused in assorted ways. Was not a 12 year old recently killed by a cop who was threatened by a child's toy? Many of these botoxed faces expressing outrage over children being separated from parents are avowed hypocrites on either side of pending elections. Latinos will be sucking salt much as black descendants of African slaves have done for centuries. Don't weep for us or them. We will survive.
Fact is that at least 2 billion people including one billion Muslims would like to come to the US and probably qualify for refugee status as they are all verifiably fleeing tyranny. The number of functioning democracies is shrinking rapidly. Personally in this day of internet everyone should apply online and both parties can agree on the number US will accept each year, and give priority to most in need. For all the brief separation anxiety, and media coverage, all these kids will get to stay in the US, get free education, reduced college tuition, eventually get DACA(future ), and eventually citizenship as Trump will retire, be impeached etc... . Jumping the line does work and will continue to work. How do you think we got DACA and 13 million illegal (un documented ) people.
3
Children as our President’s human shields. In real time. And we watch and form committees. And write legislation. No. There is no time for that. This is beyond a disgrace. We must take to the streets.
4
"I will tell you that nobody likes this policy,” Kellyanne Conway said.
Kellyanne Conway flat-out lies. Jeff Sessions, Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and other implementers of the policy and defenders of the policy like this policy. Actions speak louder than words. Lie all you want, Kellyanne Conway. Your boss and his henchmen put this policy in place because they wanted to. One can only conclude that they like the policy.
5
As many people agree on, I also think this is a great move. I here try to raise several peripherals. ***** One is the possible occurrence of irresponsible comments or over-sentiments during ramifications of Twitter messages. In the original messages, for example, it is said: the separation of families at the border is immoral and cruel - and - we all love our children (= therefore, all parents know the pain of the separation). However, the latter may be exaggerated in its exclusive nature during its ramifications. As for the former, it may be interpreted in its ramifications as; any separation of families for any reason is cruel and immoral. ***** In my part, there is no complication I want to say here. Families have to be respected and protected. I agree. Parents breaking laws (= crimes other than crossing the border with no document) have to be given special leniency. Let me think. But, crimes are crimes; so, crimes committed by mothers or fathers can be transferred to adults with no children (= so that no children cry and there is no separation of families). I disagree. The transferred can be any adult with no children; so, it can be *you*. All adults with no children and zero involvement in the crime in question, very strongly disagree (I’m 100% sure on this).
Trump, Stephen Miller, and Sessions have decreed: Zero tolerance. Dear God.
“The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest. It becomes
The thronèd monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings,
But mercy is above this sceptered sway.
It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings.
It is an attribute to God himself.
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice..."
1
Republicans say that marriage is so sacred, we can't allow two men to wed. They tell us children are so precious, we must protect them from the moment the cells begin to divide. They justify cuts to the poor saying the welfare state is out of control, the government shouldn't be in the business of housing people.
So we split up couples, taking their kids and house them.
The most shameless part of it all, is using the Bible to justify it.
6
The fact that liberals are so upset and/or exhibiting such a great level of faux outrage is the surest proof that the administration's policy change is the correct one.
3
Let's not forget that this was John Kelly's policy before he became White House Chief of Staff. Kirstjen Nielsen is following his lead.
1
Donald Trump, Sicko-in-Chief. Knowingly tortures & traumatizes children to get his way. If you can't see what's wrong with his behavior and his diktats, you are part of the problem.
5
Somebody should remind DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen that you cannot serve two masters at the same time:
1. the truth
2. Donald John Trump
Pick one, lady. Time is running on you.
7
Kirstjen Nielsen is a liar. And I hope that reputation follows her throughout her life.
3
The Bush-Cheney first bombings in Iraq. The Taliban beheading another victim on video. Immigrant families torn apart at the border.
Hey, Conservatives, do you get it? "Shock and awe" is a strategy that has failed again and again. It makes its perpetrators look, first, like monsters. And then like failures.
3
This is just an outrage, reminiscent of Nazi Germany.
Trump, you have gone too far.
And blaming the Democrats, in other words lying as usual - disgraceful.
I appreciate the Republicans who see this travesty for what it is - a human rights violation, child abuse, and utterly against all the values we hold dear.
Let me remind the people baying for immigrant tears: your people were immigrants. And the US fought wars against people who do things like this. Please, get a grip.
5
I don't recognize my own country anymore. Trump has done the one thing that not even Tricky Dick Nixon could not do - Make Me Ashamed to be American.
2
Well, this is what happens when a racist runs the White House.
Is anybody surprised? Better vote Dem across the board in Nov. to stop this. The Republicans won't.
4
How are people comparing this to the holocaust? Separating children from their parents is wrong.Trump is wrong.
But these parents made a choice. Many of those who feared for their lives passed through Mexico (a nation that would not take their children away) and continued here. It was a calculated risk.
I am not going to rant about personal responsibility. These people deserve our compassion. But comparing this to the holocaust? I find the very suggestion offensive.
3
Break the law, go to jail, get separated from your children. So simple it's stupid.
2
@cjhsa: Then why isn't Trump himself in jail right this minute?
4
It's just another ruse being used by people to flood into this country. Just take a look at Europe and the diminishing culture of countries with centuries of traditions being overwhelmed by immigrants who share nothing and want to share nothing. We and other Civilized countries can not take in the masses of the world. Otherwise this planet is doomed, as are the fish in the oceans and rhinos and lions of the world have already witnessed.
2
White people have a history of destroying the family structure for nonwhites. They stole aboriginal children, refused welfare to black mothers who had a man in the home, thus destroying any semblance of a familial experience for black children's future; they sterlized black women. The loss of family deprives them of a sense who they are, of love, of security, of self-esteem. It's a white man's weapon that has over time destroyed a a threat to their racist agenda.
5
The irony here, of course, is that the United States with its aggressive capitalism is largely to blame for creating the conditions that have set people in motion all over the world. We're happy to prop up totalitarian regimes if it means extracting their material wealth for our own benefit, but we're unwilling to help the people who get caught in the middle of a living hell because of it. We're a disgrace to the world.
7
Democrats need to stop resisting, and sit down like adults to do a deal-- just as 90% of the citizenry are demanding.
Our immigration system has been broken for generations, now at last (thanks to Trump) we have a serious opportunity to fix things, and where are the democrats? MIA
Midterm elections usually result in a loss of seats for the then-current administration, this time I'm not so sure that will be the result.
2
We separate children from their parents every day when we send their parents to prison or jail. We only seem to consider this a problem if immigration is involved. My neighboring city of Oakland has probably thousands of children in this situation, and a severe lack of newspaper headlines or advocates in Washington saying this is inhuman. With immigration, we should be asking the question of whether imprisoning the parents for crossing the border illegally is a good idea in the first place.
2
Excellent article. The issue of children separated from their parents seeking asylum or immigrant is very simple. Do not separate them. Children are the future of our country and will be the ones taking care of all of us as we age. Do we want their childhood memories of separation from their parents to be what rules how they care for us? I think not. True indicted criminals should not be allowed to enter our country, but those seeking asylum need a fair hearing and they need to have their children with them.
3
Before I offer my solution let's first establish--and be honest about this--that today’s problems at the US border did not occur within a vacuum. They are in part the result of the US's disastrous foreign policy agenda of the 1970s and 1980s, what with propping up and working with Latin/South American regimes, all in the name of keeping communism at bay. That's said, here's the solution: rather than investing billions in a wall that at some point in the future will inevitably come down--see the Berlin Wall--the US should invest that money in the nations from which these refugees hail. Assist those countries in improving their education and healthcare system. Encourage US companies to set up factories there so that the people can earn a decent living. Yes, I know corruption is rampant in those countries, but corruption is in part a sign of poverty. Yes, I know, we should invest in our own education & healthcare system etc., but like our policy towards Cuba--50 years of wasted time, money, and energy in fighting a regime that still stands today--our current policy efforts to deal with immigration will lead nowhere. If we can all agree that talking to Kim Jong-un is better than nuclear war, surely we can agree that investing in El Salvador etc. might be better than our current set of policy to curb illegal immigration (bypassing for a moment the fact that this so-called policy by the Trump admin has at a minimum a tinge racial bias to it).
Want to stop the separation of children from families caught illegally entering this country? Change the law that puts a deadline on the period of time the families (children) can be held while awaiting a hearing. It is not the best options, but it will keep children with their parents, while preserving the right of the U.S. to prosecute those breaking the law to cross our borders. It will discourage people from using their children from gaining easy entry that flouts out laws.
While we are at it, the U.S. needs to take seriously asylum claims from people fleeing persecution from countries like El Salvador, known well for being among the most violent especially toward women. While at it, stop chain immigration and the lottery. While at it, reform the trade laws so it doesn't decimate the small family farmer in Mexico and elsewhere, and doesn't export the American middle class' good jobs. These may be separate issues but they are all part and parcel of the same problem that is hurting workers of both countries over the past two decades.
1
"Mrs. Trump “believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with a heart,” the first lady’s office said in a statement."
Ha! Leadership under normal circumstances comes from the top. The fact we have no leadership, and someone who thinks they are above the law, this will never happen.
Lack of heart - don't even go there.
3
I can't imagine why ANY Republican would even want to hold on to their seat in Congress at this point. The price has just become way too high.
4
While the policy affects immigrants who ask for asylum and those caught sneaking into the country, the deterrence purpose is secondary to the purpose of intimidating Congress into complying with the President’s proposed policies and legislation regarding immigration. Trump cannot work with the Congress like previous Presidents because he cannot accept the members as partners in government. He needs for them to comply.
1
Instead of spending millions on patrolling the border and separating parents from their children, why not work to help countries in Central America achieve stable governments and economies. People do not come to the United States if where they live provides a safe and stable environment for their children.
2
It's not true that "the government will prosecute all unlawful immigrants as criminals". This is about illegal border crossing, not all aliens who are unlawfully present. The fact is that CIS is quite forgiving when it comes to adjusting status after a period of unlawful presence or unauthorized employment (depending on the category, period of time the offense was occurring, and other circumstances). This is not to say that breaking immigration laws is usually inconsequential - it is not. But most aliens who are willing and eager to clean up their status do get a chance to do so (e.g. an alien can get back into lawful presence and legal employment, even after prolonged violations of both, if they file a petition based on marriage to a US citizen).
However, entering the country illegally is a totally different animal. There is no automatic forgiveness for those offenses (i.e. they are considered much more seriously than simply overstaying a visa or violating a status by working). These should not be conflated - crossing border illegally is extremely unlikely going to result in any immigration benefits in the future. It is not a minor violation.
That said, the Trump policy of family separations is disgusting, especially if it is used to blackmail the Congress and deter migrants.
I am against this policy of separating immigrants from their children for many reasons. But because money talks louder than words in this country, why not just keep these families together and put them on air force transports and send them right back to their countries of origin. Surely that is no more expensive than setting up detention centers for children (I can't believe I just typed those two words!), and housing their parents in other federal facilities until injustice can be done by then sending them home. Of course this plan is still the lesser of several evils, but at least the families are not broken up.
1
This situation reminds of a talk I attended years ago. I heard the famous Swiss-American psychiatrist Elizabeth Kubler Ross speak about her pioneer studies of near-death experiences. At the end questions were allowed and someone asked her what she believes happens to brutal despots and authoritarians, when they die.
She paused and told the audience that she believes when people who do a lot of harm in this world die, they not only experience the devastating effects of their actions, from the perspective of each of their victims, but they also see and experience all the repercussions that person's decisions had on humanity for generations to come.
2
Previous administrations, Democratic and Republican have done little to address this problem. Rather than try to fix it, the president has taken a different tack, blame everyone but himself, soak taxpayers billions for a wall and of course, lie. But the "optics" of this will really test the limits of lying.
Anyone remember 1983; when Ronald Reagan invaded the tiny island of Grenada on the pretext of restoring *law and order* and rescue some college students? Who is going to invade us to restore law and order and prevent the U.S. from the "Sphere of Influence" from Russia?
I call on the International Criminal Court to charge the Trump administration and the line supervisors responsible for separating children with human rights violations. We may never see them in the dock at The Hague but then they may never be able to travel to civilized areas of the world either.
5
This is an extremely complicated issue. Each side gives extreme answers to support their view. Illegal entry into the USA is now punished by incarceration and just like for USA citizens arrested the children must be cared for. It does sound like food, medical care, housing, and schooling is not unreasonable treatment. Pay is lowered when you can get illegal workers. Huge numbers of low skilled American workers are displaced. Notice the brief shots of the place where the children are placed. Most are teenagers. The NY Times only shows pictures of very young crying children. Yes, this is bad but illegal immigration is a huge problem facing the world. Yes, it is true. I do not want to live in a lawless 3rd world country. But is everyone comes to Europe or America what happens to those countries. Sorry, I want to continue my upper middle class existence.
1
Trump and enablers overstepped, finally, in a way even Democrats and weak-willed so-called GOP moderates (that‘s you, Sen. Collins, who caves just before crucial votes) recognize as a club to whack our authoritarian administration. It’s time to practice hardball politics, Democrats, before the big game next fall.
1
Each week since his election, trump and his toadies have conjured up some crisis to distract from the fundamentals that could strengthen democracy and prevent both parties from playing dirty political tricks on the electorate. Heartbreaking to see its now children at the center of their deflections. No matter how bad it gets though, Democratic voters must press for campaign finance reform, term limits, codification of what were once norms , etc. (tax returns, divestiture of business interests, etc.). Otherwise, we may face yet another kleptocrat dictator in the future. VOTE THEM OUT 2018!
3
<<Mr. Trump has said in recent days that Democrats should agree to his panoply of immigration measures, including full financing for a border wall....>>
Each and every Democrat, at every single opportunity, should remind the public that Trump repeatedly promised that MEXICO would pay for the wall, not US taxpayers. By their silence, they are once again giving him a pass on one of his lies. If the shoe were on the other foot, Trump would be repeating the Mexico promise as often as he now repeats "witch hunt." The Democrats have got to learn to play the Trump game of repetition if they have any hope of reining him in.
6
How does a wall prevent someone f on presenting themselves to a border guard for asylum?
How will a wall slow down migration?
Most in custody today was peacefully taken-how does a wall stop this?
Trump needs a summit with the leaders of Guatemala, El Salvador’s and Mexico. He
Needs to make a deal with them to keep their people and make it safer. But that would require big bucks from the US similar to Europe paying Turkey to prevent migrants to Europe
Guatemala, El Salvador’s and Mexico all have a shortage of jobs. People have no real choice other than leave and head north. People have been crossing the border illegally for decades. Why is it now a sudden crime?
In the last seven days Trump ridiculed our allies, shook hands with Kim in front of a display of N Korean flags, saluted a N Korean general, and now permits a policy of taking children from their parents just because the families are seeking asylum. All things I did not believe were possible just a short time ago.
There is a lot of comments about November. Yes, we should vote. However, I no longer believe that a fair election is probable. What then, my fellow Americans, what then?
3
It is evil to separate children from their parents and it is wrong to justify it based on racist arguments about immigration policy.
"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me."
3
Besides the humanitarian aspects, the policy seems amazingly stupid. Why does anyone want to take on the cost and liability of taking care of so many children without their parents? What if there's an accident and one of the kids gets seriously hurt or sick? What if one of them dies in custody?
I would hope that any sane Republican, however heartless, could at least make a political calculation that this is bad policy.
3
I guess people in the Trump “Cult” can see how hideous and vile this action is. Melania’s voice while better than nothing is still a whisper. As much as he denies it this is all from our President, Jeff Sessions and other cult members. Sorry Donald you are absolutely wrong about this being the fault of theDemocrats.
It’s no wonder that Melania, Ivanka, Jared, Don Jr and others don’t speak out against this. It may be unconscious but apparently the delusional and vidicative Donald has destroyed or tried to destroy lives for less.
1
“A great nation is a compassionate nation.”
~The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
3
The Times must stop using wildly misleading headlines. “Both parties” are not pushing to help the children. Laura Bush saying something is irrelevant. She’s not an elected Republican official. Susan Collins talking out of both sides of her mouth is not pushing to do anything besides mitigate the damage to her false “moderate” label. Count the number of Senators who are supporting Feinstein’s bill to end the separations. How many are Republican? Now try writing an accurate and responsible headline.
5
Then,
they separated the children
from their parents,
imprisoned all in detention camps,
and I did nothing....
6
So Melania joins the chorus of liars, proving the old adage about what happens when one lies down with dogs.
4
I liked it better when Melania did not weigh in on immigration. So not helpful.
1
Send an email to the White House. It's all about the ratings for President Trump:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact
1
The parents should be charged with child endangerment and deported immediately. Breaking the law should be punished not rewarded.
3
I hope you and your loved ones never have to live through a war or a famine, and you need to flee. Most probably that won’t happen to you. But let me tell you this: if you’re American, some of your ancestors probably had to do just that. People are ready to face death to cross borders. Ask yourself that: why on earth would anyone put their children at risk if they didn’t think they were saving them, and not the other way around?? That is what’s happening. Everywhere in the world . And no policy can change that. When you think that if you stay, your children will die, you take your children with you, and you move. Because, dead for dead, you’d rather have some hope. And if you were in their shoes, you’d probably make the same choice.
Have the parents broken child endangerment laws in the US? But, what if the government did this for speeding tickets too? What other laws? Jaywalking? DWI? Passing bad checks?
If you do not speak out against evil, then you are complicit in evil. This policy is evil.
7
To all of you going on about "separating children" from their parents; my advice to you is to go out and rob a bank at gunpoint and see if you are not separated from your children.
Now surely your response will be "but these people are not robbing a bank at gunpoint"; no they are not but robbing a bank at gunpoint is not the only crime for which you will be separated from your children; any crime where you can be arrested/detained will separate you from your children.
Enough of the subversion of our immigration laws; siding w/foreign nationals over the American citizen and taxpayer not to mention our sovereignty only shows how extreme the once former blue collar democrat party has become.
And you wonder why Trump was elected????????
4
Plenty of women raise young kids in prison
@stanley: You are suffering from an inability to correctly analyze this situation - and that inability is typical of Republicans and of course of Trump voters.
And YES, I wonder why Trump was elected - except he WAS NOT elected! Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by millions more votes than Trump got. Just remember that!
PS: You think the Democrats are extreme? If so, what do you call today's Republicans? The GOP right now is the party of sexual predators, adulterers, racists, liars, cheats, thieves, and fake Christians who besmirch the name of Christianity. But you're in FAVOR of that??
1
So, to Republicans, it is a crime to separate an unborn fetus from its Mother: but it is perfectly acceptable to separate a toddler from her Mother.
10
Gallup weekly approval rating just in. 45%!!!! America wake up!!!!!!!!
The GOP is a terrorist cabal using children as political hostages. No, Melania, it's not "both sides" tearing children away from terrorized, penniless, refugee parents and caging them in concentration camps. It's your husband, so called "President" Trump, Steven Miller, Jeff Sessions and the entirely complicit Republican party who are wholly in charge and wholly responsible for this cruel monstrosity.
10
The Trump policy of separating children from their parents is terrorism..It is devised to terrorize defenseless people who need asylum..Terrorized children may well suffer the consequences in later life..
It is interesting that the Nazis separated children from their parents in the concentration camps. The image before the world of America practicing a similar tactic is disgraceful. Soon we may see armbands with a T on them.
Trump and Sessions have brought us to a new low. How can
those 'moral' followers of Trump continue to support him?
4
The Trump administration is essentially blackmailing Congress; "Give us our border wall, and we'll keep the illegals' families together".
Just when you think Trump and his administration can not sink any lower. Despicable.
6
Kellyanne Conway - if you don't support this monstrous policy, RESIGN!
3
If the Republicans in power do not immediately do something to stop this atrocity, they are complicit and traitors to what makes us American. I cannot imagine voting for a Republican ever again, no matter how nice, because they supported, or did nothing, when Trump put babies in concentration camps.
3
Re Melania's comments--they ring false and coming straight from her husband's staff. How horrible. Nothing like fake compassion to win over hearts and minds.
5
The fury of Melania when it becomes apparent to her just how she is being used and how cruel and stupid the policy she has lent her name to is will be incendiary. I predict that following his shattering, unprecedented rejection by the country in November 2020 she will divorce him.
1
Trump's bold-faced lies about this issue should be a tipping point. These lies cannot be justified. He, and he alone can fix this problem but he doesn't want to. His racism is completely exposed.
3
Washington Post story dated March 11, 2015 (yes, when Obama was our president) shows that our CBP and DHS had the same policy of detaining for several months children without their parents' knowledge and as a punishment for ILLEGAL BORDER CROSSING.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/mexican-kids-held-for-...
Phony outrage from phony liberals out to milk the tragedy of central American children whose parents commit child abuse by transporting them thousands of miles in horrid conditions aided by Coyotes.
The U.N. report released recently shows that human smuggling is a BILLION DOLLAR industry, and it is time we took firm action to save these children from their abusive parents.
Besides, who knows if the child you are with is your biological child or some kid you are using as a SHIELD?
2
This article is about teens, who were working as smugglers... a little different from 4 year olds and nursing babies.
1
PiSonny:
If you are going to cite an article, you should at least tell the truth about it.
Quote:
Last spring, as Central American children flooded into Texas in a way he had never seen in his three-decade career, Border Patrol agent Robert Harris decided to experiment.
His intelligence analysts estimated that 78 percent of the guides smuggling other migrants were Mexicans younger than 18 — teenagers often hired or conscripted by drug cartels that knew they would not be prosecuted if caught — and he wanted to attack this loophole.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/mexican-kids-held-for-...
The article CLEARLY says the chilren under 18 who were detained were "guides smuggling other migrants were Mexicans younger than 18."
