I think it will happen because that’s what nature and natural laws do. Nature is never in rush. It will take its own time to do to people exactly what they did to others.
The circle will be completed.
Nature will probably in the next 100 years do to us what we did to the Iraqis, Syrians and what we are doing now to the Central Americans. Only difference is, the new generation will suffer for the sins of their earlier generations. Bit that’s the way it is. To nature we are all the same
6
Fear, brought to you by the trump administration, making America great again.
10
How can the people of America continue to let a sociopath like Trump continue to "lead" their country.
It's also clear to the rest of the world that the Republican politicians are so shallow that they continue to support Trump in order to cling to power.
I sincerely hope that after the mid term elections, the Democrats take control of both houses and then commence a process that will drag Trump, his family and his corrupt dysfunction circus through every court in the country until they are bankrupt and then imprison them for the longest term legally possible.
23
Impeachment is the only apology.
9
A great story of how separation happens to many citizens of the US. And of course those parents did do something very wrong, in fact several things. If they wanted and thought they were entitled to asylum then the proper process would be to go to the official entry location, not try to sneak in. Next they really should have applied in Mexico or whichever country they first arrived at. And lastly those conditions that they are fleeing happen here all the time. See Chicago for how many were shot and killed in a couple of days. Simple!!! I never worried, because I took care of my children and did not become a criminal.
2
Isn't what we're seeing in Central American Countries like Guatemala and El Salvador, the by-product of US foreign policy for much of the 20th century with it intensifying during the Cold War (U.S. economic interest followed and intensified under Cold War politics)?
21
For those speaking about the long term trauma for these children, I can relate, but from a different perspective.
When I was in my 40s, I vacationed in Italy with my family. A sudden illness left me hospitalized at midnight; not one of the staff spoke English. When I woke up in the early hours of the morning, I found myself essentially tethered to the bed because my I.V. was attached to it; there was a bucket beside the bed - no privacy curtains, just an open door to a busy corridor. I had no idea whether my husband had safely walked back to the hotel; there were no means of communicating with him.
I still remember the feeling of absolute panic and fear at being held in a place with no human warmth or care for basic dignity. I was able to talk myself out of this feeling of desperation, but I was an adult. Twenty years later, I still cannot abide listening to the Italian language.
I grieve for the children who have experienced the terrible experience caused by this government policy, and hope beyond words that they can at least be reunited with their parents again.
15
Perhaps we should stop saying that republicans are the party of christians, fiscal responsibility, defenders of the country.
They are more about guns, bible religiosity, hate toward the stranger, racism.
48
We have a president who is using children as hostages for his border wall. Period. Journalists and commentators need to stop calling his immigration atrocities "strong" and "hardline." To the contrary, they are the actions of a coward and a bully. Only cowards take children hostage; strong leaders pick on people their own size.
Words matter. Start calling Trump's actions what they are, not what he wants you to call them.
24
That this can happen in the USA is unimaginable. Part of me knew that we had a large racist undercurrent in our America. I never understood how cruel we can be once people are demonized and turned into objects.
This President and his followers betray every promise that was made in our bill of rights and constitution.
They are traitors to America and traitors to the human race.
38
The birth of a fascist country...I never thought that I will see the first democratic country in the world turning into such a hell-hole country where every day begins with a sad or evil new on Trump and his administration.
Trump is a mobster boss driving the country for the benefit of his "mafia family" under the instructions/guidance of Russian mobsters.
The Congress is doing nothing to protect and serve the USA.
The USA is in trade wars with China, India, EU, UK, Canada and Mexico.
Now you are terrorizing children at your bother...it is evil, pure Trump evil
31
Yes, “Republicans are ostensibly the party of Christian family values.” The problem is they are so only ostensibly, not really. If they were really so, 58 percent of them (according to the latest CNN poll) wouldn't be supporting the president on this issue. Anyone can tell that he “is making a mockery of those values at our borders….” Surprisingly large numbers of those who elected him are evangelical Christians. When will they wake up to the reality that their leader’s commitment to Christian values was limited to sloganeering?
He keeps saying that his government is only enforcing the law. Let Congress pass new law and he would sign it, he keeps repeating. It turned out to be another one of his lies. What is happening at the border is the enforcement of a policy, which he never tires of tweeting about. While changing the existing law or enacting a new one would take time, a policy can be changed by just another tweet, even with grammatical and spelling errors, which he can't help.
Innocent children who are snatched away from their parents and languishing in temporary shelters at the border cannot afford to wait until Congress passes a new law or amend the existing one on this matter. Also, he has made even an attempt at it by Congress a nonstarter by insisting that a provision be made in it for his pet border wall. How long are his Republican supporters going to tolerate his vacillatory tactic? Let me repeat after the author: “Where is our righteous Christian outrage?”
12
"It happens only when parents aren’t doing what they’re supposed to do."
???
There are ALL kinds of reasons why children end up in foster care, ranging from severe illness to nasty divorce battles.
14
I shudder to imagine US citizens as migrants/immigrants/refugees after the way we have been treating them. There are established communities in the US of every nationality in the world, if we can't welcome them and enfold them, who then? Why are so many people suffering so unnecessarily?
10
"Republicans are ostensibly the party of Christian family values."
Where did this fantasy come from?
Why have Republicans been given this label?
When did Republicans ever earn such high praise?
How can Republicans face themselves in the mirror?
What have Republicans ever done except raise taxes, destroy health care, undermine governmental attempts to mitigate human suffering, start wars and wage war on the poor of this country?
Who are the Republicans to set up a religion of conservative evangelism in this country, a religion of "better than thou-ism" and, in so doing, setting aside the Constitution and humble spirituality alike?
I am so tired of hearing the word "liberal" used in the conservative press in a manner that is totally misrepresentative of what a real liberal is: a humanitarian. One who cares more about people than about winning. One who lives and walks and suffers with--in heart and head and feelings and words and actions--all the people. All of them.
I may be wrong. I may need forgiveness for hating Republicans. I may need forgiveness for despising Trump. But with all my heart I hate them and him. I cannot imagine this nightmare at the end of my life. I feel like a woman, among others, tumbling into an inferno with "no exit."
30
As much as I feel your pain, I’m troubled by your depiction of republicans being the party of Christian family values. It is this binary framing that has led people to believe that the opposition has no morals. I and others can rightly claim to be moral, empathetic, loving, non Christian individuals who are equally horrified by the actions of our government.
9
Heart- rending! Thank you for painting a concrete picture of the suffering of small children separated from their parents, even if they are kept in humane circumstances. You and your family represented a best case scenario for these foster children- but many of those immigrant children today are not so lucky.
6
I am a naturalized American citizen. My husband is American, and so is my daughter. I have read in the news three articles about how this administration is now looking into taking citizenship away from people who have lied to obtain it. I did not lie, and my husband believes I am crazy to worry about such a thing. But I am now terrified that someday, somehow, my citizenship can be taken away and, along with it, the right to remain with my daughter. People keep trying to normalize and justify the acts of this administration. But if someone dares to peek at what lies ahead if things not change fast, the future looks very scary for millions of people in this country.
21
Rose Marie,
Worry, be diligent, awake and aware, because no one can predict where this travesty will end.