So you are equating GUIDES doing human smuggling with 2 year old kids brought in by their mothers seeking asylum.
I guess I should be sure NEVER to ask you to order a hamburger for me. Given how carefully you evaluate things, you would probably bring me back a pair of dirty, smelly socks in a bag, and tell me that you got my hamburger for me.
1
Its impossible to respect or care for vainglorious Donald, self-interested Melania let alone their parasitic family. They're ugly people on the inside, redesigned on the outside by plastic surgery. Pretenders.
Right now a rightwing conservative Australian government (supportive of racist Trump) is imprisoning legal asylum seekers in the middle of nowhere (Nauru & Manus Islands) to divide communities and create fear towards those who seek genuine refuge.
Their torturous incarceration (men, women & children) results in death by suicide & self harm including setting themselves on fire, refusing food, hanging & mutilating themselves, attempting protest and being beaten back.
Apparently Turnbull/Dutton have done some deal with ugly Trump to send these legally recognised refugees to be abused in America.
3
Child Separation Camps has a nasty ring to it, along the lines of Japanese Internment Camps, and Concentration Camps.
Republicans, you either support this president, or you don't. It's long past time to choose sides.
3
Where is “senior advisor” Jared Kushner and “ first daughter” Ivanka on this issue? Are they educating their ignorant and cruel
father/father-in-law that the nazis separated families in the concentration camps.
Jared, the grandson of holocaust survivors, no doubt knows the yiddish expression, “a shanda”, meaning shame or disgrace.
“The President” often refers to any action not in his favor, as a disgrace. He owns this one.
5
a quick scan of the comments place all the blame on DJT, Miller and Sessions. Rightly so. But what are Republican leaders doing? nothing. NOT ONE THING - they don't even want to talk about it.
It appears they think holding infants and toddlers hostage is OK as long as it is DJT doing it.
Just think about what the uproar would be if Obama did this? or Bill Clinton?
OMG! where is our America?
3
Leading Republicans? You mean the ones who lost to Obama, crashed the economy, invaded two countries and bungled the wars in each, the kind who told Brownie "heckuva job!" after Katrina, and the kind who ran against Trump with more money, more endorsements, more ideological purity, more staff, and more experience?
Do you mean the same America Second "leading Republicans" who sold us on amnesty and open borders in '86, NAFTA, and another round of open borders in '11 and '13?
I think you may have meant "losing Republicans." These are the ones who lost to Trump, because they put their "job creators" and their desire for cheap immigrant labor over their love of country. Trump owns the party now.
And these "leading Republicans" are even more pathetic now than they were when their leadership was half credible. Now that they're out of power, what exactly do they lead in? Oh yeah, respect from liberals and liberal journalists. Sorry, but that kind of "leadership" doesn't win elections. And despite the gnashing of teeth, Trump's border controls and zero tolerance approach is going to be popular at the polls this year.
So Mexico and Latin America are paying for The Wall with their children. Looks like Trump will literally do anything to keep a campaign promise.
3
A 1986 bill gave amnesty to 3 million unauthorized migrants on the assurance that it would end illegal migration. It backfired. We now have many times the original number. The official estimate of 11.2 million is based on the census bureau, but demographers think that the number of undocumented residents could be considerably higher.
Just as the 1986 amnesty encouraged millions of people to move here, President Obama’s creation of DACA, in 2012, sent a message to families in Central America that they, too, could move here, as a unit or individually. The 4/11/16 Congressional Research Service report "Unaccompanied Children from Central America: Foreign Policy Considerations” said, "Since FY2011, the number of unaccompanied alien children traveling to the United States from the “northern triangle” nations of Central America—El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras—has increased sharply. U.S. authorities encountered more than 52,000 unaccompanied minors from the region at the U.S. border in FY2014, a more than 1,200% increase compared to FY2011.”
A 4/5/17 Migration Policy Institute page titled “Central American Immigrants in the U.S.”said, " In fiscal year (FY) 2016 alone, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) intercepted nearly 46,900 unaccompanied children and more than 70,400 family units from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border.”
The 1986 amnesty and DACA have encouraged people to come here. What can be done to stop them?
3
The arts of power and its minions are the same in all countries and in all ages. It marks its victim; denounces it; and excites the public odium and the public hatred, to conceal its own abuses and encroachments.
Henry Clay |14 March 1834
4
History will record that when America met its demise, it was on the watch of the Republican Congress, whose members chose to sit back, idle and mute, while a satanic despot systematically unraveled the threads of democracy.
4
This is how the party who claims they uphold "Family Values" treats children in danger. Make them go back and risk death. Pretty much what you get with repubs - lies and amoral actions.
NEVER vote for a Republican if you want to build a civilized society.
3
Amen.
Trump: " I want my wall. And if I have to traumatize a few thousand children to get it I will!"
7
These people are fleeing environments the US had a large hand in creating - from drug cartels; to training death squads; to financing plantations for the megarich by selling guns to our enemies.
They are taking risks for a better future for their children.
Americans used to be like that. But now we are greedy and fat and have no morals, like our president.
What happened to the American that was so admired by the rest of the world that they would give us The Statue of Liberty, and write on its pedestal:
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
-- Emma Lazarus
?
9
What "Leading Republicans" are you talking about? Susan Collins is the only sitting member of any of the three branches of government to deplore this atrocity, and even she hasn't signed the Democratic bill to stop it.
3
And the FAKE NEWS report here is part of the problem. It ABSOLUTELY is a political stalemate. Without question. If the democrats would negotiate in good faith...there would have been an immigration agreement long ago. But, because they want to play politics with immigration there is not a settlement. This lack of a settlement leads to things like the current situation. It never dawns on the left that there are two sides to an argument...and the other side has just as much right to claim they are right. For example...Obama never lied...but you can keep your insurance and we never gave anything to Iran...certainly no cash. That's just two examples.
1
Oh dear lord. Tom does not know what he is talking about because apparently Fox is his "news" source. Obama's so-called lies were not lies if you know any of the facts at all.
1
Separating children from their parents is unlawful and inhumane--it is violation of human rights. The US deserves to be kicked out of the UN.
3
Sadly, Trump would like nothing better than to get out of the UN, which shows his ignorance of the benefits of multilateralism. Not to mention the sacrifices made by the US and its western allies in two world wars.
Only 43 co-sponsors?
2
So Melania Trump wants immigration reform. What special skills did she have that allowed her to become a US citizen? A pretty face? A nice figure? Was the US undersupplied with models?
Furthermore, using what Trump calls "chain migration," Melania's parents recently became US citizens. What did they have to offer us?
And Ivanna, the first Mrs. Trump? Why was she admitted and given citizenship?
Are there certain criteria for nice-looking white women, and different rules for everyone else?
6
Exactly!
Recently I watched a rebroadcast of Ken Burn's documentary about the Roosevelts. There is a particularly skillfully edited scene where FDR is reading his 4 freedom speech, while on the screen we see images of Nazi atrocities. In particular we see a Nazi hit a women in the head, knocking her to the ground and then dragging her away by her hair. If you wonder how a German could do such a thing, when they had grown up in a cultured country, how they could become obscene, and sick and evil beyond the limits of sanity. It all begins with the leader, and the law, when the leader perverts the law, then the police men, the men assigned to follow the law, feel perfectly in the right , it is not for the lawman to interpret the law, only to fulfill it. . This is the first rule of the Totalitarian state, the leader is always right but more so- the law is always right.
The United States is not a Totalitarian State, well, not yet, and Republican Senators and Congressmen have the right to speak up, and they should speak up, it is their sworn obligation to protect the United States.
Speak up, before its too late. Many Germans today, wish more German citizens would have spoken up when they had the chance in the beginning. The chance to stop the horrors, the endless horrors from ever happening. the only thing Evil ever needs to succeed is that good man do nothing to stop it, and when good men make the mistake of defending evil, that's the point other human beings cease to be human.
5
"...Republicans join Democrats..."
Wow, spot on headlines, NYTimes!
Just when I thought this country was taking its final swirl down the toilet, we have a glimmer of hope that all morals and values are not dead.
So I pray that this is the start to re-awakening the virtue of compassion (and courage) amongst the other members of Congress.
1
The day Trump, Trump Jr., Ivanka, Jared and other members of the Trump clan are separated and cast off to different jails will be the day this demented president begins to understand the effects his detainment policy is having on immigrant families.
5
What a shame!
I remember when the Confederate monuments were taken down,there was a feeling that finally we have turned a corner and we have become better as a nation.
Little did we realize that yes , some racist symbols were taken down,but we have Jeff Sessions making Jim Crow laws all over again .
I don’t know what moral standing we have left as a country
4
The rumor is that there are numerous Democrats positioning themselves for 2020 presidential runs. But NO leadership is being exhibited here, where it is desperately needed. The venerable Feinstein is collecting names for a resolution and asking if anybody has a GOP senator they could call? That's party leadership? Um, no. Meanwhile, kids are traumatized and the USA is losing its last shred of international moral authority.
And frankly, who cares what Congressional Democrats do at this point? They've shrugged and left it to Schumer and Pelossi, who lecture daily to empty rooms. PLEASE, Democratic candidates - give us hope that there is actual leadership to look to as we vote the GOP out. Get on the air and in print with reminders that we are better than this, that our "populism" is not incipient fascism, and if it is, it can be overcome.
Inspire us, Democrats. Otherwise, the NYT will keep quoting the Clintons' twitter feed (really?) and putting people like Laura Bush and Melania Trump at the top of articles and calling them "leading Republicans."
Inspiring words could garner print. Right, NYT? Has anybody in the newsroom called any of the rumored candidates and asked for a comment? Or are you just waiting for the next DeNiro scream? Because that's not leadership either.
2
Why does anyone care what Anthony Scaramucci has to say? I dont know why he is on any network talking about anything or why he is being mentioned in this article. Does the NYT consider him a prominent Republican?
It is clear as a bell to anyone with half a brain that trump is just taking hostages so he can get his wall. He wants to get his way and doesnt care who he has to step on (or cage, in this instance) to get it.
His base, many of whom are purely racist while touting their Christianity, love this stuff. You know, he tells it like it is.
If anyone thinks this is making America great, God bless them. If this is Christianity, you can call me an atheist
3
He will never back off of this and if he does he will say he never did it. It was all a "Democrat" law. You can't deal with someone that lies every time he opens his mouth.
4
Mrs. Trump who somehow legally obtained what is known as an "Einstein visa" and proceeded to chain migrate her family to the US can show the same dignity as the others who are hiding in the shadows as they provide our next meal.
Be thankful of your good fortune and maybe nobody will notice you, separate you from your children and deport you.
2
“President Trump could stop this policy with a phone call,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and often an ally and golfing partner of the president’s, said on CNN on Friday. “I’ll go tell him. If you don’t like families’ being separated, you can tell D.H.S. stop doing it.”
Why doesn't President Trump make this phone call?
Is he mean or ignorant, or perhaps both?
1
Trump is bad enough with his wall and his inflammatory tweets but in this case, as with others, the source of the hateful, demeaning, counter productive and just plain mean policy is someone who has never been elected, never served his country and frankly, has never done anything constructive or positive in his entire adult life since at least college:
Stephen Miller.
He has a long history in his short life of prejudice and hate. He is not just friendly with the likes of white supremicists, he infects an already thoughtless president with truly immoral, unethical and ugly policy advice.
He is to the immigration issue in America and Trump what Adolf Eichman was to another leader in another country with a similar manufactured humanitarian issue under the umbrella excuse of making a country great again.
There the policy ended up being known as the Final Solution. What will this be known as? The Cruel Solution?
5
Someone inform Mrs. Trump this is an executive policy for which Barron’s Daddy is responsible.
6
Shame on Melania Trump for her lie of false equivalency. "Both sides" did not create this problem. The policy is a deliberate act of cruelty on the part of the Trump and Sessions.
4
I feel so powerless. Just going now to call my senator and representative to let them know how repulsive I think this is.
2
The one thing on this abhorrent policy I have not seen is the thing reporters MUST start investigating.
Find the girls. We read a great deal about camps and detention centers where boys are being held. As painful as those stories are, the girls are being ignored.
Where are they? Can you find them? Why aren't you reporting on the fate of thousands of underage girls who, presumably, are in detention centers near the border?
Please do your job. Find them. Tell us where they are.
3
The only ones who need to be in cages here, are the Trumps et al.
3
Governor Baker of Massachusetts is directing the National Guard not to send personnel or assets to the border because of the inhumane treatment of children.
3
Melania did weigh in, but when you read it, I'm not sure if she is telling her husband anything or agrees with what he is doing.
Laura Bush spoke out exactly the way Melania should be speaking out, in spite of her sleazy husband who is responsible for this policy in the first place.
2
Here are the Trump women's voices:
Ivanka-[silence], Tiffany-[silence], Melania -["I hate family separations- calling on both sides fix it..."] and *adopted* daughter; Sarah-the-bible-says-its-so-Sanders. Complicity; the new Silent Killer.
3
"Both parties push.."
No, Republicans are criticizing this, but not actually allowing a vote in Congress on the bill the Democrats have written to stop this.
Republicans could make it stop today if they sincerely wanted to.
(It doesn't matter if Trump would veto it; Republicans, if they really cared, could join with Democrats to override the veto)
10
Well said, and well done seeing through rhetoric
"Melanie" is showing her true colors. I have reserved my opinion of her, but her saying "both sides" need to work toward immigration reform parrots her brutal husband. Trump claimed after the riots and the murder of a young woman in Charlotsville that 'both sides' were to blame. He is singing from the same playbook the Nazis used after the Munich Agreement. More victim blaming.
I wonder how Melanie woud feel if her child was taken and put in a cage. This practice of taking children from their parents is hideous and must be stopped imediately and the children returned to their mothers.
12
Given that the GOP has electoral majorities in both Houses of Congress, it can pass Trump’s fascist legislation without help.
So stop whining Donny. Show us how tough you are. Come on, it’s only parents and kids. You can push them around with impunity. Right, Donny? Just like they were tenants in Queens.
10
If Melania Trump hates to see children separated from their parents she should tell her husband to stop doing it.
Stop lying to the American people and blaming the consequences of your immoral policy on the Democrats. The Trump administration alone is responsible for tearing families apart.
11
Laura Bush making a statement and Susan Collins sending a letter to the President hardly justify your headline. "Leading Republicans"?? Mitch McConnell. Paul Ryan. Kevin McCarthy. Steve Scalise. Cathey McMorrise Rodgers. Luke Messner. Rand Paul. Marco Rubio. Orrin Hatch. John Cornyn. Roy Blunt, John Thule. All of them silent as the grave.
As for the photo of Melania, her only immigration expertise is slipping her parents through the cracks. I expect accuracy and truth from the Times.
8
There's a special place in hell for Trump. And he will be joined with many family members, his enablers and advisers and those who knowingly and deliberately support his hateful, bigoted, divisive and anarchic agenda.
Karma matters.
5
Actually, a review of the top 20 despots of the 20th century shows that most people like trump get away with it. Depending on his ultimate decent into hell as is his punishment ( or punishment for the vast majority of republicans who continue to support him ) is really quite risky since well... the probably isn’t a place called he’ll.
Just called my Republican Congressman, Ken Buck here in CO to find out where he stands on this issue. His office doesn't know. That is pathetic. Vote the bum out!
8
flyfysher,
Hear, hear. I've contacted Kansas representatives this morning. So far, no reply or action.
Regards,
Kyle Koehler
5th Generation Kansas Immigrant
1
Leading Republicans!?!?! Where?
This is yet another example of a purposefully misleading headline designed to give cover and a patina of decency to the GOP at the cost of the truth about the GOP.
The article mentions only two congressional Republicans, Susan Collins and Lindsey Graham, who uttered worthless soundbites and have taken zero action to stop these immoral, inhumane atrocities.
Melania Trump issued a statement that closely follows the GOP position that Democrats are largely to blame for the administration's human rights abuses. Bully for her!
Laura Bush did the right thing by writing a piece blasting the GOP's grotesque crimes. But, it strains credibility to call a former First Lady a "leading Republican" in this matter.
Stop the false equivalency! Stop giving cover to the liars and cowards who comprise today's GOP! Call out the liars! Call out the cowards! Call out the human rights abusers! Call out the GOP!
At least, stop printing intentionally misleading headlines!!!
9
Manufactured nonsense story by the Democrats and the left. The separation of children occurred under Obama and the MSM and Democrats did not say anything. There are 2.3 million people in the U.S. prisons—all of those people are separated from their family members. Most of the illegals being caught in this country do not meet the criterion for asylum so they are simply in the country illegally—also known as criminals. The few individuals who do meet the criterion for asylum will be granted it.
2
No human being is illegal.
2
President Obama never separated children from their parents.
On the contrary, your entire argument is manufactured nonsense from Fox and other right-wing propaganda outlets, which are content to continually lie and divide the American people for profits.
4
Go research sentence 2. For sentence 3 it’s a red herring. US Children are not jailed, and children of jailed people TYPICALLY have a support system of family and friends. These people do not.
1
Anyone remember the Nazis? Wake up!
8
To the ludicrous Bible quoting Sessions and Sanders…
Our founders wanted us to have separation of church and state, not separation of mother and child.
Maybe Trump picked up the practice from his Nazi buddy Kim. (forced labor next, Donald?)
The suffering of these families will not go unredeemed.
This is Trump's Waterloo.
When you become a child abuser, the public has a hard time swallowing it.
Every other issue will be subsumed till he changes his tune.
May he suffer politically and be punished by the action of God.
Suffer.
5
"... As a mother, as a Catholic, as somebody who has got a conscience... " -- Kellyanne Conway
No, Kellyanne. That is the biggest piece of hubris I have encountered in several weeks. You have NO conscience, Kellyanne. None.
14
Hubris might not be the correct word. Hypocrite might not even cover it.
1
Trump is putting a stupid campaign pledge to his base ahead of the lives of thousands of innocent children.
Trump is a heartless, wicked dishonorable man. Using children as hostages to get his wall built may be the worst thing he's done in his deeply cruel, ignorant, inhumane presidency.
I can't wait for the day Trump's forced from office for any of the multitude of crimes we are watching him commit.
This crime against humanity should count before all the others.
#not my president
11
Why isn't more made of the fact, yes fact that this President is known to have a longstanding fascination for Adolf Hitler?
4
Trump is actively traumatizing innocent children. He's just PROVEN that he is a coldly calculating, vicious man who WILL torture children to get what he wants; he's gladly enforcing that torture right this minute! Hitler and Stalin would applaud Trump's aberrant personality.
I truly hope that the karma for every nasty thing Trump has ever done comes around very soon. And on judgment day, may he get what he deserves.
5
Melania promotes Be Best. 45 says ok, I'll be best at cruelty and open Trump Concentration Camps to keep out illegals until I get my wall. Ivanka, the self-proclaimed champion for women, has slithered away and is nowhere to be found as white house advisor. Despicable - every single one of them.
8
Trump's decision to separate children from their families is a signal to all Latinos in the U.S. -- from undocumented to U.S. citizens -- that he has no regard for them and they are not welcome. His hostility toward Latinos is a fine recruiting tool for gangs like MS-13.
1
We are humans before we are Americans or Mexicans or anything else.
People like Jeff Sessions are why I don't go to church any more. If there is a hell, clearly the leaders of our country are going there.
6
This just how much white people hate us. They're willing to screw with our children. We won't forget this.
6
No - not "white" people. REPUBLICAN white people. I hope you don't forget this. If you're eligible to vote - do it. This white person is every bit as furious as you. We must rid ourselves of these monsters who would do this to children. For now, our only choice is by vote. For now...
No. This is a measure of how much Trump and his administration and a small minority of other white people feel about you. The vast majority of white Americans are opposed to these practices and value and welcome the presence of people from all over the globe living in the US. Most of us remember that ALL of our own ancestors came here from elsewhere at some point in time, and we value the diversity immigration brings us. I'm sorry that it seems you are hated by whites because of a powerful but SMALL number of scared old white men.
1
Grounds for impeachment: kidnapping on a mass scale
5
This is the most horrific thing I have ever heard. Pause, and think about it for a second -- a federal government taking children from their parents. What kind of government does that? Nazi!
If you don't want the "illegal immigrants" and you don't want to spend the resources hearing their cases, you might as well deport them altogether. You have no right on earth to separate children from their parents. Period. There is a place in hell for this administration.
7
Madame First Lady:
Thank you for having the courage to speak up on this issue.
I do feel the language could have been more direct and a stronger stance taken but you might not have had control over language.
I hope the GOP & the president that control the House & Senate will support immigration reform and stop the FALSE blame inflicted on Democrats by your husband!
4
This is a massive crime against families.
Anyone carrying out this new policy is committing a crime.
14
Narcissists can't admit to making a mistake. So until Donald Trump (who shows all the signs and symptoms of clinical narcissism) can find a way to project responsibility onto others, like keep blaming Democrats, nothing will change.
And that's also because this border debacle is keeping his base happy--and thus keeping their vote. (Which is what he cares about.) It's keeping his promise to make America culturally/ethically "white" again by curtailing diversity and multiculturalism. And that's regardless of the toxic long-term emotional consequences on innocent children.
That said, however, separating parents and children as a way to curb illegal immigration won't work. It may even backfire. It may ironically encourage more.
And that's because common sense says that regardless how painful it is for parents to be separated from their children, their being forced to choose between staying home where there's daily violence and threats of death and separation they would naturally choose temporary separation knowing their children will be safe, be fed, and have a roof over their head. Who wouldn't make that choice.
However, putting already traumatized humans and their traumatized innocent children into that kind of conundrum is at it's core brutal and inhumane and needs to stop, now!
7
“President Trump could stop this policy with a phone call,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and often an ally and golfing partner of the president’s, said on CNN on Friday.
Yes, and Congress could stop it by passing legislation forbidding it. We shouldn't hold our breath.
For far too long, Congress and presidents have kicked the can of immigration reform down the road. It's become an utter mess, with temporary rules and policies that can change with the wind replacing what we really need: Laws that make sense and mandate compassion.
Don't blame Trump for taking an avenue left open to him. Blame the folks who left the avenue open, including Barack Obama, who deported more folks, by far, than any president in our history. You could say that Obama was the Can Kicker In Chief, and don't go blaming Republicans for the failures of Obama, who was a terrible president when it came to working with Congress and getting legislation passed. Bottom line, he didn't get it done, like he didn't get a lot of stuff done, and we are all suffering the consequences.
1
Nice deflection, but the fact is that the separation part was not happening until this administration made the decision to enforce it. You are the one kicking the can down the road.
3
" the Trump Administration totally owns the way in which their enforcement powers can be interpreted."
@August West: As others have reminded us, the Senate passed a major immigration reform bill in 2013, but Republican speaker John Boehner refused to allow the House to vote on th3 bill, even though the chances were good that it would have passed. here we are. This is not Obama's fault. He tried to get legislation passed. The Republicans blocked it. And here we are. A Republican Congress, a Republican Supreme Court, and a Republican president are unable to pass any significant reform whatsoever. And they also refuse to co-sponsor a new bill Democrats are trying to introduce.
Get rid of incumbent Republicans in Congress and then we will start to get things done!
So it's alright to torture children because President Trump promised immigration reform? I do not see the connection. He is being blamed for his sadistic treatment of families, not for his long awaited thoughtful policies on immigration reform. We are still waiting for those.
4
Clearly most of these "asylum" seekers are gaming the system coached by human traffickers, smugglers and lawyers to take advantage of a compassionate US immigration policy for real asylum seeker. The end result will be laws that will be much more harsher to those who truly need asylum.
5
In response to a separate article about the Trump administration's separating children from their parents, the daughter of a holocaust survivor wrote about the profound lifetime effects the separation had on her mother. She added "You don't have to be a psychologist to know what is going to happen to these children today."
You also don't have to be a psychologist to ask if there are serious psychological issues behind Trump advisor Stephen Miller's "zero tolerance policy for illegal entry, period."
2
Too much.
In the old days fathers would leave their families to build a life for them. Then, when he was able to support them, he would bring them over.
Sometimes, it took 10 years.
This was America.
The separated families not only survived but thrived.
Save the tears.
1
@True Observer: My grandfather left his sixteen-year-old wife in Europe to come to this country in 1914 and did not return for his wife and child until 1924. For ten years my grandmother had no idea if he was dead or alive. When he finally showed up, my grandmother was with another man and had had another child. My aunt had no memory of him. My grandfather threatened to take their daughter (men automatically had custody of children in those days, and my grandmother had no rights at all) if she did not leave her new man and son and come to the US with him. She went with him under duress, and left her second child.
To all appearances, they "survived," but my grandmother was a traumatized woman for the remainder of her life. Her sadness affected the rest of her children. The daughter died young, anyway, and none of the other children did well in life, except for my mom, who managed to get away from the toxic family situation when she won a college scholarship. We never found out what happened to the son she had to abandon.
Long-term separation is not a good idea for any family. It has serious psychological and emotional consequences, which are then handed down to the next generation.
5
Save the hypocrite and the a.m. radio shock jock cut and paste.
"Pro life!" - until they're born.
"Family values!" - except when it means I have to actually get up from my couch.
"This is a Christian nation!" - but only when the topics are same-sex marriage and reproductive rights.
The fact is, supporters of this unnecessary cruelty are buying into the scapegoating of these people, because those supporters will buy anything and everything that punishes just for the sake of it.
"Too much."
Yep.
3
Good thinking. If dad is over in America making money, the mother and kids will be protected from gangs and bullets back home.
2
This whole situation is not surprising when taking into account Trump's admiration of Putin and Kim Jong Un, and the manner in which they control 'their people'.
4
On its face, her comment has merit, i.e., as a practical matter, it takes both parties to produce reform. But, putting children in concentration camps is Trump's policy ... he owns it ... and will be remembered for it. And, as long as his electorate approves, he is not solely to blame.
13
The policy of separating children from their parents has two points that appeal to Trump et al:
1. It is gratuitously cruel. (No law requires it; it's a flat-out lie from Trump.)
2. It is ineffective. (If you are a parent whose 15-year-old daughter is threatened with being forced to service a gang, the prospect of having her taken away from you at the border is the lesser of two evils. So you will come anyway, and these continuing arrivals can be used as an excuse for ever more punitive actions.)
But it's still evil.
13
Please tell us what happens to babies nursing and or in diapers crawling etc in detention much less toddlers and young children who comforts suckles and watches them?
8
Just to be sure everyone understands how we got here: (1) in 1996 Congress passed a bipartisan law called IIRIRA that has made US immigration policy much more restrictive. (2) Pres Clinton signed the law (3) Justice branch and ICE agents are now being instructed to enforce the law in a more cruel manner. All here, you might look up "IIRIRA" in Wikipedia or Congressional Record to understand who voted for it. I was surprised to find many of my Democratic party heros, including Sens. Leahy, Feinstein, Dodd, Lieberman, Inouye, Robb, etc. voted for it. However, the Trump Administration totally owns the way in which their enforcement powers can be interpreted. There is no way the Executive Branch can cast the blame on a past Pres, a single party or some religion.
3
Because the circumstances surrounding her own immigration and the means by which she obtained citizenship have never been explained fully to the American public, Melania Trump might refrain from getting involved in this issue. Her parents also are apparently living in this country. How did that come about?
10
trump is impervious to appeals to his conscious (or lack thereof). His callousness has been well documented by David Cay Johnston.
Just like Napoleon had his Waterloo, this debacle posing as immigration policy, may well be trump's "Katrina."
3
Main solution is to invest American resources, financial, industrial and human, into the countries from where these people are leaving so they can live without fear and make a living at home. Maybe even 10% of what we've spent on Iraq and Afghanistan would do the trick. The U.S. has a terrible history of exploiting the resources and people of these countries in the past.
4
Has anyone considered the parental fitness of people who take their children with them while they are committing a crime? At some point, people have to accept the consequences of illegal activity.
4
It's a crime to run for your life? Since when? Since when is it illegal to apply for asylum or refugee status? When???
More lying by Trump and his minions. This is a policy and the point is deterring families from coming to the border and crossing illegally. They could stop it immediately. I abhor what his taking place. Toddlers and indeed children under 16 at least should not be separated from their parents. While politicians squabble about who is responsible for this and what is to be done, I see no analysis and discussion of the root causes of this migration - violence, corruption and lack of governance in places like El Salvador and Honduras. There will always be people wanting to migrate to the United States. However, the U.S. should be trying to figure out some strategies to decrease the driving force behind the desire of these people to come here. We do have a right to a secure border. However, we shouldn't sacrifice our humanity at the same time. More energy should be placed on establishing viable guest worker programs, especially for those employed in agriculture. The wall will not deter these people. Desperation due to lack of economic opportunity and violence will cause people to try and migrate. Until the root causes are addressed, we are just spending millions on a fruitless mission, and causing harm to children in the process.
5
TO PARAPHRASE : They came for strangers, and I did nothing. They came for my friends and neighbors, and I did nothing. Now they have come for me, and there is no one to call upon for help. This truly is a bad moment for our country. THERE IS NO DEFENSE ON THE PART OF THE CITIZENS such as I did not know! It is on all of us. Please think of some way to do something. Shame on everyone
14
I don't recognize my country any more. Furthermore, I am glad my parents are not here to see how the country my father fought for all through Europe is being disgraced by this presidency. I work for a European company and a colleague told me, "We all wanted to be Americans when we grew up. Not any more." Sad commentary on our status in the world.
17
The United States does not incarcerate U.S. children with their parents when their parents are arrested. In 2016 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the United States cannot incarcerate migrant children along with their parents either. It ruled that the Department of Homeland Security must release all migrant children it apprehends at the border to the Department of Health and Human Services, which places them with relatives or sponsors. The Trump administration is complying with that order.
The Ninth Circuit Court’s decision is a good decision. The Democrats only pretend they finds releasing migrant children inhumane. They don't think migrant children should be incarcerated along with their parents. What they really opposes is prosecuting adult migrants for crossing the border illegally. They think the United State should not enforce its immigration laws.
The Trump administration started prosecuting illegal; border crosser because decades of not prosecuting them encouraged rather than deterred illegal border crossers. The Border Patrol estimates it catches about 54 percent of illegal border crossers, a figure the Border Patrol Union says is inflated. The Border Patrol intercepted more than 50,000 in May. This means about 50,000 illegal border crossers eluded the Border Patrol last month.
5
I will make a bet that with all the politicians wanting to stop the forced separation of families .... nothing will happen. Or by the time it does, so much damage will have been done as to be irreversible. Lives ruined by feckless people who care nothing about caring for our neighbors. I have always been a proud American. My family has done very well by most standards. But at this time in history America has sunk below the horizon. We are in a dark place.
6
No, the Republican's up for reelection will do nothing. They've already seen the trump backlash - republicans up for reelection who do not support trump will be destroyed in the primaries.
If this is, as John Kelly has said, a deterrence policy, then it is by definition systematic and seems to be becoming widespread.
It is cruel and inhuman treatment, the Supreme Court has previously ruled that affecting the behavior of a person in custody by threatening or harming their relative is illegal and cruel. Cruel and inhuman treatment is a violation of the Convention Against Torture, and if systematic or widespread, such violations are a crime against humanity.
This is a president that only days ago, wished that citizens of this country would sit up and listen when he speaks like the citizens of the DPRK do for Kim. His adviser, Stephen Miller, is apparently overjoyed that such cruelty is going to be the new normal.
Under normal circumstances, there is another branch of government that holds an executive in check. The Republican party has shut that branch down, and does nothing but enable this president. When and if the President's advisers and himself face consequences, their abettors in Congress should face them too.
21
This is a presidential gambit, but it crosses the line of civility. It is beyond the pale to harm young children in an attempt to punish the parents (even assuming the efficacy of a deterrent immigration policy) in an effort to enforce a convoluted immigration policy.
Have Americans lost their sense of moral compass? Is Washington, D.C. devoid of any courage to just surrender to "The Emperor's New Clothes? "
13
I think there's a good chance that we will start to see some deaths among these separated toddlers. They will refuse to eat, maybe drink, too and sadly the result is not hard to contemplate. Going a bit further, perhaps that is the unstated goal of Miller and the others who support this policy. Word of deaths of children will likely get back to those who think of immigrating and the numbers of those coming north will diminish. Sadly, I'm not real confident that this policy can be reversed before that happens.
7
As Trump cannot attract the best talent like a typical US President elected to office without Kremlin assistance, he has the likes of Stephen Miller and Jeff Sessions to advise him.
This is what the United States of America would look like without a moral compass or American democratic values.
23
This is a test.
1
KELLYANNE’S CONSCIENCE
Basically: We are not using this as a leveraging tool, we are just using this as a leveraging tool.
Even Orwellian doublespeak is starting to break down.
When it finally does and there is no place left to hide, the portrait in the mirror will not be pretty.
7
I am currently working with a realtor who is an ardent Trump supporter. I felt that I needed to be more open-minded about the other side and bridge the gap I was feeling between myself and the 40% of Americans that think this presidency is OK. This is someone I have known for over 10
This latest travesty - separating children from their parents - has now lifted the veil from the face of the Republicans. They are not Christians, and they are neither pro-family nor pro-life. They're punitive, calculating and power hungry.
Back to the realtor: If we were not already under contract and getting ready to close on this home, at this point I would walk away from working with her after this latest assault on human decency. Realtors depend on referrals from clients, so the best I can do is not refer her to anyone I know. If asked for a referral I will tell her that, quite frankly, I cannot recommend her to anyone I know.
And, yes, I did try to have a discussion with her so that I could better understand what drives a young female businessperson into the arms of the Trump camp. All I got were a number of talking points straight out of the mouths of Hannity and Kellyanne.
10
This started with Republican House leadership in 2013. After the senate passed landmark compromise immigration reform legislation 68-32, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) blocked it from even coming up for a vote in the House, even though it likely would have passed. So, it was not Democrats who have blocked immigration reform - it was Republican leadership.
Don't let Trump obfuscate about "decades of failures" or Democratic refusal to cave in to his ransom demands for the kidnapped kids. Be sure to place the blame where it actually lies - the GOP.
12
Yes, real profiles in courage are those that are denouncing the separation of children from their law-breaking parents.
But apparently this grandstanding sanctimony is reserved only for non-citizens.
Meanwhile, millions of American citizens who've broken the law are spending years in jail separated from their children, and these same selectively compassionate posers have nothing to say about that.
10
Yes, your correct & I'm glad CBS included this along with their lengthy coverage this morning,
Many reading or commenting on this article might not know this.
The US does separate LEGAL US citizens/ parents who are arrested for CRIMES from their children, because the children have not committed a crime - something close to that - I don't remember the exact language to put quotations.
1
Actually there are a lot of criminal justice reform efforts underway. Please look at what is going in NY
https://www.ny.gov/restoring-fairness-new-yorks-criminal-justice-system/...
Unless they have Kim Kardashian pleading their case before the president.
Regardless of the need for immigration reform, using innocent children as hostages & pawns to pass these bills is kidnapping & barbaric. Immigration reform & separating children from parents is not mutually exclusive. In this case, it is a lawless ad hoc tactic used by an brutal administration which has clearly lost all moral principles, not to mention its humanity. There are no arguments that Trump & Sessions supporters can make to justify or rationalize the permanent damage being done needlessly to children who, after all, have no choice or comprehension in immigration or refugee issues.
The US could soon find itself on the lists of International Human Rights violations & the World Health Organization for its mental & potential physical abuse of children.
9
When history taught us any lessons then we must stand up and speak up against inhumane actions - and that includes all medias.
After the end of world war 2, many German citizen were asked why they did not do anything against family separations. Families were separated and then brought to concentration camps. The answer in most cases was "we did not know...". The people who were in power said "we followed the law...". Are we witnessing the same now? Are we on a path that can easily become out of control?
There are many ways to solve the issues we have on our border. The solution must require a consensus and a compromise. It also requires that we as a nation must help the people in their home contries to overcome the roots of their despair.
When the president promised something in the campaign, it is not a free ride to be inhumane. A president must standup up to the highest ethical and human standards!
8
I have written to my senators this morning stating that I will no longer be able to support them, or other members of the Maryland congressional delegation, unless they speak out now against the detention of children on our southern borders. I suggest that everyone who reads this do the same.
23
Sen. Chris Van Hollen from MD was in TX at some of the holding centers this past weekend.
1
I hope you wrote a letter and not an email. Members of congress respond much more positively to actual letters sent through the postal service.
Anne,
Hear, hear. Representatives from Kansas have been contacted as well.
Regards,
Kyle Koehler
5th Generation Kansas Immigrant
Words fail me.
I am so incredibly angry. There is no place for my rage.
I can forgive Trump supporters in 2016---but I won't be able to look at Trump supporters in 2020.
13
I left a message (I hope) for one senator, emailed another when his phone rang busy forever, and cried for Patrick McHenry's rep. I hope it does some good. I will vote against them whenever possible if they do nothing. This is immoral and I will not shrug and turn away.
4
Send them letters via the UP postal service -- the old fashioned way.
What happened to the America that I once understood to be humane and compassionate towards their neighbouring countries? Separating innocent children form their parents is not a political issue rather a heartless crime by those who use their power to break the human spirit. This is unacceptable. Every American who believes in a country based on the practise of "human rights" as a fundamental to every Just society should be marching in the streets to end this despicable action by their Government.
13
Trump admired how "tough" the Supreme Leader of North Korea was along with how much he "loved" his people. Trump also wants to show such "admirable" traits. Now even he can be a "Supreme Leader." Abusing children who are easy targets for white nationalists-who he loves.
11
Could it be a crack is happening to the craven instincts of the GOP?
Could their moral conscience actually be awakening from their hoarding?
Imagine if they would move to save America from the traitor rather than protect their bank accounts, then we would be a shining light on the hill, filled with courage and the moral right to regain a visage of World leadership.
4
"Could it be a crack is happening to the craven instincts of the GOP?
Could their moral conscience actually be awakening from their hoarding?"
No.
Trump is not only ruthless, he is enjoying this. He is now the national dictator, the mob boss with the power of life and death, where the world comes to his court and begs for mercy.
Yes, we need immigration reform. But if your representatives in Congress are not screaming their heads off publicly about this violation of American values and international morality and not taking real legislative action, call them, email them, fax them. Make sure they know that you believe talk is cheap, they are fully complicit and will be held accountable at the polls. And if they are seriously pushing back, let them know you support them.
Since its clear that Congress fears Trump too much to do their job on our behalf, then its our job to make them fear us at the polls more.
27
Not sure you get the political process: "Congress fears Trump" because they think the citizens will turn them out, which is why November is so important. Don't forget to vote--but, unfortunately, I suppose, you don't get a shot at Trump till 2020. So sad.
1
No. "the former first lady Laura Bush, a conservative newspaper and a onetime adviser to Mr. Trump" are not "leading Republicans." Paul Ryan is a leading Republican. Mitch McConnell is a leading Republican. Trump is a leading Republican. Gorsuch is a leading Republican. Not one of them have done anything.
Republicans are fine with punishing children for the actions of their parents (especially brown children).
11
Forget the bill. We should all demand Trump stop this horrendous and heartless blackmail, before we even talk about an immigration bill. This is not America.
13
Trump needs someone to publicly blame and fire for this policy.
The best target for that is White House advisor Stephen Miller.
Donald can make a big show of firing him and saying that he misled everyone, overreached, but was also treated unfairly by the media.
End the policy and immedlately put out a PR video about warmly reconnecting with Putin.
11
reminds me of when Saddam Hussain had a photo op with those British human shield children. My god, is that what we have become?
5
Govern by law, not by executive directive toward departments ... we need competent legislators
Vote !
6
So much for that nonsense about Mexico paying for the wall!
Now we have Trump taking children hostage in an effort to extort Congress. Cruel and immoral, as Laura Bush says.
“Every time we think Trump’s hit bottom, he finds a new bottom," Joan Walsh wrote in 2015. How right she was.
Donald Trump’s Bottomless Bottom
https://bit.ly/2tenB4w
12
I don't care who or where or what or how or why. I don't care which political party, or what law or policy, or what promises Trump made while his was running for office, or what immigration policy is "in vogue" today or not. *Separating children from their parents is unconscionable*. It cannot be rationalized. Period. Must. Stop. Now.
10
As critics rightly are calling out trump for his lies and equivocations in this scandal, he is defending his policy. Devising that policy is the handiwork of Att. General Sessions, who has his own racist past, and, perhaps most of all Stephen Miller, one of trump's most senior advisors. Miller by all appearances is one of the most callous, dogmatic members of trump's staff. Ending this separation tragedy is an aim unto itself, but a useful by product would be getting rid of Miller, a baleful influence on our country
12
President Macron, there’s a statue in New York Harbor that belongs to you. We don’t deserve her any more.
22
I don't think I'm the only one who see some irony in recent headlines about the "Cruel Govt separating Children from Parents at the border." That's funny, it probably happens about a thousand times a day in different "Family Courts" across our nation to one or both parents. But that's OKAY -- because our parents deserved it, move to the back of the bus in your kid's lives (or maybe we kick you right off).
Our current Family Court systems mean well, but fail in the way it treats families (not so different from segregation). You go in with no rights and a single Judge decides -- it's funny, a criminal has more due process protections than an American Parent facing separation from the child they love...
People seeking asylum are not criminals.
Americans convicted of crimes through the US court system are criminals.
Their children are not put in detention centers, they are placed in homes with other family members or with foster parents.
2
Democrats believe that you can enforce the law, without descending into moral penury.
Democrats believe that we should use every reasonable method to stop illegals from entering the country, without violating American ideals.
Democrats believe in the practical application of the law, not draconian.
Democrats believe that selectively applying "zero tolerance" for other people's actions, but not their own, is hypocritical and duplicitous.
Democrats believe that dehumanizing and vilifying people simply for trying to make a better life for themselves is just as bad as starting "wars of choice", stealing Supreme Court seats, and, getting in bed with hostile foreign powers in order to steal elections.
Democrats believe in democracy, not Fascism.
Democrats believe that the acquisition of power, simply for the sake of power is degenerate.
Democrats believe in equality of education and opportunity, not "survival of the richest".
Democrats believe in climate change, not energy sector propaganda.
Democrats believe in compassion, fairness, justice, and "objective" truth, not racism, hatred, cruelty, and "subjective" lying.
Democrats believe in logic, reason, knowledge and wisdom, not nonsense, hyperbole, ignorance and self-serving greed.
Democrats believe that, "We're all in this together" is a better philosophy than, "You're on your own".
In short, the Democrats are everything the Republicans are not.
17
I am so tired of people's justifying the abomination of separating children from their mothers by saying that if we don't crack down on border crossers (and desperate asylum seekers) our country will be in chaos because of uncontrolled immigration. Really the ways things are going, pretty soon the United States will have to be renamed Mordor.
14
"Stephen Miller, told The New York Times last week that it was 'a simple decision by the administration to have a zero tolerance policy for illegal entry, period.'"
I think Miller means "simplistic decision" (not a "simple decision"). And if it were a "simple decision," then clearly the Trump regime has no sense of morality, caring, or concern for young children and the impact of the regime's decisions on even babies and toddlers.