I take some comfort from the amorphous adage, "the night is darkest before the dawn", although I'm more inclined to think, "the night is coldest, before the dawn".
Here, in the very far from "united" United States, something has gone terribly wrong.
10
Welcome to the blossoming of Fascism!
Edmund Burke said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
24
Yes. And let us not forget that the people on the ground carrying out this policy are just as guilty as their overlords. If they in mass said no this wouldn't be happening.
17
Parents who drag their kid through the failed state of Mexico and subject them to the violence that accompanies migrants from Central America through Mexico only to jump an international border are certainly not "doing the right thing". If they chose to cross the border at an entry point they wouldn't be separated from their children during the next 20 days- the legal limit to detain children- like the border jumping parents.
6
This article struck a chord in me. Last night listening to the defenders and supporters of this policy to take children away from their parents because:
1. Their parents broke the law
2. The adults probably aren't their parents anyway
3. All people coming into the country are gaming the system so what do they expect?
I could not help but think what horrible logic and I fear that one things leads to another. If children can be taken away because someone decides you broke the law, probably aren't the real parent or are just gaming the system then I think many children might end up in shelters. Sounds like McCarthyism...judgmental, scary, and falsely accusatory all to defend some illogical fear.
16
I was fostered out at 5 with no prior notice. That was in 1946. I remember it like it was yesterday, the details and the feelings. It's not a fond memory.
With me there were no big strange men in body armor with guns and my mom wasn't terrified.
Civilized people don't do this to children - FOR ANY REASON!
23
Remember in November people, remember in November. We (the voters) put this tyrant in office, it is now our responsibility to neuter this threat to humanity.
18
Policies like this is how we make terrorists, what will those children grow up thinking about the US.
17
Has anyone in the Trump administration ever heard this little phrase, "Do unto others?" Why are all the Christ-worshippers not rallying in Texas to protect the children? Why does the Susan B. Anthony anti-abortion group work to destroy women's health rights while remaining silent on children now alive being so abused? This column by Ms. Cummins, a great American, highlights all those issues. A final phrase to describe the column, "From the mouths of babes."
13
It's happening to "us" now when Border agents board Greyhound busses and ask travelers for identification.
13
Many commentators have uttered that Americans have lost their soul. No we haven't. We have lost control over our government is the fact. We lost it when we elected people who are not qualified in any way other than to look pretty. We need to be more proactive in our elections and to truly understand what it means to be a citizen. The cruelty we are witnessing should ensure that we elect officials in Nov. 2018 that really represent our values. The justice we will enact after this decree by the cruel Pretend King Trump and his minions (don't forget them, he could not do it without DHS Nielsen and DOJ Sessions) is over will show the world who we are, a people who love freedom and know that our young is our future. A word to those who continue to support the Pretend King Trump, we will remember.
12
According to the last poll, 42 percent of Americans agree with Trump. It looks to me like 42 percent of Americans have lost their souls. If the other 58 percent does not get out to vote next November, chances are Trump will get elected for a second term. And he will then change the constitution to be able to get reelected indefinitely. And then The US will be a banana republic, and no longer the leader of the democratic world.
12
Thank you for sharing this with me. I would never have known what it was like. It tells us all what people are going through. We can rage at Trump in the abstract, but it is ultimately going to be our humanity, our understanding and compassion for other people, that will prompt us, as a country, to do the right thing. Bearing witness like this is part of building the resolve to do that.
6
Ms. Cummins, your daughter was right. You made the wrong assumption about Child Protective Services only taking away children from unfit parents. Every year tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of American children are wrongfully taken away from their parents with as little evidence as a complaint from a vengeful neighbor, an ex-spouse, a power hungry medical professional. When CPS does have evidence of abuse, neglect or endangerment, they will make it up. When two CPS social workers are sued by parents, the State of California went to extraordinary length to defend them. Ask Senator Kamala Harris (who was the California Attorney General at the time) about the Hardwick v. Vreeken case (https://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/media/view_video.php?pk_vid=0000010323).
3
Bless the writer for taking in those foster children. What will happen to the kids who were taken away from their parents at the border? Will their parents ever find them? Will they end up in loving foster homes or in government orphanages or with people who take them in solely for money?
5
It's past time for Trump and his evil band to be removed from office.
10
Trump administration has zero empathy.
9
Trump's news conference, " We'll be overrun..."
By crime-- I think Washington, D.C. has been overrun by crime ever since Trump arrived, escalated by him, his family, and his Cabinet.
All the guff his people have been spouting out about separating children from their families, including the very questionable Biblical quotes offered up by Huckabee- Sanders (If she learned this from your father, then he's a bigger dunce than I ever imagined!), makes us all sad!
11
This was a good one. My schlockemeter was on ten all the way through it. But do the Democrats actually think they can win in November with insincere tripe and feigned emotionalism? They’ll really be getting out the crying towel when the returns come in.
7
Oh yeah. Crying caged children and screaming babies BABIES ripped from mothers arms and jailed is nothing to be outraged about. The entire civilized world is outraged — but not Trump supporters! Not evangelical “Christians” ! Not you!
10
As midterms draw near, I hope Democrat strategists make full use of the images brought to us by Trump and Republican bystanders:
Children separated from parents at border
Trump defending white nationalists
Trump and Putin
Trump trashing G-7 allies
Trump billionaire friends cheering trillion dollar tax cuts
Trump instructing people to sit up, listen like N. Koreans
the list is long
13
Thank you for your insight and sharing your story. What was once unthinkable has proven to be a reality. In the U.S.A. we do have "baby prisons." I never in my wildest nightmare would have thought this could happen in my country. Trump and his administration referred to detention and housing of "tender age," children - Trump's euphemism for baby. Do they really believe by using the term, "tender age," it softens the deplorable and despicable act? I'm horrified.
7
All this is,is predation at is worse.Letting the lowest instinct free riding.What for?
6
As I have written, I cut my political eye teeth on George Orwell. I recognized 1984 could happen here but never thought it would until I woke some days ago to find the President had done a Herod and was separating kids from their parents.
The author's kids, as she said, understood more than the adults. It can happen to anyone, particularly under Trump.
The feds have kidnapped 2300 youngsters, stressing them in various ways
5
Miss Cummins writes, "Republicans are ostensibly the party of Christian family values. " That may be how Republicans view themselves, but it's only because they have missed much of the essence of Christ's message.
9
Separating the children from parents is horrible, and caging them? Unspeakable.
I still cannot support the abusive requests for asylum, reasons for which are very clearly defined. Domestic violence from an abusive spouse/partner doesn't qualify.
People who legitimately seek asylum, for persecution on grounds of religion, politics, race, ethnicity, gender preference are supposed to request it in the first country they reach after leaving their home nations' borders. Hopscotching multiple national borders to reach the U.S.A. & the land of handouts is wrong. Send people who've illegally entered the country back to their homes. Be sure to send their children with them.
5
We are outraged at these terrible things happening in the USA.
However I fear we have not been sufficiently outraged by such things in the middle east, nor in the countries of Central American where there are also unsafe conditions. I'm sure many people elsewhere in the world are outraged that we are only now outraged.
4
To answer the author's question: Sadly, the Republicans are the party of family Christian values only for themselves and those who can vote for them.
4
A new low on the opt edit page.
6
Who are the people on the ground, at the border doing this? What gives them deniability? Yesterday, NPR interviewed the president of the Border Patrol Union. He said, “we only separate children for a few hours.” He kept saying, “I don’t know what happens to them after we turn them over to ICE — others are separating the children, not us.” He expressed no awareness at all that his union members actions contribute to what is happening.
If everyone contributes to the separation a little bit, and then says, “not me - only just a little, temporarily, I don’t know what other govt agencies are doing”, we have no hope.
To everyone involved, please find a way in your heart to say, “no more!”
8
Frankly I found this piece weak in its attempt to make an analogy. Foster children are usually removed from their homes due to bad parenting, and very often the return of foster kids to their bio parents is a big mistake. The result is often a push-pull; it's why so many kids are in and out of foster care their entire childhoods, and then thrown to the wolves as if fully formed at age 18. Personally, I think our foster care decisions are a tragedy of large proportion that we as a society should, and easily COULD deal with; first step would be to admit that biology is not always destiny or best for a child.
That's a very different situation from what the USA is doing at our border. Perhaps it is foolish of these parents to try to enter our country illegally with their kids. But they are doing so with (as far as can be seen) the optimism that all good parents apply to their kids. These parents are putting themselves in grave danger to do so, and now have had their children ripped from them-- all for having committed the crime of inexplicable and, okay, blind love for them. This action by the trump administration needs to be called out for the crime against humanity that it is. Trump is certainly not acting in the name of most Americans. They are conspiring to impress trump's base, who are it turns out, as base (deplorable) as Ms. Clinton accused them of being.
3
When will the US acknowledge the role our country has played in the disintegration of civil society in Central America? We participated in the systematic corruption of civil institutions in Honduras and other countries in order to ensure the profitability of American companies with banana plantations. It is obscene that the person who claims to be the leader of the free world spouts one lie after another, abandons the United Nations Human Rights Commission, looks coldly and cynically at the horror he created at our Southern border and vomits more lies and distortions in response. To describe this administration as venal, morally bankrupt and irresponsible would be to give them all too much credit.
9
Remember this interview? A colleague reminded me of it.
Now look at it from a psychiatric perspective:
JOHN DICKERSON: "George W. Bush said the reason the Oval Office is round is there are no corners you can hide in."
(It's a clear metaphor.)
TRUMP: "Well, there's truth to that. There is truth to that. There are certainly no corners. And you look, there's a certain openness. But there's nobody out there. You know, there is an openness, but I've never seen anybody out there actually, as you could imagine."
(Concrete thinking.) ( Missing the metaphor.)
JOHN DICKERSON: But he-- what he meant was it's-- all comes..."
TRUMP: "Sure. Sure."
JOHN DICKERSON: "Back to you."
(Gives up) ( Realizes he's not dealing with an intellectual in Trump.)
This was a very telling exchange that no doubt caught the eyes of medical/psychiatric professionals. Trump is unfit + unsuited + he revealed it early on. Now we are in a pickle.
10
A legitimate argument can be made that overreacting to Trump only lowers us to his level and deadens our voices; however, how is one expected to respond quietly when he continues to indulge in such atrocious behavior. See: RevolutionOfReason.com
5
Who are the people taking care of the children in the holding centers? What are their credentials in child care.? How many to the number of detainees? Is there medical care or evaluations? Vetted for felonies or child abuse? So many questions our government needs to answer!!
7
Great story, thanks.
But I'm always bothered by that mindlessly (and lazily) repeated axiom that the GOP is the sole owner of "christian" family values, or that only "christians" are capable of healthy and ethical family values (think of all the high profile evangelicals who've rationalized and excused their support for the Teflon Don).
9
As a nonwhite person in the country, I feel that it's only a matter of time before my rights are removed. Yes, I am a citizen of this country, a physician and a professor who works daily but as a nonwhite person, I have a target on my back by the leadership of this country. When children are taken from their parents, it's only a matter of time until I lose my rights. There is but a small distance from those who are losing their children to me. There is no justification for what is happening to those seeking asylum or even crossing the border illegally without due process. How much more can we take?
21
A rightly painful essay. And a reminder that a certain political party is full of "Christians" Jesus would renounce and denounce.
But one little detail bothered me. I'm not a Christian. Does that mean I'm not supposed to feel outrage?
9
I belong nonetheless to the generation of Germans who, as young people, learned to look up to the US as a model country, a country devoted to democracy, human rights, the rule of law, a generous country that was willing to help other countries recover from war and misery. Later I was given the privilege to study in the US on a Fulbright scholarship, and what I experienced increased my admiration for your country. Over the years I certainly learned that there were negative aspects, too, but the positive ones always outweighed them by far. As far as I can tell this has also been the view of the vast majority of the German people. Presently, especially among younger people, that positive attitude is rapidly fading, and the unquestioned and seemingly indestructible friendship between Germany and the US is getting in serious danger. Trump’s politics and the lack of any significant criticism from the side of Republicans in Congress are leading more and more Germans, sadly, to equate Trump and the US. In the past seventeen months there was hardly a week without presidential decisions, speeches or tweets that made me and lots of other Germans shake our heads in stunned disbelief. The cruel separation of illegal immigrants from their children by an administration supported by the Republican Party, a party which touts family values, is just another depressing example of that sad development.
28
How can US be labeled to be a democracy when literally handful of people in the administration are able to carry on these crimes against humanity and atrocities to children while a large majority of citizens do not agree with it.
How can US be labeled to be a democracy when the will of majority -citizens and law makers alike -cannot do a thing to stop the crimes against poor and desperate families.
18
Probably because the USA is a Republic.
4
"But now it’s happening to people who are behaving exactly as good parents should. To parents who endure inconceivable hardship to get their children to this country, precisely in order to protect them. They come from places of violence and poverty and they travel, in some cases, thousands of miles carrying their children on their backs, all in the hopes of providing those children with a chance at safety. Their perseverance is the very model of parental sacrifice."
Yes! This whole affair is so disturbing and I have been struggling to put my amorphous thoughts and feelings on this topic into words. You did it brilliantly. And, you made me cry. Well done.
9
Thank you so much for voicing this:
. . .people who are behaving exactly as good parents should. To parents who endure inconceivable hardship to get their children to this country, precisely in order to protect them. They come from places of violence and poverty and they travel, in some cases, thousands of miles carrying their children on their backs, all in the hopes of providing those children with a chance at safety. Their perseverance is the very model of parental sacrifice.
7
As a Christian, I keep imagining what the Prince of Peace would think of semiautomatic assault rifles which hold dozens of bullets. I also imagine what He would think of cutting taxes to the rich and to already prosperous companies, while cutting medical aid to the working poor in the US. We certainly do not act Christian in a multitude of areas.
15
The kids are right. When Trumps troops come for their kids now, they will come for your kids next.
10
"I told my kids this kind of separation happens only to children whose parents don’t do the right thing. But now it’s happening to people who are behaving exactly as good parents should. To parents who endure inconceivable hardship to get their children to this country, precisely in order to protect them."
Ms. Cummins: I am glad to see that you too have made a journey, and came out more compassionate as a result.
5
The Republican Part has been making a mockery of family values for decades. It was the Party of Trump before Trump.