And that is the whole problem with the Trump administration and the Trump base. No decision is informed, well thought out, nuanced, or kind/civil from the Trump Totalitarians.
As many a fascist and authoritarian dictatorship knows, cruelty against others, inhumane treatment, and punishment will always sell to a certain angry, resentful segment of a population.
6
Trump is guity of child abuse.
He is also guilty of abuse of the English language:
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all."
9
These people have been lured to the US by "progressive" democrat pro illegal immigration policies. Stop those immoral policies and this separation of families stop too.
2
Trump's North Korea meet was aided by Rodman. His pardons of proven crooks are encouraged by entertainment celebrities. His policies are driven by 36 year old failure because he happens to be Jared.
And now his immigration policy is designed by thirty something hate monger Stephen Miller.
The country is going through the darkest phase of its existence while being run by the stupidest but the greediest crook thanks to the cowardest bunch of republicans on the Capitol Hill.
5
Taking a broad view of this travesty; Trump wants to believe he can impose "his will" on the United States. His will is that a perfectly useless physical wall be erected on the southern border. A waste of money needed for other purposes, it would represent nothing more than a monument to himself.
In order to "get his way" this unlearned, spineless, mediocrity of an accidental president is willing to abuse toddlers for leverage and blatantly lie about the policy belonging to Democrats. It is wrong and he is a liar.
What is worse than the Gutless Wonder in the White House is that, not only will his party officials not stand up to him, his mob of supporters refuses to acknowledge that this crime is being perpetrated on asylum seekers. These are not freeloaders looking for a soft landing...these are people fleeing for their lives from conditions and regimes the United States, with its insatiable craving for drugs, has created. Talk about blaming the victims! Border Patrol is not even acknowledging pleas for asylum before separating family members.
Illegal, immoral, consistent with our history of Native genocide, slavery, Jim Crow and internment camps...America un-masked by a man and a party that stole the office with the help of a foreign power and now seeks to distract us from that with the crisis of the day. This is about the "will" of a dangerously unbalanced, lying man and his lynch mob.
4
For all the condemnations by Republicans, we should be clear on why Trump and Sessions believed there were no consequences for their actions, or for lying about a law that doesn’t exist. The reason is no mystery: 87% of Republicans, not “conservative” but rather fundamentally radical, support Trump no matter what he does. That won’t change in the next poll. The destruction of these children’s lives is on their hands; incalculable psychological damage has been done and can’t be reversed. It doesn’t matter if Laura Bush wrings her hands on national television in a 24-hour marathon. The approval numbers from Republicans will stay where they are or go higher. So many speak confidently of how this four or eight years will seem an aberration. That’s a lovely delusion. When there is no rule of law left, when there are no civil liberties, when “criminal” Americans are herded into camps, when all of the media except Fox and Sinclair have been shut down, the 87% will still approve.
8
Kellyanne Conway was disingenuous when she echoed Trump's words that "everyone has to work together" to stop the separation of children from their parents. She's fully aware that this "zero tolerance" policy of separating family members was concocted by the Trump administration.
Trump and Sessions are cruel and immoral. Every Republican in Congress must join the Democrats and speak out against this evil un-American policy.
5
Well, darned if we do, darned if we don't.
If we 'separate' these kids from their parents at the border, everyone says how awful it is. Darned if we do.
If we don't, and we keep them together with their parents by locking them ALL up together, then we're darned too. Can't win situation. The only way to win is to let anyone who wants to cross any border they want to, then when the entire world ends up looking like third (and fourth) world countries we can all say "Where did we go wrong? How did this happen?"
When 5 people (out of 14?!?!) in an overturned SUV were just killed, people are saying the driver shouldn't be locked up for this because "illegal crossing is a 'civil' matter now according to the Supreme Court". WOW! Guess that means that if you are here illegally, you can commit any crime you want and shouldn't be prosecuted in criminal court? Not to mention, the smugglers are HUMAN TRAFFICKERS, not Uber drivers!
So, let's NOT separate them for a while. Let's lock up the kids with their parents and see who comes out screaming that kids shouldn't be put into 'adult' jails.
4
The point is that Trump is separating the children from their parents them deporting the parents but not their children. Or he deports the parents and at a different time deports the children.
4
How about if we release them on their own recognizance, 80% of whom SHOW UP for their court date where they apply for asylum (which is their right)?
2
Given the "progressive" desire to accelerate demographic change via illegal immigration it would not surprise me to find that many of the human traffickers are in fact "progressives". For all we know human trafficking is a coordinated effort by "progressives".
It's almost funny that Melania is criticizing separating children from their parents given it's her evil, despicable husband who is promoting it. He can blame the Democrats but anyone who has a brain cell cannot deny what this man is doing to what used to be the greatest country in the world. From dissing our allies to raving about Kim and Putin and saluting a North Korean general to viciously separating children from their parents is not what America is about. Can America survive this man? God help us.
6
Where is Elian Gonzalez when you need him? I remember Bill Clinton's moment of immigration compassion with that picture of the immigration agents crashing through the door with their machine guns.
3
Nice to see that Melania is finally showing her true colors. She's as amoral and without scruples as all the other Trumps. I guess she's starting to recognize and enjoy the grifting possibilities of being First Lady.
5
Trump is a monster, as he never fails to show the rest of us who live in this once respected country how not to be a successful and admired president of the U.S., and his trophy wife, as a mother, should be ashamed of herself. His actions sicken me and I seriously wonder if we have as the President, a sociopath with no conscience, let alone, compassion for anyone who seeks a better life for his/her family.
15
This is ALL about Trumps wall! He will go to any lengths for his almighty wall. I read this morning that one of the members of the democratic party said she would agree to the wall, if Trump would agree to stop seperating the kids from the parents. That is what this is all about! Disgusting!
1
In turning over migrant children to the Department of Health and Humans Service, the Trump administration is complying with a federal court order. In 2016, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the United States must transfer all migrant children apprehended with their parents at the border to the Department of Health and Human Services, which releases them to relatives or other sponsors. This is why migrant children are being separated from their parents. They cannot held in custody with their parents. People who think migrant children apprehended at the border should not be released, should redirect their anger from the Trump administration to the Ninth Circuit Court.
You can read the Ninth Circuit decision at https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2016/07/06/15-56434.pdf
1
I've read this court decision. It does not say what you think it says. While the case required the the INS place children in "non-secure" detention facilities that have educational and other child specific resources, it does not allow the government to deport the parents and retain the children. It also requires tha INS release to children to family or other responsible adults ASAP.
Trump's actions are to remove the children from their parents and put them in secure facilities that do not meet the requirement of this Court Decision. The decision does not allow Trump to deport the parents and keep the children.
Trump is intentionally violating the Court Case and US law.
2
@William Case: Well, golly, if that's the court's decision, where are all of the sponsors lining up to take these two thousand children into their homes? Why are they living in detention centers with no one to care for them? Could it be that the Trump administration doesn't care about following through on court orders? The court didn't order the government to put children into detention centers, after all.
By the way, ask the indigenous Australian people if taking poor children away from their parents and putting them in other people's homes worked out for them in the long run.
1
Not at all what they decided. Period
Garfield Medical Center in Monterey Park, CA is an anchor baby factory. Every other Saturday 9am in the cafeteria bus loads of Chinese just arrived from LAX meet for predelivery talk, and get complimentary car seat. See for yourself. Parents leverage the children to pry open America and Americans are the best patsy ever. If you can get an American to shed a tear, you can get them to hand over their country to you. Number of nonChinese Americans ever allowed Chinese citizenship? None, says Eric Liu of Harvard. Never even 1.
3
@ABC: So, you're saying that if China does it, we should do it, too? Maybe we should also elect a president for life, nationalize companies, speak Chinese, and become fake communists, too. After all, China does it!
Cheap distortion. But let us get down to cases — how many illegal orphans do you house in your home? Talk is cheap.
Nothing this evil administration has done yet is as despicable as this. This is a descent into barbarism.
16
So Melania Trump repeats her husband's LIES about the policy instituted by this administration to separate children from their parents and the best the vaunted NY Times can come up with is "Melania Trump echoes the President's false claim that a political stalemate was to blame." The word to use is lie. Why is that so hard for this newspaper?
5
It looks like Trump and Sessions have taken their guidance from the Nazi playbook of the 1940s. This is like what the guards at the concentration camps did as they separated the children from their parents ..... to send them to the gas chambers. Maybe that's a stretch but it doesn't take much of a stretch to see Fascism in the actions of this Trump-led administration. Those (both Republican Congressmen and voters) who support these Fascist behaviours are just as guilty. And Sessions had the audacity to quote the Bible to defend his actions?????When will Trump's supporters wake up and see just how evil this administration actually is.
5
Americans should be shamed. Concentration camps for children are a a US invention that the rest of the world condemns.
8
No, Nazi Germany invented them for Jewish Children.
The late Senator Jesse Helms said, and I quote, "We are what we condone." Of course, he was speaking about a different topic. But the king of racist Southern bigots stated it quite clearly for Americans: We are what we condone.
And if you condone children being cruelly separated from their parents by federal agents at the border, then read no further. But if you do not, then you need to do something, and that starts with contacting your senators and congressmen and telling them that you will not abide this latest Trumpist terror campaign. Otherwise, this is being done in your name, and you condone it.
2
With all due respect to the office of the President this is pure unadulterated bovine fertilizer. There can only be one reason that the lies are becoming more brazen lately. The noose is in front of his face. The Gaslighter in Chief can't sell you his innocence after the Mueller obstruction report comes out if the con has not been totally sold ahead of time. Are you ready to buy preemptive pardons for Flynn, Manafort and Cohen yet?
2
It was inevitable that the lies, xenophobia and racism of the present administration would come to influence actual policy, real rules and legislation. The ignorance, incompetence, and backstabbing of this White House could only protect us for so long.
Thank you, Mrs. Bush for standing up and speaking out. Thank you Senator Collins. Thank you President Clinton. Thank you, Sec. Clinton. Thank you, Mr. Hayden. Thank you, Mrs. Obama.
They are taking children often less than 4 years old away from their families and putting them in camps The dishonesty and prevarication here from Sessions, Nielsen, Trump, Sanders, et al. is worse than the dishonesty that this White House has already given us which was itself already worse than America has ever seen from any White House.
"Be best" at being reprehensible: "... Melania Trump weighed in, saying she “hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together ... we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with a heart ..."
No need to belabor the details yet again, or wade through the thicket of White House lies. This policy is inhumane and brutal. Our own laws require that we accept and consider every family's application for asylum. The ideals that we must all aspire to cannot ever be permitted to accommodate such cruelty.
15
This president is the most dishonorable and dishonest person ever to hold high office in the U.S. and that includes some real winners like Richard Nixon. The "policy" to separate children from their parents at our southern border is a policy, not a law. The last administration had a different policy which was humane and conformed far more to world wide standards of decency. To lay this at the feet of the democratic party insults the intelligence of all American citizens. Republicans own this action and the person who has precipitated it. Tell me one more time how you are the party of family values.
17
If you listen Jefferson, that would be Burr, hands down.
Haven't talked with Tom recently....How's he doing?
Got that Sally thing happening. You should give him a call and ask about Burr--worst than Trump, for certain. If you can't get through, he's posted lots about his love for Burr. Take a look sometime.
Memo
To: United Nations Security Council
From: Concerned Observer
Please call an emergency session to discuss these human rights violations by the United States.
Thank you.
16
To the women in Congress who are mothers: What are you going to do about the illegal internment and separation of children? Do you want another term in the House or Senate? In that case, call out this desecration of human rights and get legislation through to prevent any future violations.
4
Earlier today our president tweeted about the situation at the border, claiming, "Children are being used by some of the worst criminals on earth..." I have to assume he was referring to himself.
Trump is singularly responsible for the atrocity of ripping children from parents. It's not Obama. It's not Bush. It's not the Democrats. It's singularly a Trumpian policy, and no amount of shuffling or dancing around the issue, or throwing out Biblical references, will alter that fact.
Trump instituted his policy of forced separation as a tool to excite his base. At it has. He has admitted to using the tactic to pressure Democrats and moderate Republicans (the few who still exist) into accepting the most draconian immigration reform legislation imaginable.
I urge Democrats and moderate Republicans to stand tough against this monster... The longer forced separation continues to happen, the more the world (and sane, thinking Americans) will see Donald J Trump for what he is: An authoritarian tyrant without a soul.
11
All of the rancor being generated by Trump under the guise of controlling illegal entry into our country along the border is disgraceful. How is it in this day and age, that we have become so divided as a nation that we are willing to trade decency and compassion with complacency by allowing human beings to be treated as though they are something less than human; that it’s okay to abuse, neglect or otherwise mistreat. Using government agents to treat children and their parents as though they are cattle at an auction is more than I can wrap my head around. It just isn’t right.
No matter your political leanings; conservative, liberal or just following along, we must put a stop to this now. Contact your representatives and tell them this is wrong and end this practice immediately. Tearing families apart can’t be our answer to stopping the flow of illegal immigration. Separating children from their parents is cruel and is not the way to send the message that they are not welcome here; that is your message, right, Mr. Trump?
Take a good look at your kids or grandkids, and think about how horrified and traumatized they would be if it were them being torn from their parent’s arms. How much more harm will be done before we demand a stop to this barbaric behavior. Pass sensible immigration laws and enforce them.
As for you Mr. Trump, this is not okay with me. Do the right thing by these people, stop causing them misery so you can check off one of your campaign promises.
2
The problem is in Central America. It’s time to think about a solution to what’s happening there, otherwise this flow of desperate immigrants will never end.
3
The President of Pardons can end this policy today with a letter to the appropriate departments. All the lip flappers that have been out making excuses, lying and blaming everybody else but the administration should feel absolutely ashamed of their behavior. I wish sleepless nights for them and even worse pain than the separated families are feeling. Did Jeff Sessions act alone? I'm sure The Donald gave the go. As he likes to remind himself every day in the mirror, "I'm the president". It is time for the man in the mirror to pick up his pen and resolve the problem he created. Maybe the President hasn't acted yet due to finger spurs. RAW
2
Tearing children from their parents. Ripping parents from their children. Whatever you call it, it is hideously immoral and horribly cruel.
Yet, it is happening here, in our country. Now.
If we let this continue, it firmly sets the scene for future atrocities:
Rounding up gay people and placing them in detention
centers.
Seizing people who Trump and his minions decide
are "unsafe" , forcing them into confinement.
And - who else? Don't think it could never happen. It has already started.
Let's hope that the Keeping Families Together Act is successful. Or whatever it takes to STOP this insanity.
Email your congress men and women.
6
Kellyann's quote is infuriating. I'm a mom and a Catholic as well and so what? Kellyann is trying to distance herself from this inhuman practice by tossing in references to religion and motherhood. There is no whitewashing this cruelty. Number one worst thing this administration has done IMHO and believe me, there is plenty I am angry about. Shame on every American who does not loudly and boldly speak out against this, placing the blame squarely where it should be (I'm looking at you Republicans).
6
I agree that these actions are despicable, but I think the administration's denial of climate science is much worse, as it will effect billions of people across generations.
I respect your opinion and you have a point. Isn't it sad that we should have a government pushing so many cruel, greedy and dangerous policies that we can't identify the "worst" policy among them?
Not fast enough! Children's lives are in peril.
3
Keep your eye on the prizes, this November and 2020. The only way to PREVENT this from happening is to throw out the GOP which has no moral compass any longer, and this miserable, monstrous administration that would hold children and babies hostage in order to build a wall. There is NO political point that could ever morally legitimize an institutionalized policy of removing children from their parents. None.
14
Double Standard
Where was the outrage when Central Americans handed their young children, including toddlers, over to drug cartels to take them to the U.S. border where the children were instructed to ask for asylum? There was no outrage, and so this is now an accepted on-going practice.
3
And do you have any evidence of how many times this has happened?
2
I brought my toddler here across a border. The whole thing took 10 minutes. I held her the whole time, everyone was polite. Still my heart beat quickly and my palms sweated until we were driving again. I knew I was bringing her to a place where the unfair advantages of her skin colour and the complications of her gender were magnified. I knew I was bringing her to a place that had just elected a racist, misogynistic egomaniac as its leader. I did not know I was bringing her to a place that would put toddlers in cages for crossing a border with their parents.
When I was child I thought of America as a land of excitement and opportunity. A place with a dark past and a complicated present, but a nation on an upward trajectory. A place where equality and empathy were increasing and poverty and pain were decreasing.
I’m sure it means nothing to the president, cabinet and republican leadership, but for this Canadian, you have shattered my notion of the upward trajectory. You have dredged up and enabled a type of misogyny, racism and hatred that I thought was buried here decades ago. When I close my eyes and think of America, I no longer think of the natural beauty, talented populace and important innovation. When I close my eyes and think of America I think of a toddler screaming for her parents. This is your legacy, this is your contribution. You have been given an opportunity and this is what you have chosen.
18
I think Trump should try something new - transport all these families to welcoming Canada.
1
Are you aware of the right wing talk radio and right wing television that has saturated this country over the past thirty years?
There is ALWAYS a cause and effect, Victoria. People don't just decide to vote a certain way in a vacuum.
2
Families are fleeing Central America because they are having their lives threatened by gangs. If your twelve year old son or daughter is wanted by a gang and they don't join, the whole family can be murdered. Some people are not willing to let their children turned into prostitutes or drug war soldiers, so they head North toward a promised land. Much like when Joseph and Mary fled with Jesus to Egypt because King Herod had a death warrant on male children. Thank Heaven, Jeff Sessions and his ICE agents weren't at the Egyptian border to steal Jesus from Mary's arms.
The decision to enforce criminal laws instead of the civil law that has traditionally be used was made to weaponize these children as a deterrent against families seeking asylum and to take these children hostage as leverage, along with the DACA hostages, to get Congress to spend billions on a wall most Americans realize to be a waste of money.
Paul Ryan could open up the floor to discuss all the immigration proposals offered by Republicans and Democrats in an effort to resolve this problem, but he won't listen to Democrats and won't allow the proposals that most members would prefer.
This is all on the Republican Party and to those who before the last election said, there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats so don't vote. If you didn't support Hillary, your actions or inactions caused this.
16
There are no more words to express the cruelty and inhumanity of separating children from their parents AND SIMULTANEOUSLY carrying out a no-touch policy so that the children cannot receive even some semblance of comfort.
Responsible psychiatrists have warned of Donald Trump's "malignant narcissicism," a condition that includes sadism. The sadism in this immigrant treatment is straight from the top.
Work to remove this president and his henchmen from office!
4
So on one hand, liberals insist that each migrant who appears with a child stay together. But they also insist that each migrant be allowed to claim asylum, no matter how ridiculous the claim. So where should they be "united?" Together in a detention center or should they just be released into the United States. I don't want to hear anything about this "cruelty" or "inhumanity" unless you have a solution.
5
Yes why should our country continue to stand for hope and equality let it ring out for the powerful and the rich
The poor the weak the needy they have no business here
4
@Rick Hoag: Yes. We only want rich white people who will vote Republican and give thousands to Republican politicians in exchange for a green card. That's going on right now. No lining up to take citizenship and language tests if you're rich enough to bribe your way into the country by offering to "invest" in American businesses.
Remember when 45 was moved by photo of drowned Syrian children? But separating families and putting young crying children in an old Walmart store is okay. If this is winning, I would much rather lose.
4
Is President Trump so weak and ineffective that he can't change a law (that he says Democrats made) that separates children from their parents?
8
Stormy Melania "believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with a heart",
Like Trump University?
or
Trump Foundation?
18
The Obama administration did the same thing. The media needs to be honest. Stop the lies.
3
What lie? Is Trump not separating children from their parents?
It’s not a lie, it’s an inconvenient truth.
1
The Obama administration took unaccompanied minors into custody. They did not arrest whole families at the border, change the adults as criminals and declare the children "unaccompanied". Stop the lies.
This is child abuse, pure and simple. In any other situation , someone would call the child abuse hotline.
Who do we call ?
4
Go ahead, call them, then the kids will certainly get isolated and put into protective custody while the system laboriously processes your claim.
Repubs should be working to get rid of this utterly amoral administration. Anyone supporting trump is simply proving themselves to be amoral as well.
13
Trump started with removing DACA and take dreamers hostage. Since it was not enough he now does after illegal immigrant's childrens. If it doesnt work, what's next? Taking random hostages in the streets?
Timing of this could not be better for Democrats with midterms rapidly approaching. Hope a blue wave will wash out this madness away. Evil vs Good election. Will decent republican voters see the light?
12
Why hasn’t the ACLU found a federal judge to place an injunction against this barbarism?!?
The asylum seekers aren’t American but these barbaric actions are happening on _American_ soil.
The United States Constitution applies to _everyone_ within its borders, not just citizens.
Given how many due-process laws this violates, this shouldn’t have been allowed for a day, let alone for the past two months.
How is it possible that the co-equal judicial branch of our government is allowing this?!?
7
This is not the America I grew up in. We definitely have problems and need to work together.
Mr. Trump would like me to sit at attention when he speaks as they do in North Korea. I will sit up and listen when he has earned my respect. Mr. Trump, you are far from earning my respect and I am not a lemming.
2
We now know that Stephen Miller, xenophobe -in-chief at the White House was the architect of this horrendous policy. Miller has a history of virulent racism that has been documented since his high-school days. He is a canker on our democracy. His appointment is beyond Congressional action, since he is a presidetially appointed "advisor," but that should not stop Americans from protesting his presence in our policy-making constellation. He is only one of the worst administration members in our national history.
We should dump this destructive and abusive policy (NOT instituted by Democrats--ONLY Trump, Sessions and Miller), and then we should lobby for Miller's removal. His presence brings ignominious shame on all of us.