For example they lied to start a war in Iraq. The head of British Intelligence met with the Bush Administration 9 months before the invasion, and wrote a memo for his Prime Minister. It said that the decision had already been made to go to war, and that "the intelligence is being fixed around this decision." (Google the Downing Street Memo, written by our close allies who joined us in that war.)
The invasion started with Shock and Awe a massive attack on Bagdad. That war killed or wounded 45,000 American troops (leaving many children with dead or crippled parents), and led to the deaths of approximately 500,000 Iraqis. How many orphans is that? For oil companies.
The U.S. Drug War, a "bipartisan affair waged by Republicans and centrist Democrats took 90,000 children from their parents in 2015 alone.
We could fund treatment, that helps parents with drug abuse while their children stray with them, but we would rather punish entire families.
20% of American children live in poverty (15,000,000) and the Republican solution is to stop helping them because hunger will lift then out of poverty. (And Bill Clinton helped them by slashing welfare.)
Republicans don't care about families or troops or veterans or the debt or patriotism or our allies, and they love a pathological liar Pied Piper of white supremacists who actively attacks our Constitution.
ENOUGH!
9
If this policy stands, this child's fear is justified. Who indeed will be next? Will it be Muslims? Non-Christians? Will it be those who are legal residents but not citizens? Will it be blacks? Any non-white American? Will it be women who have abortions? Will it be children born out of wedlock? Will it be members of the LGBT community? Will it be those Americans who are too old, sick or disabled who can't afford their own medical care or nursing home stays? Will it be those with special needs? And the list could go on and on. These are the groups I remember Donald Trump identifying for ridicule or criticism in his campaign and rally speeches. Who will be next to be singled out for incarceration in the #Trumpcamps?
10
You forgot Democrats.
Trump's Republicans view morality in terms of:
A) Money
B) How it affects them
C) Punishment of others
13
Here is something to note about Brietbart, the black and beating heart of Trumpism in America. In the comment section, Brietbart regulars like to talk about "helicoptering" someone. They say it a lot, and you might wonder what they mean.
They are referring to the military dictatorship in Argentina, which used to torture dissidents and then push them out of helicopters over the ocean. This is something they fantasize about so often on Brietbart that they needed a shorthand for it. True story.
There are 30,000 disappeared, and many left behind children or bore them in prison before being killed. These people were stolen from their parents as babies and small children and sent to be raised by regime loyalists, relatives, or institutions. You should find and read their stories.
The children of the disappeared suffer and continue to suffer the lifelong effects of this trauma. I knew one child of the disappeared who had been raised by adoptive, abusive loyalists of the dictatorship. He was a good friend and an extraordinary intellect, but he was lost and in pain, and we eventually lost him to suicide. Also a true story.
Understand what we are fighting.
12
Permanent theft of children who have suffered this policy is what will surely be the case for many...because...do refugees fleeing violence and instability have permanent addresses, permanent phone numbers, ways to ever be reunited with children who grow and change monthly (some too young to even know their parents' names)? Trump & co. have engaged in what will certainly be, for some--probably many--the permanent theft of children, who will never be reunited with their families. They should be held accountable for kidnapping on this scale.
8
Dear Jeanne, let's talk not about foreign parents who break the law by sneaking across our border. Let's talk about US citizens who are parents and who are caught breaking the law, and get put in jail awaiting trial. Their children get separated from them, often in a situation where there is a single parent now jailed or maybe both parents are put in jail at the same time on a drug charge. It has always been the case that the children do not get to go to jail with the parents, and the parents are often not released if they cannot make bail or if they are considered a flight risk. Why is the migrant situation any different?
The problem comes when the US govt is required to consider a formal asylum request from the migrant, which takes a courtroom action and so is delayed. If the US govt was not required to do this, they could just send the intact family unit back south to their home country. If we let the illegal migrant loose in the US, then they work illegally, and US citizens working entry level jobs lose out. And since the voters don't seem to want to feed house or doctor the poor US citizens unless they work, then in a moral sense there should be NO possibility of illegal migrant workers taking these jobs. So propose a solution that works! Don't just complain about separated migrant families. I suggest we send them back immediately as an intact family unit. Consider the asylum request while the migrants stay in their country of origin....
7
If someone is convicted of a drug charge, we can reasonably assume that the children are in an unsafe environment. Further, the children in these situations are typically placed with family or others they know, not thrown into a detention center. Lastly, I wonder what kind of parent would await a response to an asylum request that will likely not be approved, while their children's lives are in imminent danger. I know I would take my chances to protect my daughter and get out immediately.
Will, we don't "lose out" because these migrants do the work no one else would do for the pay. Are you going to send your children to pick vegetables in a field on a 100 degree day for minuscule wages? Immigrants built this country, we are better off with them. Have you read the inscription on the Statue of Liberty? If you don't understand that, then we aren't the nation we like to tell the world about.
6
People who evade the immigration laws are no better than people who rob banks. Of course, when they are caught, they are taken away from their children. If Bonnie and Clyde had children, the children would have been taken from them. By bringing their children on such a voyage, they are exposing their children to deadly harm and the children should be taken from them.
6
How in God's name are they no better than people who rob banks? What an absurd, insulting thing to say.
5
Your screen name aptly describes your argument. It takes a lot to force people to leave their homes and families to go to a new country. These immigrants are not robbing banks or committing any violent criminal act; they are trying to save their families. Entering this country for asylum is not a crime; at worst, it is a misdemeanor, a civil infraction that normally does not incur incarceration. US and international law require that asylum seekers be granted a hearing. What trump and his sycophants are doing is a crime against humanity, and it is child abuse because it is done with the specific intent to cause pain to children in order to force parents to leave without even a hearing. I wait and hope to see that man in prison himself for his evil.
3
I am an immigrant who arrived in Canada with my parents and siblings as a nine year old. If there was ever a time one needed one’s mother and father it was when entering a new society, with a language to learn, new ways of doing things. Due to family circumstances, prior to emigrating, I spent several years with relatives I had not met before as well as in children’s homes. I can still recall the feeling of abandonment at being ‘sent away’ and I’m sure these poor children are as bewildered as I was – and what I experienced is nothing compared to this travesty.
I know that Americans pride themselves on being a diverse society, a ‘melting pot’ but according to the Pew Research Centre, the US only ranks in the middle among the culturally diverse countries of the world. Canada is the only one in the western world to break the top twenty, while Mexico is also relatively diverse.
7
Very poignant piece. Not to be insensitive to the plight of immigrants or the horrors that they are going through, but I took exception to your comparison between having parents make difficult choices for their families to choosing between cancer and diabetes. I have been a type 1 diabetic for 57 years, your words made me very sad and uncomfortable. I urge you to consider your language more carefully, especially when your words reach such a large audience.
3
So, I keep thinking these kids are meeting really nice people, being fed, and living in a clean, air conditioned place. Scary to be separated from your parents, but if you're already fleeing a terrible situation and you're told the separation is temporary, you're still pretty well off. And really, it's pretty rich for the political left to worry about children being separated from parents. They don't seem to care about that issue at all when it conflicts in the slightest with a woman's right to a divorce or to simply abandon her kids for another lifestyle. Must be the cognitive dissonance that drowns out the cries of those kids.
9
I am astonished that after reading this beautiful article your heart is still completely filled with hatred. I feel sorry for you because it seems that you have completely lost any capacity for compassion.
8
Right, because kids think so logically.
And while you are at it make up characteristics of imagined "left" so you can forget who really abandons their kids.
7
This diatribe illustrates the problem, thinking these children must be better off in an air conditioned facility instead of their parents. The obvious conclusion could be, these parents have already done their children an enormous disservice by trying to obtain a safer better life, wherever that may be. Pure racism. Better in our heartless facility instead of with those brown unfit parents.
10
An eye opening account.
2
"Just following orders" the eternal excuse of the uniformed henchman of every human debacle. Is there not one official to standown and not follow orders? Moral values seem lost to the dictates of our amoral leader that revels in the chaos.
I want a stong border, but not this outcome.
9
Speaking truth to power is always really powerful.
5
I never pondered that the ugliness of Trump's racist public policies would indict defenseless human beings in America called immigrant children. This is a living NIGHTMARE.. We are all complicit.
7
If you're making excuses for why taking children away from their parents is okay, you are a bad person, and no PC language will change that.
8
In Jersey, wedding used to remove kids from parents if the family became homeless. Decades ago we stopped this -- we considered doing so state sponsored child abuse. What we have now is fererally sponsored child whew.
2
The trauma to these children––and parents––can't be overstated. But if bringing your children becomes the de facto way of ensuring at least temporary entry to the U.S., where does it end? Whom do we turn away? Which crying child and desperate parent doesn't make the cut? How do we decide whose story is more heartbreaking, whose abuse more violent, whose poverty more dire, whose circumstances more life-threatening? We don't have the endless financial or natural resources necessary to stop the endless misery.
5
Every refugee appealing for asylum deserves a hearing. It would be better to change the conditions in the refugees' home country, but that is not the current reality happening to people now.
2
At his inauguration, Trump spoke about 'American carnage.' Now he is making it real: family separation s the latest and most vile act of carnage he and the brutal racists in his administration are enacting. 'American carnage'' is Trump. Trump is the destroyer of all the progress and social good America has achieved since the Civil Rights era.
13
'Out of the mouth of babes'. The reason that the RIGHT does not object because they are RIGHT, they are not afraid of these actions being applied to them because they are RIGHT. They tell others how to behave, because they know what is RIGHT. Ask one of them who pretend to be Christians, What Would Jesus Do? Whatever you do for the least of mine, you do for me. A Christian core principle is that we are all brothers and sisters of the same God. We are all in this together. The time of the tribe is over. There is enough for everyone, if we share our blessings.
9
Well said. I am sick of borders and fences and walls. We are all mankind. Who cares where you live or go. It's time the world gave up on the concept of boundaries.
I got up early to call my senators and representative to express my feelings about children being forcibly separated from their parents. As I finished the last call, my 7 year old son woke up and came into the kitchen and asked what I was doing. I hesitated, he is a sensitive child, and I didn't want to worry him. And yet, I am worried for him. I briefly sketched out the situation, and he was outraged. "kids should be with their parents!". I agree. I can't imagine the fear these parents have, traveling through unimaginable hardships to get to America in hopes of a safer, better life. Then to have their children ripped from them. I can't imagine the trauma of these kids, leaving their homes, then suddenly being away from their parents. People with any sense of decency, of morality should be outraged, and take action.
10
I´m sorry Ms. Cummins, but it is not 45th´s fault. This has happened in all sorts of administrations. Way back. It is not fair to throw the dirty water on 45th. At least, the fundamentals of economics are not onlly in place in your country, but the indices and reality show it. Your leader has cetainly filled a vacuum of power, of leading by example that BHO created or deepened. Just look at 45th´s children: Non are lazy couch potatoes, all have gone to school and being raised in the ethics of labour, of work not like many rich kids that are isolated and live in a bubble society.To impose the rule of law is something an effective leader does. BTW, those laws have been created by Democrats, and perhaps, just perhaps no other President had enforced it accoridng to the spirit of the law. As a South American I can´t imagine your nation creating laws with evil spirits. That is just plainly contra natura. A great nation, with kind persons, simply cannot per se enact evil laws. I must congratulate you for teaching values thru example. Those lessons will forever be part of your children´s family DNA. And that today is what should matter.
2
No, it has not. FYI: Donald Trump is not a good source of information.
12
Trump's children have been raised with arrogance, a love of labor as long as it is some one else's (provided as cheaply as possible, if not free), entitlement, and a bubble that can only exist in penthouses, private jets, private family-owned clubs, A-list events. They've been taught how to lie conversationally and game the system for themselves. And I doubt any of them have done an honest day's work among them.
8
As Jesus said, 'What you do to the least of my brethren, you do to me.' For the Republicans and their Evangelical stalwarts, then Gospel is optional when it suits their purpose.
We can't take in the whole world, but there are humane and intelligent solutions to the problem. When I landed in a Red Cross shelter, I shared the 4th floor of a rural Maryland firehouse with mother's, fathers and their children.
9
America is a new Dystopia That is sliding fast into a place that can not be good for our future. We are letting the POTUS and the congress of the land get away with a war crime like mentality that is damaging to all of us.
The actions of Sessions can't be called Christian, nor should he even invoke the Bible as his basic Text for his actions in his office. That is wrong on legal grounds as well as congress shall not impose a Religion. That his words also carry hate filled anti Christ thinking should make the Christ followers tell him what for, and that Sarah Sanders did the same thing is Immoral .
Where we go from here is likely further into the pits of moral failings and closing in on a civil war footing. Is that what Trump wants, to tear the nation apart so he can sell bits of it to others? His glory will not be shining long after his term of office is done.
14
Really ?/?, your daughter was afraid? The only reason she has any fear is because you put the thought into her mind. Young children do not read the NYT, so they really have no idea what is going on in greater society.
The people you graciously took in are there because of some short term problem, that you fail to clearly identify - was it criminal in nature? Please explain to your children that in the US , laws have consequences, and if you (or in the case of children their parents) break the law, you suffer the consequences.
I applaud you for putting yourself out and taking in these desperate children, but try and keep the hysterics to a minimum, as it serves no one save critics of the President
7
I agree. Why would any adult discuss these things with children when it isn't necessary. The child has no basic understanding of these complicated issues. Their parents should be reassuring the child. Or does the fear come from issues from the environment they are living in.
3
My guess is that neither critic of the author has any children and has never wondered "where did that come from" when asked a question.
4
I think you misread...the author wasn’t telling her daughter about this Trump fiasco..her daughter saw the emotional impact on their own foster child and was worried someone could place her with other parents in the same way.
7
"Sarah Huckabee Sanders: “This law was actually signed into effect in 2008 under her husband ( George Bush) leadership… We’re not the ones responsible for creating this problem. We’ve inherited it.”
Obviously you have only read opinions of those who leave out most of the facts. These people just keep stirring the boiling pot.
Check it out with Mr. Bush. Seems there is a playground full of kids running things. This can' t be the way adults behave. Geeez!
4
I long ago came to expect this kind of sick sociopathy from Donald Trump. What horrifies me is how many of his supporters defend this.
18
The most precious thing in the world is our children. Now Trump is using that to get his wall. It's like a kidnapper getting a ransom. Let me rephrase this, it is a kidnapper (Trump) getting his ransom (the wall). And just when I thought he couldn't get more despicable.