20
I agree completely--best comment of today!
1
"No protocols have been put in place for keeping track of parents and children concurrently, for keeping parents and children in contact with each other while they are separated, or for eventually reuniting them. "
Jonathan Blitzer, New Yorker, June 18, 2018
Trump's abuse of immigrant children now appears to be the consequence of his anti-immigrant stance that goes back at least to his infamous escalator ride opening his campaign. Even the other Republican candidates sniffed the wind at the time to see how Trump's anti-immigrant stance played and did not call out Trump for his assertion that Mexicans were murderers and rapists. Trump's bigotry should have been nipped in the bud well before the election. His bigotry at first was that of one person. Now it has become the bigotry of an entire nation.
2
I do not for a moment believe anything that Melania Trump has to say regarding this. Trump and his family are a grossly indecent people.
The separation of children from their parents is a hideous thing and a blot on our national consciousness. I cannot imagine the trauma on both the children and their parents. End this RIGHT NOW.
Humanity and decency comes ahead of a desire to follow due process. Any due process starts with the former as an input. In this case, not only are commonly expected norms of human behavior being jettisoned, but it seems so is the due process. And that is exactly how bigots behave.
Trump, his family and many of the Republicans are just that - A bunch of bigots and religious fundamentalists.
Defeat these horrible people in the election. Let us build a WALL between us and them.
3
If this current administration is finally brought to it's knees, everyone, I mean each and everyone who had a hand in it's inception and function should face harsh punishment for their crimes against this nation. Let it serve as a warning to the next wanna-be dictator of our nation and his minions.
We need a tsunami of a Blue Wave to clean out the GOP detritus. We have the serious challenges of climate change and it's multiple affects looming to prepare for, as well as, rising authoritarian forces rising from the east threatening not just Europe but us as well.
16
Ya know, the argument that trumpkins give for punishing these kids is totally specious. The Trump measure of harshness toward them that he employs to scare migrants away just won't work.
The model is like that of drug usage. We war against drug trafficking, but there is a big market here for drugs that makes the drug war fruitless. Similarly for émigrés who come from severely dysfunctional environments, they are refuge seekers who will always come.
Trump is a failure because he needs to make the detention of these kids totally brutal to firmly dissuade their migration to the U.S. He is too much of a coward to do that, but, rightfully so, as Trump has even his loyal evangelicals raising complaints over his seamy practice.
This hemisphere needs a coordinated solution for its refugees. The Trump government has shown that it wants to *fracture* political relations in this hemisphere. But trumpkins will be entertained by Trump's horrible incarceration of these children.
And Trump will force Republicans to follow along with his policies. It's how Trump makes his deals: find something that you desperately want, say, Gorsuch on the Supreme Court, and then make you wallow in filth to get it.
The penalty for kidnapping is 20 years to life imprisonment in almost all states. Trump and Sessions have committed 2000 kidnappings so far with more on the horizon. What should their penalty be?
4
So was it "heart" that Melania wants to suggest her husband and his administration - as long as the Dems play along w/Trump- that allowed Melania to enter our country as an immigrant because she had special, exceptional skills (really?) as a model OR was it just pulling strings for pretty "models"? Only to be followed by her parents whose special, exceptional skills are unknown.
I find her comment disingenuous.
Where is the collective heart of the Trump Republicans not to mention soul and conscience for all things really American as in democracy and our other long standing principles.
3
It is very painful to read all these stories. They may be entering without visas, seeking asylum on tenuous grounds, but they are nevertheless human beings and should be treated as such. Some solutions the US government can implement.
1/ Pre-process/register applicants in Mexico (Only possible if you are their ally and not constantly yammering away at building a wall that is nothing but a monument of racism)
2/ Quickly process non-criminal asylees. If they have flimsy reasons, politely turn them back quickly in a decent and humane manner.
3/ Those that pass an initial triage - set parole terms, work conditions etc till their case is adjudicated. They can be living freely as long as they are non-criminal.
I am sure there are more common sense solutions that can be implemented but the current policy stinks of racism, and displays values that are truly unamerican.
1
President Trump (can't believe that I must use this title) has definitely won the most recent political Limbo game. Lest the others who have not publicly opposed and challenged him think they are outside the game and the conditions for a win, they are complicit by their silence and I wait to see just how low they can go.
The policies this Administration is advancing are contrary to what the majority of the American people, who pay their salaries, want ICE to accomplish.
Most people are neither for nor against open borders, but somewhere in between. Policies need to be moral and incorporate elements from both sides. They need to recognize the right of asylum seekers and economic migrants, and at the same time, they also need caps on immigrant numbers and laws providing for the deportation of the unwanted.
Trump has tipped the balance again.
Traumatizing immigrant families--- parents and children--- is in fact the main point of the new Trump "Zero Tolerance Policy". When describing the new policy, administration spokespeople first explain that crossing the border illegally is a crime; then they claim, 'Well of course we have to take the children away from their criminal parents.' It's not that they want to do it, the policy makes them do it!
But why have a policy that is so grossly inhumane? The policy is partly intended to make the experience of families crossing the border so horrific that the news disseminates south and fewer people try to cross. It's also intended to impress Trump's domestic base with how far this administration is willing to go in its xenophobic. Without a doubt, there are Trump supporters who believe that the severity of punishment should be ratcheted up still further, until zero immigrants try to enter the U.S. and those who are here already leave. Finally, Trump's political advisors have calculated that the Democrats in Congress will make concessions in the immigration debate to relieve this horror.
So, you can be sure that this policy is not ad hoc. Rather it's the product of careful political strategizing among Trump's anti-immigrationist team players. They believe this is a winning strategy and they will not easily let it go.
4
What isn't in most news stories about this is that the volume of immigrants has been increasing by 200% every month since last year...mostly due to the increasing political unrest in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. People are fleeing in anticipation of Venezuela-like regimes in the Northern Triangle countries and also Nicaragua. The reason why so many families are trying to cross the border illegally is that Mexico has delayed it's own VISA application process (due to the earthquake they claim). They have also extended their 45 day wait period, meaning that people are waiting for a Mexican Visa with no end in sight knowing that it's unlikely that they will get one. Meanwhile illegal immigrants in Mexico are treated worse than they are here. Basically Mexico has engineered this in response to Trump, and rightfully so, it reflects poorly on him.
Calls to simply ignore the law can and should be disregarded. If they really all want this to end, then they really all need to work together and pass legislation. That is our system of law.
1
If morality plays no part in the Trump Administration's application of "deterrence", why stop at separating children from their families? Why not just "shoot to kill" at the boarder? After all, the "they broke the law" justification would be equally valid in that case, wouldn't it?
And why, in particular, is this part of the law the one that Trump, his advisers, and Sessions decide to enforce with "zero tolerance"? Is it because if other laws were enforced with the same vigor, e.g. emoluments, incitement, pay-to-play, collusion, the Constitution, etc, most of the GOP would be in jail right now?
The whole approach makes as much sense as Steve Martin's comedic suggestion that over-population could be easily solved by enforcing a, "Death penalty for parking violation". The sheer absurdity of Martin's suggestion is what makes it funny. Whereas the sheer absurdity of Trump actions makes it, not only not funny, but immoral.
This "selective enforcement" is mirrored in Jeff Sessions use of a Bible verse as justification for this moral penury. A verse which, not-so-coincidentally, has been used repeatedly throughout the years to justify the worst examples of "man's inhumanity to man".
We see time and again that the GOP is all for "zero tolerance" for others, but not themselves. They are all for quoting Bible verses, but, not ones that would condemn their own actions, as those would probably constitute the vast majority of the Bible. And the entirety of everything Jesus taught.
3
Which statute - by name and number - is the nation following by separating asylum-seekers and their children?
I keep seeing comments that the law is being followed by this separation, but can't seem to find the name of it.
Also, when did immigration, documented and undocumented, become a problem? What empirical information do we have that we have a problem and need to need to do these things to address it?
Also, the First Lady herself wasn't here legally when she first came here to be a model. Shouldn't we separate her from Barron as such? If not, why the double standard? She broke the law, didn't she?
3
First of all, any "asylum seeker" who crosses the border, as opposed to presenting themselves at an official border crossing, is just an illegal "immigrant".
Trump/Sessions are enforcing the law to the letter by incarcerating law breaking illegal "immigrants". This is the "Zero Tolerance" policy.
Per the "Flores Settlement", children cannot be held in detention with their parents.
Presto: separated families.
1
I don't believe that there is no written policy regarding separating children from their parents. Somewhere there is a government directive advising lower government officials of a change in policy. Government employees just don't act on their own. In addition, the private contractors who are running the shelters have written contracts with the government. If the government has expectations that the numbers being served are going to increase dramatically, I imagine that the contracts have to be revised. I think that the President, AG Sessions and the head of Homeland Security are not being honest when they make statements regarding the whole matter. In addition, I believe that the President is trying to guilt the Democrats into funding his wall in exchange keeping the children and their families united. I hope that the Democrats, Republicans, and citizens generally keep up the pressure on the powers that be to discontinue the immoral and unethical policy.
Anyone caught at the border can plead guilty, receive a slap on the wrist and return home the same day. No family separation is required.
The issue is when they refuse to return home and seek legal asylum. This requires a legal process that will last more than 20 days. After 20 days, children have to be released per Flores.
But as it turns out, that's completely unnecessary.
Migrants are permitted to make an asylum request prior to showing up at the border, which would have kept the families together until their day in court. Instead, by crossing with their children they intentionally created a legal and ethical dilemma to undermine the judicial process. There are also legal ports of entry for all immigrants. Crossing the border without identifying yourself at a port of entry is a crime.
2
This is frightening. The separation of children from their parents because of some ill-advised policy equates to the "just following orders" tragedies seen in the past. Front line immigration officials should refuse to act upon what could yet be proven to be illegal actions on the part of the government.
2
I wish someone would explain to the Trumps that the GOP currently controls all three branches of the federal government which means a) the opposition party has no power to do much of anything, so stop blaming them; and b) the GOP can change the situation at our border with an order, a bill, a vote -- whatever it takes! Of course, you may have to start by explaining the whole three branches of government concept ...
4
When Trump wanted to deny visas to citizens from 7 middle east countries, State AGs jumped into action to uphold the constitution by shutting Trump down.
Where are they now? Why haven't state AGs, public interest groups and even motivated ordinary citizens taken the US gov. to court for its extraordinary abuse of tiny defenceless children? I would think a dimple motion and one morning in court should be sufficient to get an injunction. It might have to go state by state until the feds cave, but it is doable - this week!
1
This sort of policy is what will put Trump right up there alongside the likes of Kim Jung Un and Bashar al Assad. Locking people up in makeshift internment camps fashioned out of former Walmart warehouses is not going to end well for America (surprised that Walmart hasn't complained). The national reputation is suffering more each day that the government of the US continues to impose this sort of draconian policy.
The mid-term elections are going to be critical for the return of some semblance of stability to the nation. Remember to get out and vote and think carefully about who and what you are voting for.
2
The Administration will soon back off from this practice of warehousing children. It crosses a certain line with most people (at least I hope so). Trump will reverse himself — he's predictable that way. He’ll probably blame it on Sessions and use the opportunity to finally fire him (and replace him with someone more like Pruitt or Mulvaney). Trump himself will come out of it unscathed. In fact, he will find a way to spin it and come off as the hero who stepped in to save the children. After all, the Truth is whatever Trump says it is. Or, more accurately, the Truth doesn’t matter at all. Take a cue from Sarah Sanders.
2
This story needs to be told alongside the story of those who knowingly hire illegal immigrants. In December, Trump commuted the sentence of an Iowa meat packing processor, Sholom Rubashkin, whose factory netted more than 400 illegal immigrants in a raid—some of them children. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/20/us/president-trump-iowa-commutation.html
Many illegal workers cross the border individually, and without their families. The families we are seeing now are not economic immigrants but seeking asylum from violent home countries.
That Trump could reward a convicted criminal (who was also convicted of bank fraud) and punish minor children—who had no role in making any decisions—is against every moral tenet of our great nation.
Yes, immigration is a serious issue and our laws are too slow to keep up with this issue. Yes, our border patrol and INS are right to enforce the laws. But how they do so, and who the administration lets off the hook, speaks volumes about Trump—and only Trump.
1
Sec. of Homeland Security reasoning to separate families at Mexican / US border is they border patrol claims fake families are passing in. Smugglers are using kids as decoys. We need to help these kids. I am worried they will come to harm in the S. Texas heat. Please help.If any staffers, of any Reps. or Senators, reading this comment please tell your Representative or Senator that a quick mouth swab for DNA can determine familial relationships. If the reason really is "fake" families at the border; this is a means to sort out fake from real families. Also, Fort Chaffee, outside Ft. Smith, Arkansas is a very large facility which is well equipped with sanitation, electricity and housing to handle large numbers of displaced people. Many large groups of refugees have been housed there before over that last three decades. Please pass that on. Everyone reading this call your local reps. Like it or not, we are all responsible for safety of those children whether we agree with the Trump Administration or not. Please.
This is a "bargaining Chip" for Trump. He will use anyone or anything to get his way. That is who we elected President. He showed his character during the campaign, his life is a record of using any means to achieve his personal objectives, he has no regard for anyone or anything except that it furthers his desires. Why is anyone surprised?
2
Trump blames the democrats for failing to negotiate immigration reform. The democrats need to replay the video of the famous televised meeting with democrats when Trump declared that he will take the heat and sign any bill that comes to his desk. But then the Freedom Caucus quickly admonished him and he reneged. Why don't the dems tweet about this, "You said you'd take the heat, but you melted and caved." Why doesn't the media remind the public of another Trump proclamation that is nothing but hot air?
It's also good to see the dems finally showing some passion. But why can't they show the same passion and rally about health care and the tax law that benefits only the wealthy? Trump promised to eliminate the carried interest loop hole, but it's still available. Why no rally about these issues? The DNC needs a twitter master to tweet every day and rebut Trump's lies.
1
Trump and Sessions have now shown that they should be tried at The Hague.
5
Considering Laura Bush's husband was responsible for 100-500 thousand civilian deaths during the Iraq war that was predicated on lies, it's interesting she now has a conscious. Trump's immigration policies do nothing to solve the problem why people want to emmigrate from countries run by corrupt politicians and trans-national criminal organizations. Perhaps the Bush family can start making amends by donating every penny of their fortune to the millions of lives they've ruined and the people suffering in war torn and poverty stricken countries.
4
I don't think this is fair. I did not vote for George Bush nor am I a Republican but I believe that First Ladies former and otherwise have a voice - to be evaluated perhaps on the merits of their husband's performance and policies while in office but a voice nonetheless - particularly on issues of humanitarian significance.
Additionally I am aware that Laura Bush was a school teacher for a number of years and she always appeared to me to be sincerely interested in the welfare of children.
Compare her now to our current first lady who is on some kind of anti-bullying campaign while being married to the biggest bully in the world. Misguided would be the kindest thing I might say about her.
1
He is a sick individual with no moral compass who does not represent the majority of us in this country. When are we going to remove this criminal? He is causing a crisis of confidence in this country and unnecessary turmoil within and outside of our borders. We can't wait until November. Call your representatives now.
7
It is a shame that parents are separated from their children. So stop trying to cross the border illegally. And don't bring your children with you.
3
In Trump we have a president that only tells the truth by mistake; and when he is caught telling the truth, he says that he was only joking. It is sickening...
5
Trump as President & immigrant children locked in cages. Evangelical Christians at heir best!
7
Yea, except that photo of children locked in cages was from back in 2014 when Obama was president, but never mind, don't let facts get in the way of a good story to beat the President with.
2
Meanwhile, the Grumpy Old Men of the former GOP can't seem to find their courage to face their "dear leader" and stop him from tearing this nation apart. All of this shall rest on their heads come November.
4
There are monsters among us.
Some go to church and believe trump is doing God's will.
But trump says it's the democrats and the monsters agree.
Evil has descended on the land, infected our government, oozed into religion.
If you don't stand up to the bullies they will take your children too, sooner or later.
7
"Contrary to the president’s public statements,..." Instead of 'president's statements' you should say "the president's lies." Please, say it, he lies.
5
The abuse of these children is more likely to lead to human rights violation charges against Trump than to a the Nobel he lusts after. What the President is doing in our name is a violation of international law of a sufficient magnitude to lead to an international court trial. We do have treaties and the UN Charter which define the rights of refuge seekers. They are being violated. There may well be serious legal consequences for Trump and his minions. There should be.
7
My late father used to tell me that if I had nothing good to say, don't say it. Melania Trump should do what she has done best which is to say nothing ever. She insults these poor children and their parents. I'm ashamed to be an American. n
8
I hate to be cynical, but as usually happens, the program will be tweaked in response to the outcry, families will be kept together more intact until some child gets raped by another adult in detention and then the outcry will start again for how could Trump be so callous as to house innocent minors with adult criminals.
1
John Doe statements sound ever so much like "John Barron," or, "John Galt," - even "Stephen Miller/Bannon," but, I apologize for sounding cynical.
Could it be out of the question that thousands of children kept in tents might fall victim to various forms of abuse from one another as in "Lord of the Flies?" But, your comment and Trump's inhumane policy seem oblivious to that obvious danger. This makes your statement that it would be more dangerous to keep these families in tact when the parents are intercepted with their children, all the more unacceptable to logic and morality.
3
BOTH parties, huh?
Must be an election in a few months, for Republicans.
2
The Times keeps using some variation of the phrase, "false assertion" when describing Trump's lies. That's what they are, lies. Say it.
Trump has lied repeatedly about putting children into what are, let's be honest, concentration camps. The Times needs to tell the truth about Trump's lies.
5
Intentionally putting the squeeze on innocent children to enact legislation is disgusting and tyrannical. Only the worst villains in fiction are known to do that. Donald Trump seems to be the only one interested in putting these kids in concentration camps.
Maybe we need a 2nd amendment solution to this problem.
2
As a Christian, Republican and conservative all one can say is shameful White House and agencies that have come up with this policy and seek to enforce it. No Christian, no Muslim, no Jew, no Hindu no Human could think this policy is remotely right or moral.
10
Nobel Peace Prize? In your dreams! Indictment for crimes against humanity by the International Court in The Hague is more like it.
14
We can dream.....
He's been working so diligently toward this goal.
Trump is using the children very obviously as a bargaining tool because he has no value for human life and hence the GOP party, every single legislator, has no value for human life. The GOP may be finally questionning this policy but until they come together and tell Trump in whatever way of communication they need to get him to Trump to stop, they are to blame as well.
I never realized until Trump came into office, how much power, the President has. I thought it was a 3 branch structure. But the GOP legislators are doing nothing, they are just letting Trump rump rampant like a bull in a china shop. The GOP are to blame as much as Trump, they don't care about children, they don't care about the welfare of all their constituents (only their corporate donors). All the GOP care about is money and maintaining power so they can have more money. That is it.
The GOP doesn't care about most of their constituents, only the very, very wealthy ones.
I hope this a wake up call to all those people who voted for Trump but are not very, very wealthy. You do not matter to the GOP, they will treat you the same way they are treating these families, separating the babies from the mothers and fathers.
Trump and the GOP own this and I think this policy is going to bring the GOP party down finally. It shows the complete and utter lack of humanity in the current GOP, every single one of them.
7
Trump, the decadent GOP, and their followers (especially evangelicals) are morally equivalent to snake dung in wagon wheel tracks.
BTW, where are the Obama's on this issue? Their silence is profoundly disappointing.
6
Children's lives should never be used as a political tool to enforce law.
There are ways to enforce laws without harming innocents.
This is not some Third world banana republic being ruled by a mindless dictator. Or is it? With Trump as president, we appear more and more uncivilized, racist, churlish and irrelevant on the world stage.
Pathetic.
5
Trump lies and lies and lies and still his supporters remain true.
5
both sides can come together?
if you've been asleep all week - the Ds have NOTHING to do with this FELONY by the administration.
in fact, very few Rs back it.
this is a djt administration POLICY that congress was not ever involved in.
100% of the fault lies in the WHITE HOUSE.
3
The parallels to the processing of concentration camp victims during the Shoah, including the forms of lying and denial trying to place the blame and responsibility onto third parties, are many.
Nunes, Miller, Nielsen, all feed into Trump's unacceptable view that it's OK to treat non-US citizens as a dictator or fascist would in the nation(s) they're seeking refuge from.
6
So we now live in a country in which the President can lie to the public everyday with impunity. It’s so appalling- what can be done to get that lying humanoid out of there?
3
The picture of Melania Trump is untoward.
All of Trump’s kids except one have immigrant mothers, right?
Let’s get serious. This is a farce. Melania has hardly even been seen for weeks since her way long hospitalization over an outpatient procedure we all paid for. We’re supposed to take her seriously, really, about anything? She’s in LaLaLand at our expense, let alone migrant/immigrant issues.
Please, please, please, do not send her to Texas for a photo shoot visiting kids in the camps! That will be the next Trump project, same as she stood there and watched the Puerto Ricans catch the rolls of paper towels.
4
Anybody surprised by Melania' s position? She is not stupid. St had to keep the owner of the gold she has been digging so diligently foe the last 11 years happy. If she was a woman with any integrity, she would have not married that diseased soul or would have left him long time ago. She is a Trump, through and through.
7
It's too bad that it took watching government-sanctioned child abuse in her backyard to get Laura Bush to speak out. If only Afghan or Iraqi children had been in her backyard, maybe she would have spoken out during her husband's administration.
2
Trump is completely amoral. He has no concept of right or wrong, or good vs. evil. The only thing he understands is winning or losing, and he will do whatever it takes to ensure he wins, according to his definition of the word. He can not be shamed or forced into giving in because that would make him a loser in his own mind, and that is something he can not and will not tolerate. Zero Sum Donald - destroying our country one win at a time.