15
Rationalizing is cheap and easy. I imagine many rationalized their separating children from parents as they packed them into cages and trains and sent them to camps in WWII Europe. We certainly rationalized and ignored it for years. History repeating?
9
It is high time we acknowledge - publicly and LOUDLY - that what the Trump Administration and the current republican party represent is not populism - it is FASCISM. Say it to yourself - and then say it to everyone you know.
19
What do you call thugs who round up children, take them forcibly from their parents, and put them in camps? Nazis. That’s what.
23
Who's rounding up children? They're the ones going out of their way to come here.
2
A single mom commits theft, she is arrested. She has no other family. Her child is taken by social services.
Whats the difference between this mom who broke a law and the one who broke the law by crossing the border illegally?
Their both lawbreakers. Does one group deserve special treatment?
Also, Look at the skyscrapers, the car factories, the G M technical center, etc in Mexico, looks like there are jobs there.
Children being separated from parents also happened during the obama administration, where were the complaints then?
Do you honestly believe American can absorb every person and family that wants to come here?
We accept more legal immigrants than anyone, over 1 million yearly. This isnt sustainable, not affordable. Schools are overcrowded, underfunded, many states and cities are almost broke, we are trillions in debt, infrastructure is falling apart, a recent poll showed millions want to leave LA and NYC because of the high costs of living, huge taxes.
We need less immigration, less refugees, concentrate on America and help others in their home countries.
Billions are considered poor, they all cant come here.
8
Thanks for this, but I fear that very few people here will read what you wrote. They are willfully blind.
3
Read your post. Find it to be a spewing of misinformation gleaned from fake news sites like Fox, Hannity, and the GOP. People have been saying we can't afford more immigrants, don't have room for them, for at least 100 years. Then the immigrants and the children of immigrants integrate, work, pay taxes, start businesses, and help build this country. My grandfather was an immigrant over 100 years ago, a fisherman who led the building of the fishing fleet on the west coast. Immigrants do well here, often with help from citizens, and often despite animosity of the descendants of previous immigrants. Don't know where your ancestors were from, but aren't you glad they weren't deported?
2
Stealing is a felony. Entering the country illegally is a misdemeanor. Like crossing against the light. Do you expect to have your kids taken when you cross the road against the light?
I am not an American citizen. I am trying to sow discord in the US by mentioning immigration issues.
2
When emotional responses control a dialogue, bad things happen. Over reaction, misinformation, exaggeration, and solutions based not on what is best, but on what feels best will follow. The media has whipped this country into a frenzy over this issue, and the result will be more harm, more pain. Trumps fault, democrats fault, anyone’s fault, does not matter when our main source of information on important issues encourages visceral demagoguery. Please NYT, show some restraint in your reporting and editorializing. Whatever good intentions you have will lead to more pain and suffering for many more people if this feeding frenzy is encouraged.
3
My heart breaks for the children at the border, and for their parents as well. As a parent, I cannot imagine the fear and desperation that drove the adults from their homeland. The fear they must endure as they await adjudication and reunification with their children must be overwhelming.
But as much as I pity them, I feel even more empathy for the children. As a toddler, I lost both my parents - one to murder, the other to incarceration, when my father killed my mother. While I don't remember the event itself, I do have memories of the years in between that event and the return of my father, a man I hadn't seen and did not remember, some four years later. When he took custody of us again, denying our grandmother visitation, we went through that sense of loss all over again.
But we were more fortunate than these "border children" because we were taken in by our grandmother, who lived nearby and whom we loved. She brought normalcy to our chaotic lives - these babies have no one to hold and care for them as they wait. And the wait must seem interminable to them - to a child, time has little meaning, and a day seems like a month, a month - a year, and a year - forever in their young minds. No abuela - no one to calm their fears and dry their tears. There is NO reason why families must be separated this way. The cruelty of Trump's policy, so clearly political, is unforgiveable.
9
Basically because we are not illegal criminals.
5
Oh yes you are. Everyone has at one time or another committed at least one misdemeanor. So, everyone should have their kids taken & have them kept in dog travel kennels, piled in warehouses. To be unseen, uncared for, & unloved. Because we committed a CRIME! Of crossing against the light, or, spit on the sidewalk, or smoking in a nonsmoking area. They are worthy of losing your kids, right?
Ms. Cummins’ daughter is even more right than Ms. Cummins will admit. The number of forced separations at the border since April roughly equals the number of children torn from their parents by American child protective services agencies every three days.
Yes, sometimes those children really need to be taken. But Ms. Cummins misled her child when she said it only happens to children of parents “who don’t, or can’t, take care of their children. It happens only when parents aren’t doing what they’re supposed to do.”
Often it happens to children whose parents are simply poor. http://bit.ly/2sqAeMf It happens even more often if they’re also families of color: http://bit.ly/CWracism When the Times published an excellent story describing how foster care had become the new “Jane Crow” http://bit.ly/FCjcrow the story wasn’t about the U.S.-Mexico border. It was about the child welfare system in New York City.
The honest answer for Ms. Cummins daughter would have been “Don’t worry, dear. We’re white and we’re middle-class. They almost never take children from parents like us.”
Richard Wexler
National Coalition for Child Protection Reform
www.nccpr.org
11
What's happening to the families is heartbreaking, but there is a flaw in your logic, which is exactly what Trump seizes on as an excuse to avoid the issue. "I told my kids this kind of separation happens only to children whose parents don’t do the right thing. But now it’s happening to people who are behaving exactly as good parents should." Are good parents supposed to sneak across international borders illegally with young children? You go on to explain: "To parents who endure inconceivable hardship to get their children to this country, precisely in order to protect them. They come from places of violence and poverty and they travel, in some cases, thousands of miles carrying their children on their backs, all in the hopes of providing those children with a chance at safety." Yes that's the job of good parents, but why does the chance at safety equal coming to the US? Why not Mexico? That is Trump's argument, and I haven't yet heard a good refutation of it. Yes, life is better in the US than Mexico, but a claim of asylum is a claim that one's safety is in danger. Once they've arrived in Mexico they are safe from the dangers in their hometown. You might get a scholarship to a state college and wish you were going to Harvard, but you are still getting a college education. And if Mexico is really not safe enough for asylum seekers, then logically shouldn't we allow the entire population of Mexico to come here?
7
Asylum seekers are not breaking the law and we are bound by international agreements we have made to hear their request. They may be denied asylum, but taking their children in the meantime is a violation of human rights. If you haven’t heard this refutation then you have not been paying attention.
11
OK - let's follow that thread. So the Honduran refugee can remain in Mexico. Fair enough. And how do we help promote that trend so that the US isn't taking in the majority of the asylum seekers? Perhaps we could work with the Mexican gov't and ask that they help share the load. With the last 2 1/2 years of Mexico bashing by candidate and now President Trump, how is that supposed to happen? There is a cost to bridge burning. And you're seeing the foolishness of Trump's going it alone. We can't simply build this stockade called the US and will everyone else away. We're paying for our mistakes and will continue to pay for our mistakes.
5
Well, I cannot hold the Mexican government, or the governments of Honduras, or Guatemala for their actions, but my own should be following values that represent THIS country.
For me, that does not ever include inflicting harm on children to induce their parents to comply with rules.
These kids aren't getting a scholarship anywhere, the issue is survival, physical and emotional. I have no idea if they are "safe" in Mexico - they would be stateless and vulnerable there as well. Their parents have zero power to change their circumstances wherever they reside.
Trump's position comes down to: he can do anything he wants to stop illegal immigration on the Southern border. Some of us disagree.
6
The Democrats are using these children as political pawns and should be voted out of office in November. They should compromise...if they did this whole immigration issue would be solved. But they resist and tens of thousands suffer at their hands! I'm a registered Democrat and will NOT be voting "D" in November. They make me ashamed!
7
If you really think that you weren’t going to vote for them anyway. Not fooling anyone by blaming the hostages instead of the terrorists.
11
The DEMOCRATS are using the children as political pawns? I beg to differ: this is extortion on Trump's part to get the Democrats to agree to fund the wall. The Democrats have been trying to get immigration deals for years, including for DACA, and the Republicans have refused. I will be voting for Democrats in primaries and in the fall, and I urge other Democrats to do the same, if we want to save this country from tyranny.
15
Trump doesn't want compromise; he demands absolute surrender. There is a difference.
6
This November will be when we see whether enough is left of our democracy to right the ship of state. The Tea Party and the evangelicals are a lot bigger than most of us wanted to think possible and if the rest of us don't vote, the protesting in the streets will be met with the type of force common in Russia and China. We have witnessed the likes of Trump and his base not long ago in history.
5
Think about it.
How many times have we heard staff were brought into the white house to specifically watch Donald J. Trump and guide him to be rational?
It's clear he's making irrational policy decisions and lying about it. His cabal is obviously crooked.
It's so far gone no one can rein him in.
How about the Orwellian term "tender age" to blur and soften the reality of babies and toddlers being incarcerated en masse in secret?? Psychology 101---we're being gaslighted, folks.
10
Last night I was discussing all this with my teenage daughter (we're brown people). At a certain point she asked, "Do white people really hate us this much?" I could only answer, YES. We both go everywhere carrying our US passports now. These policies effect these unfortunate parents and children. They also have a lasting impact on how we feel about white people. So enjoy that.
9
Well, there’s a cheery thought for us all living in harmony any time soon. Thanks for tucking that thought into your child’s young mind! Good luck.
4
I'm white. I don't hate you. Please don't tell your daughter that "white people hate" you. You can tell her there are haters in this world- of all color. But saying all white people hate is only adding to the problem. I'm sorry you experience hatred, but please know that ALL of us who were born white DO NOT hate all of you who were not.
I wish you peace and love.
6
Can't live in harmony when white people do things like this.
5
Let's not forget that separations are initiated by illegal border crossings. Families obeying our laws and entering legally are not so separated.
Congress passes our laws: the Executive branch has the sworn duty to enforce them, even if a recent President refused that duty. Congress can change the law.
Trump cannot.
4
The US Congress doesn't even begin to understand its own contributions to desperation motivation.
3
Our fearless leader doesn't follow laws, why should anyone else? He has admitted to sexually abusing women and has bought himself out of many legal suits. He has no moral authority to claim that laws must be enforced.
3
I hate the republicans are using religion to achieve their goals. All Christians who still supports Trump should be ashamed. Trump has not stand behind ANY values that Jesus teaches us. I am Christian and I am deeply disgusted by the association of the Church to Republican parties. They are worshiping party before God. It really diminishes all the good things the churches have done in the community. The party needs a reform and so does the churches.
8
We are witnessing the "Elephant in the room" which is that fascism is taking over our country and few of our political leaders and news editors utter the word. It is feeding on our prejudices and fears just as it fed on the prejudices and fears of the German populace. Don't forget, Hitler was elected to office. I fear for my country. Too many people are ignorant of our history fighting fascism in WWII. There are very few veterans alive from that conflict.
12
Seems the people who say, if we don’t learn from mistakes we are doomed to repeat them.
The mistake this time? Those who are making the mistake of allowing the regime to move into facism, those who are hiding from the knowledge, worst those who say ‘they’ deserve it. Who will ‘deserve’ it next?
How do we not repeat it? Look to Germany. The decent folk just stuck their heads into the sand until it was almost too late. Then they fought. We must fight NOW. Organize, buy weapons & learn to use them, millions of us march to DC, wiping out any who attempt to stop us. Arrest, try, convict & sentence the regime. Use what Mueller has, put it under the umbrella of High Treason. Which when they are convicted means hanging. Only sentence for that felony (note: on the border those who commit a crime it is a misdemeanor). Then the militia will sit as congress pro tem, as the congress will be jailed while a special company of auditors audit the congressional trust funds for Medicare & SS. What should be there & what has a good chance not to be there. Then since congress has either embezzled or been complicit in the stealing. Those in the militia, as a fighter, auditor, taking over jobs that must still happen while others march will be the backbone of this country. Those we fight, or those happy to let others fight for them, will lose out on full citizenship. No vote, never first choice for scholarships, college, or jobs. Not trustworthy I guess. Same for their kids.
1
My 36 year old daughter is terrified. Biracial, she appears Latino to people who don't know her. Her son's father is Columbian, deceased and she is alone. She panics when she spots an ICE vehicle, knowing that who they stop and why is capricious, unpredictable and often a trap. She has taken to carrying her birth certificate, her son's birth certificate and his father's death certificate, terrified that she would have to prove she is a US citizen and that she and her son have the right to live here in the US. This to go to the grocery store and the day care center.
Way beyond sad. Outrageous. Immoral. She is an ordinary US citizen living in fear.
16
My daughter and I carry our passports everywhere. You never know what ICE or the cops will do. Word of advice: get a US passport card. It's easier to carry and you can put it on a lanyard around your neck. That way you don't have to reach into a pocket or purse and risk getting shot by the cops.
6
The best thing, if she can afford it, would be a passport card one can obtain by applying for a US passport. It is the closest thing to a national ID card here.
4
I’m in a wheelchair. I keep my money, credit cards, & passport card in a ‘very’ small purse around my neck, my tote bag hangs on the back. Never could figure out why anyone needs a giant one. Unless you carry a couple folding canes & some adult diapers in it. Stuff like that. Really important things are around my neck.
1
In the 1980s, growing up in California, my family would take day trips to Camp Pendleton Marine base. We would have to go through the San Clemente Border Patrol Station on the return trip. At first, I was annoyed about waiting in traffic. My mom said they were checking for Mexicans. I was in elementary school and knew my family ate tamales at Christmas and my grandparents spoke both English and Spanish. I said, “but mom, we are Mexicans.” She laughed and said that we are Americans. They can tell by our accents, clothes, your dad’s Marine stickers on his car and the Cal State Long Beach license plate frame. I didn’t believe her, going through life thinking and proving that I was “American” enough. Children know. Trust children. Protect children.
5
As someone watching from far off , my thoughts are mixed.
No country can allow illegal migration. Poor and desperate people will always migrate. How do we tackle these two problems. As someone, having a sibling as US citizen, and coming from a country where waiting period for my own green card is more than 20 years, I cannot understand why some people should be allowed to break the law and get away with it.