5
The Statue of Liberty is not crying anymore. She is boiling mad, and glowing from the anger. Trump and his Republican sycophants including Melania are systematically destroying everything this country has fought and died for. It is in fact what Trump fans voted for. Making America Hate Again.
9
On what terms did Melania Trump's parents enter the U.S.A.?
4
As long as we have sanctuary cities, they will keep coming. All on you, Democrats.
5
M in Seattle - you might as well say, "as the U.S. is thought of as the "land of the Free . . " Not for long at this rate. Trying to blame the Pope or sanctuary cities for "offering hope," when others, such as those you evidently support, intend evil, stinks of "double think" and false logic.
1
It's about the time someone grew a spine and dealt forcefully with illegals. Get them out and keep them out.
1
Melania Trump's echo of her husband's lie underscores that she, despite her so-called pro-child stance, is also a liar and hypocrite.
Both are a total embarrassment to the USA and our Constitution.
3
Trump and his minion Sessions are doing this. Its that simple.
Did HW or W do it? Or Clinton, or Obama?
This is their choice and Trump is such a coward he blames the democrats because he has no clue what he's talking about and no interest in being educated. (Like most of his trumpist followers.) He and the awful kellyanne conway saying Congress has to act. Well, yes, congrats kellyanne, you are aware that Congress makes the laws ... well done. But it shows how patently amoral and perverse you gop types are that you willfully use little kids as bargaining chips.
Where are the "family values" now? Where is the christian right, the evangelicals ... ? Because, you know, I'm sure Jesus would totally of approve of this. Of treating your fellow man, of those in need with brutality, contempt, and lawlessness. And of your conduct, evangelicals and christians, you are complicity in this shameful, dangerous policy by the US government. Sleep well.
3
Our version of Nuremberg should hold all propagandists liable for these human rights violations.
5
Trump: Who’s going to pay for the wall?
Crowd: Mexico!!!
Mexico has obviously not paid for the wall…….
Trump: Who’s going to pay for the wall?
Crowd: Uh……Mexico?
Trump: Children! INNOCENT CHILDREN - including babies!! These children think they can just cross the border without consequences? No! We’ll rip them right out of their parents arms! We’ll separate them and put them in former warehouses or cages! We’ll send them to foster care or something. Or put them in tents! We will not spend resources to keep track of them! They’re just babies and they are Not Making America Great again! They will pay for this wall!
Crowd? What will you say?
“No! Do not hurt innocent children! We’re adults and can work this out without hurting children!”
Or.………….
“Lock them up! Lock them up!”
The. Trump. Administration. Is. Traumatizing. And. Terrorizing. Innocent. Children.
They. Must. Be. Held. Accountable.
5
Well now let's not judge too quickly.
We need to wait for our President to determine whether this is Fake News.
After all, where would we be without our fearless leader telling us right from wrong?
He goes to sleep thinking of pardoning Paul Manafort.
I hope he gets the photo of that wailing toddler stuck on his brain.
1
The only stalemate is between our Liar-in-Chief's ears.
4
RE: Melania Trump at the White House last month. In a statement, she said she “hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform>
Betty Ford would have told her husband to stop it and he would have listened. Probably same for Nancy Reagan. this first lady. sad very sad
7
It was dear leader and Jeffie who decided to separate parents from children. How can they accuse the Dems? Never mind, we all know he lies through his teeth, constantly.
3
Better yet, help me with affordable healthcare for my kids first! Then help illegals with healthcare.
1
If this is what you want, think of voting democrat
2
Hate is winning. The GOP’s encouragement of Trump’s immigration policy is expected to allow the GOP to hold Congress. I do wonder when Republicans will say “enough is enough.”
4
Why isn't gang warfare in Central America and Mexico a United Nations issue? Why isn't the crisis at our border a Unicef issue.
The despicable Trump White House Administration is made up of descendents of immigrants. Melania Trump used the "Einstein" rule to obtain a green card.
If the UN addressed violent gang warfare in Mexico and Central America as they addressed Bosnia, etc. we would not have the present crisis on the border and Trump couldn't use the caging of children as a political tool.
You'd have to be an amoral, terrible human being to come up with a policy of purposefully traumatizing young children to try to force a policy objective. And Trump is. But he is not alone - Stephen Miller and Jeff Sessions are right there with him.
Act in November to put some brakes on this ongoing disgrace to the United States of America.
4
Would the von Trapp family be separated if they were fleeing persecution today?
3
It would be the stuff of a cheap 50's horror movie: "The Baby Snatchers"!
Knowing the vicious immorality of this administration, I'm waiting for them to put photos of screaming children being torn from the arms of their mothers on billboards, with captions saying "The Democrats are responsible. This horror will end as soon as they agree to ALL my demands about immigration."
3
America used to have a very good immigration policy. It went like this.
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
4
Effectively, this is extortion by way of children.
6
Jeff Sessions , so concerned about Sharia Law. EXCEPT when you use YOUR bible to justify Trump policies.
Does he know about separation of church and state, on one of the principles that this country was founded.
8
"We don't have a POLICY . . . "
As defined by Oxford: "a course of action adopted by a (individual, organization, or) government.
<from ND>
The GOP base consists of birthers who approve of brown children separated from their parents and caged. Ignorant of events in Central America, they cling to the lie of the single story: All those who enter the country illegally deserve cruelty rather than mercy.
Save the nation. Vote out all GOP candidates in November.
5
Ok, so we are all beating our chests and tearing our hair-but what are we going to do? March on the detention facilities? Overwhelm the border and allow migrants to enter at the ports of entry and legally request asylum? Shut down Washington? We need ideas to stop this with more than words of disgust.
3
I heard an interesting idea: make this an issue for support by MLB - so many baseball players are immigrants from south of the U.S. Maybe they can provoke a response; on the other hand, MLF's attempt at political redress only tormented Trump to the point he held that nutty and fake patriotic rally to appease himself.
1
I consider this separation of children to be a crime against humanity. I cannot accept that this is done in my name, as an American citizen.
3
Comes back from N.Korea and acts even more so like the dictator he met with, admires. What else does anyone expect? He has immoral , unethical , unjust beliefs. And he is powered up by those with deplorable thoughts of how they believe this world should be. God help all of us.
4
So did someone explain to Melania that her husband's holding "chilreen" hostage is not the way to "Be Best"?
Neither Melania nor Donald gives a fig about these children.
And the irony of her own immigration, and that of her parents it totally lost on her.
3
Trump administration has not just been cruel, un-American, immoral in separating kids from families, creating policy that is destructive, expensive and ultimately counterproductive (creating a breeding ground for MS13; taking resources that could otherwise go to job retraining, economic development in places supposedly harmed by migrants, despite full employment), but has been so inept in implementation. This is yet another example of the corruption, ineptitude of Trump and his administration. Heaven forbid a Zita, Ebola, swine flu or other epidemic, another BP oil spill or major catastrophe hit, this administration wouldn’t know what to do. Oh yes, we’ve seen that already: in Puerto Rico.
Anyone in government who doesn’t see how heinous this Trump policy of separating families is, does not deserve to be in government, either elected or appointed. Anyone enacting this policy, including Trump, AG Jeff Sessions, , Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, or the thugs in ICE should be prosecuted for Crimes Against Humanity and impeached or fired – including the Republican enablers in Congress.
Trump, the most inept, corrupt individual ever to have the reins of ultimate power, is unilaterally destroying America’s ability to preach, model or stand for human rights anywhere in the world.
Shame on us all.
7
Trump wants full wall funding for his extortion victory. A wall costing tens of billions of dollars at tax payers expense---Mexico will not pay for it -- hello!
1
No blame has been laid at those ultimately responsible for this issue; the parents of these children. It is complete garbage to blame everyone but those who create the situation by engaging in a blatant illegal act and then cry when separation happens.
2
Immigration is civil, not criminal.
Finally, I am hearing the word that seemingly could not be spoken for perhaps 20 years of this ongoing tragedy - "amnesty". Amnesty has been the prime reason, seconded by a wish for a better life in general, for the vast increase in border crossings since the early 2000's; people trying to escape racism, mass murder & political repression...all the concerns that the USA used to be a beacon of refuge from. One group, and one group only, is responsible for burying that fact & bastardizing the issue as political/racial - the damnable GOP with their lies and ignorance. But now, "amnesty" has finally been given the light of day; do not let these mindless fools bury that ideal again.
did Americans run away or fight for there life's to be better when we fraught the revolutionary war , the civil war? everybody now runs to another country instead of fixing there own
1
I don't think there's enough articles here about illegal immigrants. Nor enough hysterics. In reality most Americans do not care one whit about those crossing our borders illegally.
You'd think it's the end of the world the way this is being sensationally reported.
2
This is simply another hostage ploy by Trump and his handlers to wrest concessions and get their pathetic "Wall" idea implemented.
Don't.Do.It.
Don't even go there. Trump is the one who dissolved DACA without the slightest of merit, the only reason being an attempt to besmirch President Obama's legacy. Let the POT (there is no longer a GOP) face the voters in November and let the chips fall where they may.
Once we have a Democratic majority in both House and Senate, let's see Trump try and veto sensible legislation.
Autocrats need to be dealt with swiftly and brutally.
2
Is Trump weaker than Barack Obama? President Obama could have stopped this.
6
Yes, because undocumented people seeking asylum only got underway starting in 2008.
Good god.
1
Obama could have stopped what? This wasn't happening under Obama. It's 100% Trump and he could stop it with a phone call.
1
Barack Obama started this with his unilateral DACA policy.
1
This sordid excuse for a government lacks all sense of proportion in its dealings, of which this debacle is the most recent cruel example.
What's next - shoot them on-sight? It would save money, after all, And send a deterrent message. Uh-oh, DiJiTs - please forget I mentioned that option.
5
Let's face it. Republicans hurt children. Only money and power matter to them.
9
Headline rings false. It is not bipartisan if not a single Republican will join the Democrats' bill to stop this nonsense.
3
Why doesn't the New York Times just call it a lie instead of using the words "false assertion" when it reports "The administration argued that it was just enforcing the law, a false assertion that Mr. Trump has made repeatedly"?
2
I think the time has come for citizens to start burning thousands of truck tires in front of all Trump properties in the US and abroad. Trump and his enablers are monsters and they will never listen to reason. They want to incite violence to enact martial law - so be it, let the revolution begin.
2
It is chilling to think that we again have such morally deranged politicians in goverment.
8
The irony of a first lady who worked in the United States illegally and then went on to make anti-bullying the core of her agenda, all the while supporting family separation, is beyond me.
7
Come on now you guys, you HAVE to know by this point that we have a dirt-simple single-level second-guess process at play here; you have to tell Donald that you WANT families to be separated, so that he'll declare that families will no longer be separated (and it's all the Dems' fault regardless, etc. etc.). Jeez.
Enough with this!
How about some investigative reporting on that kangaroo court case involving the AT&T merger with that ridiculous decision by Judge Richard Leon. I could care less about people trying to bum rush the border and bringing their kids along with their criminal attempts.
These people deliberately bring their kids to try and use them as a way to get out of being detained. Their plan backfired and now they whine. Tough, stop teaching your kids to be criminals. Living in these camps away from their parents are probably the happiest times these kids will ever know.
1
There should be international coverage of the crimes committed by the US against citizens of other countries. The main topic should be "America is not the land of the free & the home of dreams." It is a land of imprisonment & death. American citizens will soon be separated from their families & imprisoned for disagreeing with this administration. They can be declared enemy combatants so they have no rights & no chance at trials. trump has seen what Kim & Putin can do & loves it & he is going to ape them until he is dictator & in total control of this weak nation.
1
Those people that are being treated so brutally are going to remember what happened to them and who did it to them. And right now they're numbering in the thousands. That's a lot of people who will have even more hatred for the arrogant liar who did this to them than he has for them. I hope he realizes unless he finds a way to act humanely (he's not capable of actually being human) then he's going to have to spend the rest of his life looking behind him because it's possible that just one of those thousands will find a way of getting even.
5
If they're not in America, they can have whatever resentment they want. It's not our problem.
Is this what we have come to? Separating parents and children fleeing countries where their sons are either recruited into the cartels or killed, where their daughters are sold into slavery of the most hideous kind. What would you do? Would you stay and hope that you beat the odds or would you run north to the shining beacon on the hill? Would you chose to apply for a visa knowing it would never come or risk everything for a better life. Its easy for us siting here to say wait your turn do it the right way, the legal way. We don't have gang member hunting our sons and daughters. We don't risk the chance of being killed every time we go outside. This is a country of immigrants, and those immigrants made this country what it is. But you have Miller and Bannon spouting off that it was only the white population that made America great. Who is rewriting history now. We should be ashamed of our political leaders who do nothing but watch and use these children as pawns in a political drama to achieve what THEY want not what this country wants. Shame on us!
9
No, not every Latin American is entitled to U.S. citizenship, and no, they did not make America what it is. Europeans did.
Right you are, after they stole the land from indigenous people.
Send these children back where they came from and yes, tell your husband to build the wall he promised us. We are not the keeper of these children. You can't empty out all Latin American countries and take them in here. Europe tried this and see how that is working out for them.
2
separating children from their parents at the border by trump is similar to some of the tactics used internally by nk's kim:
trump on kim:
"He speaks and his people sit up at attention," the President added. "I want my people to do the same."
the wanna be dictator trump lives in the wrong country.
4
This is just another episode in DJT ‘s Greatest Show on Earth. He believes that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and nothing would happen to him because he is Donald Trump! He’s been right so far! The City on the Hill is burning down.
3
By stating that Congress has to do something, Melania is simply furthering the lie that this is not a policy voluntarily adopted by her husband. People can be detained and deported without being separated from their minor children. These are mafioso style tactics, threatening outright harm to people in order to collect a debt.
3
If these families were from Cuba, would we be having this discussion?
2
don't you remember scare face and the boat people
No one from Cuba got turned away and no one in Congress or the executive branch tried to enforce it. Haitians, Dominicans, Mexicans and Central Americans are demonized.
Members of ICE... You are hereby on notice that you are violating basic norms of human ethics and decency. Your adult children will feel compelled to write books exploring how someone they could love could perpetrate such evil. The psychology books will use you as examples when discussing the ongoing relevance of the Milgram and Stanford Prison Experiments. You are the villains you are imagining you are saving the United States from. Stop, just stop.
5
The hypocrisy of Laura Bush. Her husband sent many young Americans to their deaths and started a war that killed many innocent children.
A war based on a lie that was supported by the same politicians and media that suddenly claim some type of moral high ground over criminals rushing the border.
Even Canada is pulling up their welcome mat and posting a no vacancy sign.
1
"Even Canada is pulling up their welcome mat and posting a no vacancy sign."
Simply not true.
2
The first lady is willing to tolerate children being torn from their parents. But, her parents are jumped ahead of everyone to immigrate to the U.S.
4
Here comes the FAUX outrage again!
Let everyone remember that Trump did not pretend to be anything but himself.
He is racist, misogynistic, lacks compassion, LIES all the time, mocks the disabled, bullies everyone and anyone including whole countries, and remains unapologetically anti-intellectual.
Yet MORE THAN 60% of White males, and over 50% of White women voted for him.
I don't know who we are as a nation based on this sort of voting by our own citizenry. But I do know that the outrage is disingenuous.
No rational person truly expected anything other than this sort of cruelty, lies, corruption, misogyny and blatant racism.
I certainly expected it, and expect worse to come!
These outcries are very odd. This was expected. Period.
7
Trump's inhuman behavior is exactly what Republicans voted for. They doth protest too much.
6
When Melania was out of the public eye while recovering from surgery, the Left was darkly hinting that something must be wrong. They were quite certain that convalescence never takes so long. Could there be a divorce? Is Trump deliberately keeping her under wraps because he was afraid she might speak out on the terrible spousal abuse she has been receiving? Now she’s come out again by making a simple humanitarian statement from her heart. Uh-oh. Looks like she’s recovered nicely and has even found her voice. She must now be rebranded from being a poor victim of spousal abuse to a harpy spreading the falsehoods of her husband. The fake narratives of the Left never stop.
2
What's wrong with sending parents and their children back to Mexico together? Why keep them here? If they are at the border fence, they haven't broken the law. So what's the problem of returning them to the south side of the border fence rather than treat anyone inhumanely ?
2
We have asylum laws.
Why not enforce the law that employers cannot hire illegal immigrants?
We used to do that. Remember Zoe Baird and the nannygate proglem of 1993?
2
Older teenagers, as well as some young adults who lied about their ages, are housed with younger boys. I am so afraid that some will be raped. Every minute this continues, the children are at risk for exploitation, to say nothing of the trauma of being forcibly removed from moms in a strange environment. This has to stop: not next week or tomorrow, but this very minute!!!
2
This issue should be brought in front of the Supreme Court. The sooner the better. Let us then see if the conservative judges will show their true selves and do the right thing or shame themselves and the nation by being heartless bigots.
5
Liberals would be much less pro-migrant if 90% of them didn't become Democrat Party voters. California and Virginia flipped because of its Hispanics. That's all this is about. It's not about "humanity," it's about electoral advantage.
1
Only citizens vote. Fifth-grade civics.
1
My country now is party to emotionally abusing children. I'm so ashamed to be an American. No child should ever be abused, for any reason whatsoever.
4
Stephen Miller tells reporters that the administration will not accept moral instruction from Democrats; take him at his word. Moral arguments are useless against the immoral sociopaths that inhabit all levels of this administration, including the Sociopath-in-Chief. All they understand, or will eventually understand, is the exercise of power. Of course separating children from their parents is monstrous, but what should we expect from the monsters now in power? When you think Trump and his lackeys can't sink any lower, you open the newspaper to see a picture of a distraught child weeping as her mother is being patted down by a border enforcement agent. Trump and Sessions and Miller regard moral argument as so much chin music. Vote them out.
6
According to DHS / ICE only 10% of the children coming to the Border have an Adult with them, the other 90% are alone, so the narrative of all these kids being pulled from families is just lies!
Secondly, of the 10% we aren't certain how many of those were actually Child Traffickers, or Adults taking kids against their will, or told to lie. We must make certain we interview the kids and adults to determine if they are indeed their children...
Lastly, they all need to be tested for communicable diseases, to ensure a pandemic is not started.
So stop with the ridiculous rhetoric and start dealing with FACTS folks. In closing This policy was instituted by the Obama Administration, I heard no qualms then????
5
The Trump administration themselves stated that they had separated 1,995 children from their parents, and the administration itself has taken credit for this policy as falling under their Zero Tolerance policy, which was their own policy - certainly not Obama's.
There's no conspiracy here. No secrets to unearth. Just open cruelty.
There is only one big liar in the room, as there has always been since 2016. Don't be fooled.
1
Where did you get the idea the policy was instituted by Obama? Yes, under his administration facilities were open that housed women with their children...but that's not even close to the inhumane actions of the trump/miller/sessions actions. Here's a good overview full of actual facts about immigration under Bush and Obama: https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.nytimes.com/2018/06/16/us/politics/f...
1
Laura Bush is to be ignored. She is married to a man Trump has criticized as weak and dumb, and she is out of step with Republicans on the abortion issue as well. It's not surprising that she and disgraced Bill Clinton have come to agree on the issues.
1
Laura Bush is on the right side of children.
1
Bill Clinton is hardly disgraced and we allow women to hold their own opinions, because this is America, and, you know, not 1870.
1
Sessions seems to have been the architect of this policy but Trump could have stopped him. He’s faced with another poorly considered idea that was Ill considered before making it an official act.
It does seem to be another ploy like the tariffs, to make life so unpleasant that he can compel a deal without actually having to negotiate. Make them an offer that the cannot refuse, then watch them give up everything. Trump does not like the idea of the President being an elected representative of the people and a co-equal branch of the government with the Congress and the courts. He’s trying to use intimidation instead of negotiations to reach agreements so that he can act like a ruler instead of co-partner in governance.
This controversy is reminding him of his obligations and the limits of his power and he does not like that. His instincts are to refuse to budge until he is given concessions that he wants from Congress. He does not seem to know how to negotiate with them in a collaborative way.
He would rather lie silly lies than to just face the issue honestly and either defend it or end the policy, at this point.
3
It isn't just the kids being seperated but the wholesale arresting of folks who simply seek blessed liberty and a better life in our great country that is the problem.
We need to take down the wall, welcome those who come like our forebears, insure they pay taxes, and carry proper identification, and the like. (And let the market decide.)
A small portion of the billions upon billions wasted on this futile (and immoral) mistake can be spent on bolstering democracy and economic progress in the countries these folks are forced to flee.
We have it all backwards. Upside down.
(Economically, politically, morally.)
2
Thanks to Laura Bush for speaking out on this. Mrs. Bush and her husband have spent years since they left the White House visiting Africa as part of a long term program to wipe out cervical cancer there. Mrs. Bush was an excellent First Lady, who founded the much loved National Book Festival here in Washington. I didn't vote for her husband but the work he and Laura have done for women's health in Africa has helped thousands of women there.
Best wishes to Laura Bush and everybody else telling Donald Trump this isn't how we do things in this country, tormenting children.
6
Our Country is a Country of immigrants but, is of legal immigrants.
It is sad that Mexico is unable to stop this migration of citizens. If they want to come to work, a good government in Mexico should or must find ways to improve and create jobs in their own Country.
We are not talking of refuges this are people that migrate because of a bad Mexican government.
Separating children from parents or even a wall is not the answer.
The USA government should take monetary sanctions against the Mexican Government. We do not approve child neglect or women abuse and allowing this illegal immigration is to approve the Mexican government behavior.
In the days of Roman emperors, these individuals would act like gods on earth. They'd kill anyone, bed anyone, betray anyone, even the ones who would support and maintain them. This would happen for years before the people would feel it's enough, and depose them. This tells me that people will eat a lot of what rolls downhill until we decide to do anything.
Trump will continue to make things worse for us and others until we say it's enough. I hope we wake up before the damage is irreparable.
3
It isn't just the kids being separated but the wholesale arresting of folks who simply seek blessed liberty and a better life in our great country that is the problem.
We need to take down the wall, welcome those who come like our forebears, insure they pay taxes, and carry proper identification, and the like. (And let the market decide.)
A small portion of the billions upon billions wasted on this futile (and immoral) mistake can be spent on bolstering democracy and economic progress in the countries these folks are forced to flee.
We have it all backwards. Upside down. (Economically, politically, morally.)
3
Is the US unable to simply rapidly transport people back to their country of citizenship? As a family unit?
3
Have not seen any reports of ICE or CBP personnel refusing to enforce this evil policy. At least the Germans had some justification, a camp assignment was safer than front-line duty.
2
We should have seen this level of heartlessness and cruelty in Trump from the 2016 campaign. It’s no surprise that he is capable of anything.
The country is outraged that he’s separating kids from their parents. But, he had shown us exactly who he was while talking about the infamous Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch meeting at the tarmac in 2016. Remember that? Trump said: he couldn’t talk about his grandkids for more than 2 minutes before moving on to business...
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/07/05/trump_mocks_golf_and_...
Ah, yes. The man has no empathy for kids. He’s all business. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that he’s using these kids for his personal agenda. Extorting for political leverage.
Separately (from video): no thanks to CNN for covering Trump rallies live in 2016... they sure earned Trump’s gratitude, trust and support for the hours of free political coverage his campaign received from the media geniuses...
6
Think of the countless times you saw images on TV of refugee camps in other countries. Did you see children separated from their parents? Did you see sisters separated from their brothers? Imagine a brother and sister arriving together with their mother. All three will be in different areas, unable to see each other, let alone talk to each other. We are better than this, people. We are better than this policy being pushed by Trump, Sessions, Kelly and Miller in order to get Dems to pay for a border wall that Trump said Mexico would pay for. The Trump Administration has no qualms about holding children hostage.
9
So now, these children are held hostage but the US government with no legal representation? For Trump politics?
2
Conservatives on social media are repeating President Trump’s lies that a law to separate children from families was enacted in 1997.
Contrary to the president’s public statements, no law requires families to necessarily be separated at the border. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s “zero tolerance” announcement this spring that the government will prosecute all unlawful immigrants as criminals set up a situation in which children are removed when their parents are taken into federal custody.
2
Terrorism: the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
Thus, America is now a terrorist state, since by the Trump Administration's own words we are using terror (against families, including children!) to apply political coercion on Congress (particularly Democrats) to give trump his Wall, and deterring coercion on people fleeing acts of terror and violence to seek asylum in the country on all of Earth they thought they would be safest.
This is the kind of cold, unchristian, calculated policies this Administration seems to love. One positive: obviously we still have separation of church and state in operation, since the government is NOT following the teaching of Jesus Christ in its official policies. Who knew we would also be equaling some of the worst aspects of Sharia law, though?
"Sad" is too mild a word for this state of affairs.
4
Anyone who is a parent no matter what political stripe knows in their heart that what is taking place is cruel and immoral. I'll venture that Mothers know and understand this better than anyone.
Mothers like Sanders and Conway have made a choice. They have made a choice, putting their jobs ahead of any personal integrity and any grain of empathy.
They are bad people to the core, reminiscent of those who stayed silent and complicit in 1930's Germany.
7
Trump just wants to prove that nobody can tell him what to do.
It’s about this guy’s ego.
9
"The administration argued that it was just enforcing the law, a false assertion that Mr. Trump has made repeatedly."
Words matter. Please, NYT, call this lie a lie, not a "false assertion" or any other euphemism.
Trump made it into the Oval Office partly on the basis of how he, without restraint, uses/twists/perverts words. Let the rest of us, also without restraint, choose our words for maximum accuracy.
And speaking of words mattering, I can't be the only one who heard Melania ask for "both sides" to resolve this problem and immediately thought of Trump describing "very fine people on both sides" in Charlottesville.
5
I have mixed emotions about this debate. In my opinion, immigrants entering the US illegally are to blame for the end results of their actions. On the other hand, entrusting the safety and well being of so many children to so few, is frightening as well. The children are vulnerable and can easily be abused by those in power. The facilities that hold the children would make the perfect hunting ground for predators.
As one other poster stated, we need to stop tip toeing about the fact that Trump lies - about everything. A lie needs to be called out as a lie. We, as Americans, need to make Trump own his "craziness". The man is mentally unstable and needs to be removed from office.
With Trump at the helm, I am terrified for our country.
3
Sadly, Donald Trump has NEVER been involved with his young children so he doesn't "get" how traumatic it is for the child and parent to be torn apart. But Ivanka with her beautiful pictures of her and her children should. Where is she? We know Trump preferred the golf course to time with his son on Father's Day. He is such a cold, self centered disinterested father. As such, he will never be motivated to find a better solution.
3
Mr. Marshall, Moran, and Roberts (Kansas Congress and House Representatives),
What are you doing about these separations of families at the US borders? In no way is this president's policy representing the values of Kansans. My family has been in this state since we homesteaded in 1861. We came from Germany as IMMIGRANTS in 1854 seeking freedom and opportunities this country has always, since day one, provided to anyone willing to work for it. You have always committed yourself to the protection of the family and pushed for legislation you believed was right and just. But, if this administration's policy goes unchallenged by you, I'm afraid you have lost values Kansas holds. I implore you as a representative of me, of my neighbors who are 1st generation immigrants or children of immigrants, to act on this not through legislation that will take weeks, months, or years. TODAY! Voice your opposition, Kansans' opposition to this policy and ACT on getting it stopped TODAY! We need the president to know Kansas doesn't support him corroding families needlessly as some negotiation tool. We draw the line at using children as a tool for leverage in making deals. Please act today. Kansas thanks you for your service. Now, represent us on this issue.
Thank you,
Kyle Koehler
5th Generation Kansas Immigrant
8
Thank you for your reply. I'll consider it's merit on the discussion.
Sophie's Choice has never been so cruelly re-enacted.
2
Astounding the base of righteous religious right who supposedly stand for families aren’t sounding a peep. What would Jesus do?
3
The encouragement with this national disaster is that there is unending disgust and disdain for him and the words and deeds of his minion and their "policies."
The immorality of taking children for their parents who are being accused of a civil crime is a no-brainer. However, a large part of what makes the immigration "debate" in our country so difficult is liberals' blind conflation of illegal and legal immigration (including asylum seeking). They are not the same! It's incredibly patronizing when liberals make no distinction between people who have crossed the border illegally, and those who have gone through the legal channels. The conflation contributes to the bigotry toward Hispanics, perpetuating the myth that we are all products of illegal immigration and therefore not, and never will be, "legitimate" Americans.
2
For the life of me I will never understand how so-called "Believers" who support Trump actually think that "God" will let them in to "Heaven." If they are in Heaven, then where do the people who actually follow the teachings of Jesus go?
1
Just adding my voice: In a presidency marked by lack of compassion, morality and decency the lowest rung of the ladder has been reached. The root cause of this atrocity is Donald J. Trump.
In my thinking this amounts to the "high crimes and misdimeaners" outlined in our constitution as grounds for impeachment. If the Republican house and Senate would be to their senses, Trump could be packing his bags by Friday - but of course that won't happen.
1
Tearing apart families is immoral, but Dems need to get on board in terms of immigration control. It seems Americans DO care about immigration, so instead of having someone like Trump in office doing it for you, Dems are better off being part of the conversation. Trump is a symptom, not a cause. It is happening in Europe as well, a lot of extreme parties are getting elected with anti-immigration platforms.
With this cowardly policy curtailing freedoms in a nation founded and populated by immigrants, we are no longer the land of the free, nor the home of the brave. Free people do not allow mothers to be separated from children just because they aren't 'us'. And brave people don't stoop to such a craven policy to maybe, possibly, scare off potential immigrants. Lady Liberty and Columbia are both weeping. The rest of the world is simply appalled.
1
The PR genius has mismanaged another one.
He'll try to move on with a big...a huge.... distraction.
The press will be refocused long enough for a denial campaign to begin.
Children separated from their parents? Never happened. Deep state conspiracy.
4
Leading Republicans may be condemning Trump's parent separation policy, but if you want to see where the Republican Party stands, just head over to Fox News. Top headline as of this writing is 'DACA Danger', topping an article on how 60,000 'illegal immigrants' (aka Dreamers) remain in the country despite having 'arrest records'. The article does go on to qualify that this includes 'any arrests' and that most are misdemeanors. It even cites numbers that, if you're good at simple math, indicate that DACA recipients have less than half the violent crime rate of the general US population, but the article fails to point this out. Instead, Fox focuses on a portrayal of DACA recipients as criminals that have taken advantage of a misguided and corrupt Obama policy to perpetrate crime in our country.
No mention of families being broken up appears in this article or anywhere else that I could locate on the homepage. Don't kid yourself, the Republican Party lives in an alternate reality where atrocities are justified (and swept under the rug, not to be discussed) because immigrants are criminals.
4
Basically, Trump is holding these children for ransom in the form of votes for his (expensive AND useless) border wall. He will punish anyone who disagrees with his agenda and he doesn't care if the cost is a human one, inflicted on helpless children. Where does this "prevail at any cost" tactic end? And where are all those self-professed good, moral Christians? Do they think God is on Trump's side in his use of children as ransom? Their silence is deafening.
4
when you commit a crime on America soil you might have your children taken away from you, regardless of your status as a citizen, even for something as minor as a positive toxicology test for marijuana without a prescription or getting a dui while driving with your children, you will be separated from your children. Families will be broken up. American families, where's the feigned outrage? This is what is referred to as Virtue Signaling: pretending to care about a cause when you earnestly do not but do so with an ulterior motive in mind.
That is the consequence for breaking American law. Particularly when you put your children through extreme physical danger, like in the case of illegally crossing the border, you are not deemed sound of mind when it comes to raising a child. purely for financial gain you're willing to put your child's life at risk. According to American law that makes you a bad parent.
2
Seeking asylum is not a criminal activity. Immigration is not criminal, it’s civil.
3
'Purely for financial gain'
I...what? Do you think these families risking everything to either seek asylum or cross illegally had a pretty decent life at home but thought, "Gee, I could do better; I could own a big SUV and eat McDonalds every day. Honey, let's try to sneak into America!"
Doing what these families are doing is AN ACT OF DESPERATION.
How lucky for you that you've never faced such calamity in your life.
Also, your comment completely ignores what separating young children from their parents does to their mental health. It is cruel and immoral.
2
The Trump Administration made two fundamental changes to immigration policy. First, when parents came over with their kids in the past they were sent back they were not sent to jail. We can't build enough prisons to sustain this. Second, people coming to America for Asylum is not a crime, but now they are being treated as if it is. This is all about creating a situation so horrible it serves as a deterrent to future immigrants. It is not working. Numbers crossing the border are not decreasing. We will see this fall how America responds to Trump's Concentration Camps.
2
This is absolutely maddening.
Holding refugee children as some kind of sick deterrent to future asylum seekers? Claiming that a policy this administration started could be stopped if only Democrats would just come to the table and be reasonable?
Just wait...in a few days, Trump will cave to the public pressure, but spin it as doing something heroic for the children in spite of Democrat opposition.
How do we fight this man? How can something that appears so illogical and impossible on its face become accepted logic among his supporters? I am at a loss.
4
Anyone here have relatives that fought in any wars for America? Remember some of the things they were fighting against? And yet - here we are in the US watching a political party create and - through their silence endorse, Internment Camps For Children. Let that sink in for a minute.........For all intents and purposes - these are Internment Camps created to hold Children - given no access to their parents - supervisors instructed not to pick them up or touch them REGARDLESS of how much that child who may be no more than 2 or 3 years old is screaming and crying for it's parent - or just a human touch for comfort. The GOP will pay for this - and carry the enduring shame for what they have supported during these times. This is the moral stance our brave troops took when they fought these very same types of inhumane behaviors by autocratic regimes and 2 bit dictators?
#BoycottTheGOP
Feinstein is sponsoring a bill in the Senate to stop the family separation. It is signed by all Democrats so far, 43 signatures. Where are the Republicans on this issue? It will certainly come back to haunt them during the mid terms.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/3036/all-info?r=1
1
Sessions and the Southern Baptist Convention are getting what they prayed for; values focused on the family. Families, that is, like the biblical Lot. Read it and weep for families. Then get out and vote in November unless you want more of the same.
6
If you commit a crime as a citizen, you are separated from your family for years and potentially the remainder of your life. Everyone seems okay with that.
If you commit a crime as an illegal immigrant (illegal entry is a crime), you are separated from your family. Everyone seems to think this is a case for special rights and treatment.
Confused at the difference in treatment here. None of you seem to give a rip when it’s a poor family broken up by crime and punishment as long as they’re Americans. God forbid we do anything but throw open the doors and shred the law books for non-citizens.
3
Next time somebody takes their kids to a crime, they should be reminded that you can't rob a store, drive drunk or do anything against the law for which you will be arrested and expect to keep custody of your children. Your citizenship is irrelevant. The parents have the choice, don't commit the crime and their family stay together.
4
Seeking asylum is not a crime. Kidnapping children is.
5
Was it not the Republican Reagan who said: "Tear down this wall"?
2
Get a clue America. Republicans don’t care about family values, don’t care about the poor, don’t care about the environment, don’t care about the debt, don’t care about working Americans. They only care about their rich donors.
8
Children are separated from any parent who breaks the law, even citizens.
There is due process, and laws are not arbitrarily applied across board.
1
Yeah but the kids aren't put in concentration camps.
1
Trump is essentially using these kids as human shields to bully his way to getting his wall and draconian immigration policy enacted. There has got to be a tipping point beyond which his enablers will finally say no-- could this be it? Or is that too much to ask and are we too late to save our democracy?
2
It is 2018, and we still live in a world where we are afraid of other people who are different, and we have a selfish way of thinking: This is my country, no you can't come in.
None of us actually "own" our countries, all of us are descendants of immigrants (or in another horrific aspect of our history, here because ancestors were forced to come here and be slaves).
With all of the examples we know, from the Holocaust to American slavery to the slaughter of Native Americans, how are we all still so afraid of other people, and how do we still not know better?
The United States is sending children to detention centers - CHILDREN! - who either come alone or come to the border under the guidance of their parents because it is believed our country is a place of hope and promise. We're trying to prevent immigration from Muslim countries, which also separates families. We're sending successful residents who have been here for decades back to their country of origin.
This is not the great, free, America The Beautiful; this is disgusting. THIS only makes me want to take a knee during the National Anthem more than ever. This is not what America should be.
3
When I hear “Leading Republicans” I think of Ryan and McConnell. Neither are mentioned in this article. Despicable. This is not my United States of America.
1
Where is the outrage at separating families when an American is sent to jail?
We certainly don't send the kids to Rikers Island with the parent.
I would have zero problem releasing these aliens on BAIL, say $10,000 to ensure they come back for their trial.
I am sure there are enough Hollywood actors, Churches, etc willing to risk their own money to keep the families together, and the Country's Laws enforced...Right?
2
@edge: Normally, all detainees who can present a good case for needing asylum are released on bail already. They must also have a sponsor and an address in the US. Ten thousand dollars is excessive for poor people. Even a thousand dollars is a huge sum of money to a poor person.
The Trump administration has now begun to claim that fleeing domestic or gang violence no longer comprise grounds for seeking asylum. Hence, the numbers of people who are going to be granted asylum are going to also drop dramatically, if that is enforced, since most Central American women seeking asylum are fleeing either gang or domestic violence.
Hey Edge - When an American is imprisoned for a crime is their kid also locked up in a cage? Man, shredding Republican arguments is like shooting fish in a barrel.
There's a simple solution here. All we have to do is to line our border with Claymore anti-personnel mines. Then we won't have to figure out what to do with captured migrants.
"False claim"? "False assertion"? Why not call a lie a lie? If the press won't stand up to Trump and his awful policies, how can we expect Congress to do more?
4
It seems to me that this absolute mistreatment of children that Trump and Sessions and others have put together meets the test for "High Crimes And Misdemeanors" as spelled out in the Constitution and deserves Impeachment action by congress.
This is not a republican or Democratic issue. It IS a human right issue. Children are being scarred and Trump, Sessions and others think it's just fine and gives Trump a bargaining issue. Sessions even quotes a Bible verse to support abuse of children.
I am puzzled by the NYT headline "Leading Republicans Join Democrats ..." There are Republicans from previous administrations and some no longer in Congress, but there are no "Leading Republicans" such as Ryan or McConnell or any of those close to Trump who are "pushing to halt Family Separations". We can admire Laura Bush for speaking out and Melania Trump for her "both sides" comment, but the fact remains that no Republicans in power are pushing to join Democrats to end the Sessions "Zero Tolerance" asylum policy of separating children from their parents.
I remain curious why the NYT feels the need to give false credit to Republicans in power who are not speaking against family separations. We are not hearing from Bush II or Cheney either.
3
Wait, what? "Leading Republicans"? Where is Ryan? Where is McConnell? Where are any "leading" Republicans? Ms Collins is a Republican, but she in no shape or form "leads" the Republicans in Congress. Democrats are pushing with some almost audible noises being heard from a smattering of non-leading Republicans.
1
Huddled masses, yearning to breathe free... is there room left on Lady Liberty's plaque for 'Seizing children and separating them from their parents'?
Does America realize the disgrace and revulsion this policy engenders in the rest of the civilized world?
2
These "leaders: are asking the President and ATTORNEY GENERAL to refuse to enforce the immigration laws Congress passed years ago-and which the President and AG have taken an oath to enforce. The President nonetheless could and should use his powers to grant some form of amnesty -perhaps pardons to this class of immigrants provided they and their children agree to comply with US LAWS!
This is apparently going to be the over-riding message from the Democrats for the mid-terms, that Trump hates kids (DACA, illegal families being separated) and especially non-white. Endless photo-ops for the media- soulful-eyed children looking into the camera. Will you help me? Will you help my mommy?
But Americans are tired of this. We have seen disingenuous emotionally-based media campaigns for various causes a gazillion times before and as a country are much the worse off for it.
In response, Trump should simply double down on what got him elected- the humane expulsion of illegal aliens no matter what their age, the building of the wall, and broad immigration reform eliminating chain immigration and anchor babies. The candidates supporting him will do very well.
How can any child ‘be best’ when they are frightened and warehoused? Or does ‘be best’ only apply to American sons & daughters?
4
Just curious: if an American citizen breaks the law and needs to be jailed, will them be separated from their kids? If so, why are those aliens who break our law by illegally entering this country have a privilege?
2
The more informed in the genpop identified the duplicity of Republicanism’s “Family Values” agenda long ago: It has targeted values and certainly not all families. At least now, its immorality is in plain sight, so even the least informed denying it can be labeled a liar.
1
I am seething with rage at Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions. The defenseless people seeking refuge at our borders this year will never forget this horrible cruelty. Chances are that many of the children will suffer lifelong mental illnesses as a result of being separated from their parents.
The real enemy we face is not at the border. It's the whole lot of Republicans who can and do not act to remove this President. He is clearly a menace to society and a stain on our history. How big that stain will be is in the hands of the Republican party.
3
This is just another DNC-RNC Politburo attack on Trump. They tried it during the election--both deep-swamp politburos vigorously attacked, to include the likes of McCain, Graham, and Ryan--now they're at it again.
Trump's doing the right thing. Well, actually, the right thing is to just turn them all back to where they came from. But that's for the future when they show up in legions and not just cultural Marxist media cohorts of babies and mothers.
Unfortunately, not at Martha's Vineyard where things are much better for them than Texas Walmarts, so they say.
1
Our government, both parties, brought us to this point. Passing laws and never intending to enforce them is abhorrent (think everify). Letting ten million undocumented people settle and remain for decades in our country has been a burden to the lower and middle classes. This has to stop. It will be cruel for many people. The story yesterday in your paper about the lady deported to Honduras without her son is insane. She asks for asylum in the US while having a home with parents after meeting a good man who she wants to meet up with in the US so she travels a thousand miles with a child and illegally enters the US. This is NOT the definition of asylum. Trump won because the whole immigration system is a mess, especially if a paper like the New York Times thinks the woman and her separated son have any reasonable gribes against the US. They tried to abuse the US immigration laws and they got abused in return. So sad, but a reasonable person should see she brought this abuse on herself.
Some have been giving Melania the benefit of the doubt that she has a genuine concern for children's issues. Nope. Like Ivanka, who Michelle Wolf brilliantly skewered as useless, is complicit in this administration's cruelty. Are we really surprised?
5
Millions of parents and grandparents across this country are asking where is the outrage and similar calls to end the state sponsored separation of American children from their parents and family members? Happening every day in this country's broken and inherently corrupt "family" courts and CPS/DCF systems.
Over 21 million American children have been prevented from seeing their parents and families for no valid reason or cause - except to enrich the $50B Divorce Industry.
Yet when we dare complain and ask that our Constitutional rights are protected and our right upheld - the silence is deafening.
#UsToo
2
While no system of the state or government is perfect, Child Protection Services does protect children from parents/ caretakers who are not able to keep their own children from harm. Quite a different thing from pulling children apart from their parents, because the parents are requesting safety and protection from our exceptional country.
3
Please educate yourself on the issue and problem. What you are portraying is a false perception of what CPS/DCF systems do. Foster care and "family" courts have become multi-billion dollar industries based on the trampling of the Constitutional rights of fit parents and what amounts to the state sponsored trafficking of children. No exaggeration.
Start here: www.erasingfamily.org, www.divorcecorp.com
This is the fastest growing civil rights movement in the country today.
I can no longer put my hand on my heart when they play the American anthem. I shall instead fold them and pray that God will restore the country that so many have given their life to create and protect.
4
Across the globe, the billions of people are practicing a single English word...
"Asylum"
This is the golden ticket. Come to the U.S. border by car, bus, plane, bicycle, foot, horseback, or donkey cart, and utter the magic word, "asylum".
This simple, single word awards people and entire families the opportunity to live in the U.S for many years until an asylum hearing is scheduled. At that point, the asylum seeker can simply not appear in court, live "underground", and wait until the Democrats and Koch Bros/Chamber of Commerce Republicans grant a new wave of amnesties.
It's a free ticket to paradise for potentially billions of people from less developed countries.
2
Every former US President should visit the internment camp of children held in fenced cages, sleeping on floors, separated from parents, to stop this madness.
They must say to the country and to the world the is not the United States of America.
The policy would stop and the powerful symbolism of unity would reinforce limits to the Kremlin-installed president in office.
Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. proved that the human conscience will crush the powerful and break unmitigated enmity.
If unaddressed now, the violations against humanity will find ever more degrading actions.
5
Poor Melania. I wonder, does she understand what is going on here? Or is she like the children who are separated from their parents, just another tool in Trump’s strategy to get funding for his wall?
3
Melania is not poor. She is not a victim either. She knew what she was getting by marrying Trump. This heartless conduct would be, I assure you, utterly unsurprising to her.
1
Trump is ripping kids from their parents. This is wrong. Adults are asking asylum from countries that are in horrific conditions; poverty; war and more. These people are seeking a better life. Trump rips the children from their parents as a means to punish them and deter others from coming to America. This is cruel. This is un-American. The UN needs to investigate trump's cruel policies. Tearing kids away from parents is cruel and unusual punishment. If any children are killed in Trump's detention camps; the guilt lies with Trump and anyone who enables Trump. Stand up against Trump's cruel policies. Ray Sipe
3
I wish we would hear from Jimmy Carter and George W as well as others.
Where are Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan? Where are the other pious republicans who are supporting ruining children's lives for political reasons?
And what did our so-called president think about Isis using children as human shields??
Unfortunately, Trump will only dig in his heels further, since he has a zero tolerance policy on apologies, or admissions that he is wrong.
5
Don't worry, folks. I'm sure Republicans in Congress are sending their thoughts and prayers to the families of all those children.
1
I am very concerned that our my local Catholic Church in south De voted to allow this horrible round up to happen. Many members voted for Trump. Three year old kids in tears as their moms are taken away. I feel the Pope needs to Excumunicate all the GOP supporters who support this barbaric behavior. Catholics don't need to own guns either especially priests. Ask yourself what would Jesus pack? How are they gang members being so young. I never voted Republican and am proud of it today. That is the worst political party in the world.
7
"a false assertion that Mr. Trump has made repeatedly."
Enough soft-pedaling, please use the word "lie."
3
Responsible professional journalism standards would dictate that the reporting refrain from star-struck glamorizing, or passive submission to a "title" and report full context of any individual's remarks.
The "First Lady" is herself an immigrant. It appears that at least for the first few years of her residency in the United States her presence here was in fact a violation of "our nation's laws". Those facts ought to be reported to readers of her remarks for necessary context. Her comms director Ms. Grisham should certainly be given the opportunity to respond and square her remarks with with her history. But leaving out this kind of context empowers and broadens already widespread misunderstandings in our country about immigration.
Journalists must work to improve understanding. You must do better, NYT.
6
If it looks like a duck...... it is literally using the separation of children from their parents as a legislative lever ... and he's taking the action in the affirmative .... it's not like this policy was in place from a previous administration and he's refusing to modify it in order to get his way - no, he implemented the policy for the express purpose of being able to use it as a legislative lever - if this isn't the definition of craven, I don't know what is. He was the boy who threw cake at birthday parties.
4
...but Trump is being victimized! It's not his fault---it's those Democrats, it's the deep state, it's a non-existent "law", it isn't his and Sessions policy. The Trump jackal PAC is gleeful.
5
Where is my Mark Twain today? He would be either enjoying himself immensely or on the verge of suicide. In the 1880s, he said:
When the doctrine of allegiance to party can utterly up-end a man's moral constitution and make a temporary fool of him besides, what excuse are you going to offer for preaching it, teaching it, extending it, perpetuating it? Shall you say, the best good of the country demands allegiance to party? Shall you also say it demands that a man kick his truth and his conscience into the gutter, and become a mouthing lunatic, besides?
sound reasoning.
Using children as bargaining chips is downright evil. It is becoming more apparent everyday that the Trump administration is not only weak and dumb it is also evil.
24
No family need be, or should be separated.. Just don't cross border and families won't be separated, it's very simple
5
They’re separating parents seeking asylum from their children. People seeking asylum enter legally.
That’s why few “solutions” are as simple as the people who provide them are.
2
Sure, blame everything on the Democrats, Clinton, Obama, prior administration... You're a bunch of grown men and women elected to represent all Americans, American interests and uphold the laws and constitution of the United States. Stand up and act like adults.
11
MSNBC is decrying “zero tolerance” that separates children as nothing more than extortion to get money for the border wall. Sort of like what Big Pharma will do by withholding drugs for dying babies until a high enough price is paid. Poor kids, they are like ping pong balls in this world.
13
This is kidnapping.
The border wall is the ransom.
Cruel and disgusting.
19
45!
Hands off Merkel.
She towers above you in all ways.
We know what you want in your scheming ways. You, Bannon, Miller....and its an ugly, white, world.
11
So, to solve the MS-13 gang problem, Trump is kidnapping small children from their mothers and locking them up? And his "Christian" supporters cheer? And the Republican cowards disgracing our Congress continue to do nothing?
Who are these people?
Register today and vote in November! We out number them! But we have to vote!
Make America Decent Again!
17
Melanie Trump had decided to wallow in her husband's sewer. But what do you expect of a woman who has tolerated every degree of marital abuse and humiliation from her husband? She is no less than a cheap carpet-bagger. "First Lady", my foot!
14
Trump is a KIDNAPPER of immigrants' children, stealing and holding them illegally for ransom for his very bloody wall money.
We will never ever recover from the criminal acts of Trump.
WE the People must remove Trump from office NOW.
If YOUR CHILD was stolen from you, what would you do?
I dare say that most all people would
Find Child, Get Child
Find Kidnapper, Lockup Kidnapper
Until the end of Time
FIND
8
While it is heartening to see that the consciences of some political luminaries have been sufficiently awakened for them to speak out against this horrendous injustice, it is the courts who have been asleep at the switch. The constitutional right of these innocent children to be free from "cruel and unusual punishment" by the US government has clearly been violated, as has their right to "due process." Why has no federal court issued a restraining order on this basis in the interest of justice?
7
I have had several people say to me that this is exactly what happens when citizens of the US break the law. What? Please point to a case where someone has been arrested for, say, shoplifting- not even convicted, but just charged - and their children have been taken to a concentration camp.
They want to overly simplify the situation.
DOJ set this situation up very carefully. Sessions stated point blank that it is being used as a deterrent. And now Trump has seen the outrage of it and has seized it as a way to hold children hostage to force Democrats to pass laws that he favors.
To say that, well, the parents should not have broken the law, is completely shallow and lacks, not only compassion, but a thinking brain as well.
11
@ VH
First offense illegal entry is a misdemeanor for which up to six months can be served in jail. Second offense illegal entry penalty is up to two years. This isn't a jaywalking ticket offense. The fact that it has been treated that way in the past explains why too many think it's no big deal and we are swarmed with lawbreakers.
Anyone held in jail pending a hearing will be separated from their kids. Anyone serving a jail sentence will be separated from their kids. Happens every single day, all over America, and always has.
1
Because "prior administrations made exceptions to such prosecutions for adults traveling with minor children", as the NYT tells us in this story, we now have many adults traveling with minor children. The word filtered the length of Central America that if you travel to the border with kids you will be released into the interior of the US and can disappear. It became the illegal "immigrant" entry method of choice. There is a well established consulting network that coaches illegal "immigrants" on the most effective entry method du jour.
Just as Trump and Sessions understand, it will take a little time to undue the damage and send the correct signal back: "This country has a formal immigration system and it will be enforced."
4
Separate parents from children, halt immigration and build a wall. This is really about changing the how others view America. We are no longer a welcoming country that have the best interest of the downtrodden at heart. We are rapidly becoming as like other autocracies, taking advantage of the weak, playing games to gain economic advantage, and offering alliances to those that support our goals and are willing to pay for them. Trump doesn't talk about human rights because he doesn't believe in it. What a country does to its own people is their business, all we want is access to their markets so America can be first. It's the cut throat mentality of an unethical real estate agent and so far he is getting away with it.
4
The crowded incarceration of thousands of transient undocumented children with unknown vaccination status represents a veritable public risk of possibly tragic putcome.
Unvaccinated children from various tropical countries, clustered together, could result in an outbreak of a disease leading to serious illness, even death in some cases or permanent disability.
As the initiator of this action and as its warden, the US Government would be clearly liable for this outbreak.
This is not the first time this will have happened in human history.
For it to happen in the 21st century in an advanced industrial society built on immigration would be a fundamental betrayal of everything we stand for.
Bohdan A. Oryshkevich, MD, MPH
12
I'm glad this policy is finally being seen for what it is: blackmail. The children are being separated not for immigration purposes but for use as hostages. The ransom? Trump has spelled it out in a June 15 tweet/ransom note: "Any Immigration Bill MUST HAVE full funding for the Wall, end Catch & Release, Visa Lottery and Chain, and go to Merit Based Immigration." Trump & Friends' statements about the situation being the fault of the Democrats is based on the Dem's failure to give him what he wants, i.e., all the pain/suffering could end soooo easily if you'll just hand it over. This is "negotiation" in the era of Trump. But, "I don't think you pay ransom for people who have been kidnapped by barbarians." Ronald Reagan
13
Can we as a nation be tough on illegal immigration? Of course but this recent policy of family separation is far more insidious and doesn't have nothing to do with 'toughness.' Yes, there is some outrage from the Left and moderates among us. But, if the children and families in question had blonde hair and blue eyes, this policy would be ended as of yesterday. For it is easy to discriminate against those who don't look like us. Those in power forget that themselves are descendants of immigrants at one time or another was discriminated against. Yes, our immigration system needs to be fixed where those coming to our shores can be easily assimilated into our American culture. Finally, remember the mark of a great nation is our morality and our compassion. Once we sacrifice those ideals for a short term political goal then we are no better than Russia, China, or North Korea.
7
Gen. Kelly and Ms. Nielson said the following in an archived NPR recording:
JOHN KELLY: Yes, I am considering - in order to deter more movement along this terribly dangerous network, I am considering exactly that. They will be well cared for as we deal with their parents.
KIRSTJEN NIELSEN: Operationally, what that means is we will have to separate your family. That's no different than what we do every day in every part of the United States when an adult of a family commits a crime.
Anyone else confused by what Ms. Nielson said today?
5
Laura Bush has said it well: “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.”
Heart & morality are foreign topics to Sessions and to Trump.
11
Oh, I forgot to add a few more items unknown to Sessions and Trump: the truth, the Bible, there may be others...
1
President Trump has the upper-hand on this issue. He has the law behind him.
It is a cruel law and even he agrees this is a cruel law. But he has a country to run. Unfortunately politics has become a contact sport.
Please cite us to the specific “law” that requires family separation at the border.
5
Undocumented immigrants at the border are subject to incarceration for break federal immigration laws.
Minors who cross the border with their parents have not committed a crime therefore they are place with the proper agency in this case, Health and Human Services.
Let us be clear, the current situation represents Trump's family values. Even some Republican law makers admit he could end the situation with a phone call. Let us also be clear it is more important for Republican law makers to be Trump team players than to stop separating children from their parents. To me that means their "family values" are nearly worthless.
As for needing a bipartisan solution, which we don't, but even if we did the part of the bipartisan that is missing is the Republican side. If it is claimed the Democrats have to give something to make it bipartisan, that is a clear statement that Republican's support the separation of children from parents.
That is no surprise to me! We need to fire every Republican. Unfortunately we need to wait for the next election. Let us make sure we don't forget their "family values" when we next vote.
5
Feinstein has a bill ready to pass that prohibits separating families unless there is some child abuse occurring. Not one Republican has signed it.
The Trump people just cannot get their stories straight about separating immigrant children from their families in chronological order:
Trump: The Democrats made me do it.
Sessions: The Bible made me do it.
Sanders: I vote with Bible story.
Homeland Security: We do not do it.
Melania: I do not like it.
8
And just moments ago,
Homland Security's "new" story:
We did not do it and we absolutely will not apologize!
1
Finally, House Speaker Ryan:
Some old court order forced made me do it.
This is a decisive moment in Trump's presidency and how he will be viewed in history books.
8
How about some knowledge. The US does not permit the incarceration of CHildren with their parents if the parents go to prison.
Some European countries, Belgium for example, allow children to join their parents in prison. Most countries do not. The US is one of those countries that does not permit the child to be imprisoned with the parent. Social services deal with placing the child with authorized care givers
4
The parents are not being imprisoned!! They are being sent back home. There is NO reason the kids can’t join the parents. None.
5
What does this have to do with prison? These parents are not convicted of anything.
3
This should be treated as a civil violation as it has been in the past. The decision last month to prosecute people who come to ask for help as a criminal and to steal their kids. They wanted to and are using these children to deter future asylum seekers, and to use them as hostages to get legislation passed that few want.
2
Someone - the media? - should point out how weak he is that he can't get the law changed, unless there is no such law, of course.
1
Democrats need to step forward with a strong, unified statement of support for enforcement of our immigration laws and specific measures to stop illegal entries. They are letting Trump paint them as "open borders" advocates at a time when a significant minority of Americans is angry about illegal immigration and fearful of cultural and, yes, racial dilution of our white European Christian culture. These are powerful, deep-seated anxieties that Trump is exploiting, to what end we do not yet know, but we do know that he is a master of deceit and propaganda with autocratic tendencies and has the blind loyalty of a Republican Congress. Illegal entries must be stopped with Democratic leadership or else we may lose our democracy.
4
If children were separated from their parents everytime a parent broke the law, there would be very few children in the greater DC area these days.
6
I'm glad this policy is finally being seen for what it is: blackmail. The children are being separated not for immigration purposes but for use as hostages. The ransom? Trump has spelled it out in a June 15 tweet/ransom note: "Any Immigration Bill MUST HAVE full funding for the Wall, end Catch & Release, Visa Lottery and Chain, and go to Merit Based Immigration." Trump & Friends' statements about the situation being the fault of the Democrats is based on the Dem's failure to give him what he wants, i.e., all the pain/suffering could end soooo easily if you'll just hand it over. This is "negotiation" in the era of Trump. But, "I don't think you pay ransom for people who have been kidnapped by barbarians." Ronald Reagan.
4
Have we not had enough YET?
The collusion with a hostile foreign power.
The constant lying.
The destruction of our leadership position in the world.
The pursuit of stupid and damaging policies.
The toying with nuclear war and the crowing about then avoiding it (with no real agreement that it won't all happen again).
The blatant corruption and lawlessness.
The lying.
And now, damage to children. CHILDREN! For what?
Republicans stand by as children are ripped from their parents and honor is ripped from our country.
23
People need to stop cutting Melania slack. She’s not a victim, she’s not a prisoner, she’s not an abused wife. She is an opportunistic fashion model who illegally overstayed her tourist visa to sleep with an old married rich guy with the intent of becoming his third wife. She knew who Trump was when she married him. She willingly sold her soul in exchange for a life of material leisure, and has supported her deplorable husband every step of the way.
31
The cruelity of this is the Trump doctrine of facism. We must not turn away even though the pain of looking is almost unbearable. Please stop this. Please.
9
Kellyanne Conway, repeatedly her affirming she is a toxic liar. In one breath she denies the administration is using family separation as leverage. Then in the next she says, "Nobody likes this policy . . . but everybody has to act." No, they don't. The only person that has to act to end it is the toxic liar at the top of the garbage heap that is the White House.
24
The Trump Administration, the Republican Party and, sadly, a large fraction of the public, are the elements of a racist, fascist revolution. We can talk about it - and should talk about it - but at the end of the day we just have to get Trump and the Republicans out. I don't know what we will do about the 40% of the public (= 50% of the white public), but we have to worry about that later. Right now we just have to get one house of Congress back into Democratic hands and start to put the brakes on this horror. But be prepared, if we are successful in November, for Trump, McConnell et al. to deny the election results, which will plunge us over the abyss. At that point we have to hope the generals will be loyal to the law, because we know the President and the Congressional Republicans will not be. That's some pass we've come to in America. But before we can have that fight, we have to win at the polls, despite the constitutionally stacked deck, the voter suppression, the probability of a thwarted result, etc. Whatever Mueller eventually comes out with will be damning but we don't know that Trump will suffer as a result. It might clean Trump's clock, or it might not. We don't know if, and we don't know when. So it's all about November.
11
I remember Republican outrage over Elian Gonzalez and the "jackbooted thugs" sent to reunite him with his father in Cuba. Where is this outrage now, when thousands of children are forcibly ripped from their parents' arms (many of whom are legally applying for asylum)?
11
They are not legally applying for asylum. They are filing fraudulent asylum claims because they are not fleeing political persecution; rather they are being coached into lying about the reason for seeking admission to the U.S. because the Open Borders advocates have told them that asylum is the Golden Ticket to enter the U.S. (just get in and never show up for a hearing or for deportation). Asylum is a fraudulent means to an end.
Fraudulent asylum claims are still fraud. A great many of these same people have probably applied (without success) for a tourist visa and been denied because a consular officer correctly realized that they were fraudulently claiming to be tourists when in fact they just want to live in the U.S.
Just because people have a right to file an asylum claim does not mean a claim based on fraud is "legal," anymore than an application for a tourist visa (by someone whose goal is not tourism) is legal. Fraud is illegal. These people are committing fraud. Their asylum claims don't deserve any respect as they are being filed fraudulently.
That is it. This has got to stop. Robert Mueller needs to give us the goods to get this awful group of people out of the White House.
The Trump administration has gone after minorities, women, the poor, the LGBT community, and now innocent children??
Disgusting. Republican voters: I will never forgive you.
18
The Democrats should stop pussyfooting around, quoting each others books and writing indignant articles!
Produce a split screen video with each stage of ICE's actions compared with film footage of similar family separation actions which occurred at train unloading platforms in Eastern Europe in WW II.
It is unbelievable that these child monitors use the same chilling mantra..."Come to the showers!"
23
“As a mother, as a Catholic, as somebody who has got a conscience, and wouldn’t say the junk that somebody said, apparently, allegedly, I will tell you that nobody likes this policy,” Kellyanne Conway, the White House counselor, said on “Meet the Press” on NBC. “You saw the president on camera that he wants this to end, but everybody has, Congress has to act.”
Kellyanne Conway is a freak of nature when it come to political spin, obfuscation, and just plain lying. You have to marvel at her dark talents–although she does have to work hard to lead the White House pack with Sarah Huckabee Sanders nipping at her heels.
16
Nothing can justify forcefully separating children from their parents, but we can't overlook the fact that the illegal immigrants are using children to gain access to the United States. I remember crossing the border from El Paso & saw women holding babies & pleading for US Dollars.The excuse of these illegals that they are escaping from the gangs who want to kill them is wearing thin. If there are Gangs running amuck in these Latin American countries why isn't the U N doing something about that.Kellyanne that good Catholic who's heart is breaking about the separation of the children, stop playing politics & simply denounce this practise.. These immigrants are for the main. Catholics..Stop supporting this demogue of a President,& have the same concern about these children as you do about fetuses.
9
"Nothing" can justify separate children from their parents by force? Not child abuse? Not divorce? Not incarceration for committing a crime?
American citizen children are separated by force from their parents every single day of the week and nobody raises an eyebrow The only reason people care about child separation here is because it will work, i.e. deter future illegal immigrants from trafficking their children into the United States. If parents do not wish to be separated from their children, they have a simple choice: stay home and don't try to cross the border without inspection or file a fraudulent asylum claim (and all asylum claims here are basically fraudulent).
2
PJM
Of course your right in your assessment of what is going on.However,the separation of children is still ripe in the minds of people especially, Jewish people who were separated from their parents & never saw them again.
“As a mother, as a Catholic, as somebody who has got a conscience, and wouldn’t say the junk that somebody said, apparently, allegedly, I will tell you that nobody likes this policy,” Kellyanne Conway. You forgot to give us an update on the whereabouts of your heart and your soul.
14
Michael Barbaro better really grill Stephen Miller about this during their interview. When Scott Pruitt was on, the show just rolled along happily with his blatant lies and frankly it was very hard to listen to. Conservative media has no problem pushing back against the truth with their script of lies. Liberal media needs to be better about pushing back against their lies with the truth. The "high road" isn't working. Please start pushing back NYT. This is the role of the media and you are skulking away from that responsibility.
17
These Trump Republicans, including Sarah Huckabee Sanders, should have their children taken away from them as unfit parents. These people are allowed to lie, cheat and worse. They are not fit mothers or fathers to any child. Melania is even worse going around with the idiotic Be Best program when she is doing nothing about her own family being Best. Did we expect anything else from this lot.
44
That is plain SICK!
These AMERICANS did not break the law, as the aliens have!