But do I want to come to a country which is showing so much moral degeneracy. What happened to the US which all of us looked upto. I made my fortune working as a doctor in the Middle East. Every day, my brother used to say. Come to the USA. You will be respected for your talents and knowledge. Nobody, will consider you as a second class citizen like in the Middle East. But, is it true anymore.
4
Thank you for this perspective. Every foster or adoptive parent knows for certain how deep and long-lasting the trauma of separation is. It can surface as sadness or anger at unpredictable times and needs lots of therapy to unpack. To subject any child, needlessly, to such trauma is simply evil.
12
I agree with the sentiments of this article but I question "Republicans are ostensibly the party of family values". Hardly! The GOP is doing all it can to undermine health care for less affluent families, has passed a tax bill heavily favoring the ultra rich to the detriment of working families, is working hard to eliminate regulations that protect families from unfair lending practices, and regulations that establish consumer protections and environmental safeguards, and looks the other way at the rampant ethical violations that exist in this administration.
10
That sentence is what the republicans claim. The rest of us know it is a BIG LIE. They pull out that lie everytime they dig themselves into a hole.
As a person who experienced multiple traumas when young (although well above "tender age"), I can definitively say the trauma inflicted on these children by the Trump administration will be a lasting, possibly life-long struggle.
The kids that survive this ordeal will be changed forever - prolonged, high levels of pain and terror are destructive to tiny minds and bodies.
I don't think I can celebrate the 4th this year. I am ashamed to be an American.
17
Using extortion to get what they want. At the expense of the ever-after well-being of kids. Now trump and ryan and the rest of them blame "previous law" for forcing them to make choice between border security and keeping families together. Extortion. If the dems don't sign up for their current bill, they'll blame government obductions of children on them. Extortion.
If the republicans get away with this, they'll get away with anything. And who's next, hm? You? Me? Our children? Extortion is a felony.
6
Thank you for your story. Early in my career I was a child protective caseworker. I have seen first hand the trauma of separation, even when children have been maltreated. My heart aches for these families. The parents will never forget; the oldest children will never forget; but the younger ones will carry it with them perhaps forever. They will have nightmares well into adulthood, maybe until they die, and live with a constant sense of insecurity.
This is cruelty of the first order. It shows us not only what the monsters in the White House are but also what the 25% of citizens who applaud it are. They are the ones who belong in cages far from where they can harm others. They have no compassion, and people without compassion are a danger to us all.
18
Thank you so much for this loving and thoughtful piece. What has been lacking in coverage of this new policy of Trump's is humanity and soul. Your sharing your experience was very relevant and helpful to the larger discussion.
11
President Trump told the American people that he was in favor of torture in the fight against terrorism. Now he is resorting to torture of little children in the name of border security. No amount of "good care" can replace a mother for a small child. This practice is inhumane and it must stop!
15
Who gets to keep and raise their children is most certainly not merit based and it never has been.
3
Only other humans have the emotions to empathize with those to whom injustices are done.
3
Crossing another country's border illegally in an effort to avoid detection, rather than proceeding across designated border checkpoints (where families are not separated) is "behaving exactly as good parents should"??
10
ICE is separating families at checkpoints too.
4
I have just read of flight attendants who report children without their families, accompanied by some federal employee I guess, on a flight from Phoenix to Miami in the middle of the night. Are these poor children (I gather one was about age 6) ever going to be reunited with their families? This is EVIL at its best!
7
Thank you. This piece made me cry. We all MUST keep going in our resistance to this horror, this child-torturing fake ‘president.’ I know it is exhausting. But think of the children, and keep going. VOTE; register others to vote; call Congress; go to demonstrations; give money to legal aide groups that are helping immigrants. KEEP GOING.
11
"My daughter was right to be afraid" and all of Americas should be. We have entered an era of lawlessness and the Trump administration is the most cruelly criminal administration in our history. There is a widely held belief among Trump supporters that MAGA will protect white citizens. History shows us lawless government leaders turn even on their "base" when needed. Watch the Republicans stand silent while Trump tweets hatred of anyone in Congress who disagree with him. Watch Trump lie as he commits crime after crime and his supporters still support him. Your daughter and all Americans have a great deal to be afraid of but most of all the loss of our morality, decency and rule of law.
13
This is "Sophie's Choice" either stay in a violent homeland, or strive for the American Dream which is now a nightmare forced by the president and his minions (so much for all the GOP speaking about being pro-life, and family values). Separating families is inhumane, and unnecessary. It is also expensive. Imagine if we put that oney towards, education, healthcare, housing, infrastructure-- everyone would benefit.
Unless you are a Native American, you are an immigrant, too.
Silence is complicity.
16
I fully realize that at least 33% of our population will support this President regardless of his reprehensible policies and behavior however I am truly hopeful that enough people realize that a man that would traumatize little children in order to get a political win should NEVER hold the office of President. This man's actions make me ashamed to be an American.
23
Lets identify and seek out those in the 33%. They need to be sent to re-education centers where they can learn how to be citizens of a country that prides itself on welcoming the "huddled masses yearning to breathe free." Once their parents or grandparents were among those masses themselves.
1
So just send anyone who doesn't agree with your politics to a "re-education center?" No wonder our country is such a divided mess. People don't know how to disagree anymore without threatening others.
1
@Norton, you are 100% right!
It’s disgusting how both sides, left and right, view everything as this good vs evil dichotomy. The truth is, the world is gray and complex.
"All their needs are taken car of" according to Kristjen Nielsen. As an attorney, she needs to get her facts straight. Children need more than a meal and a cot. Shame on her.
23
Stick with me here, there is a point to my story. When I was seven, the same age as your daughter, my grandmother was babysitting. Her sister and husband, who I had never met, arrived at our house. Mind you, they barely paid attention to me. But, for some reason, I got it into my head that they were going to take me away. Maybe because her husband had a thin mustache and reminded me of villains in movies.
In any case, I can never describe the feeling I had when I woke up the next morning in my house and my parents were there.
I keep thinking of these children who are not waking up with their parents and how scared they must be.
And, how anyone can think of using children as bargaining chips.
I keep asking myself what happened to Trump, a person who grew up with every advantage possible, to make him this way.
8
Trump grew up with money but he is traumatized child. His father was a dictatorial brute. Trump is what happens when children are brutalized.
1
People who voted for Trump didn’t mind that he grabbed women by their private areas. They looked passed the fact that he made fun of a disabled reporter. They didn’t mind that he couldn’t show his tax returns because he had to hide something. So sure was Trump of their blind allegiance that he said that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and their support would remain.
They demonized the other candidate because of emails. I still don’t understand it.
Here is the final test. Will they continue to support a man who separates children from their parents? Oh, but he is against abortion, they will tell you.
It’s pathetic and immoral to protect the unborn, and create, on purpose, a world of horror for living, breathing children.
27
Hahah, this reminds me of the rediscovery of Federalism by liberals following the 2016 election.
Hey, when you give government broad, massive powers, they use it! And someday, people you disagree with politically will wield that power!
3
It is usurpation to deliberately misconstrue "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" into justification for a millenarian theocracy.
1
"Republicans are ostensibly the party of Christian family values."
Enough being shocked at this. Republicans have proved themselves, time and again, the party of no values but money and power, at any cost in human lives. Though GOP politicians are slowly stirring now in reaction to Trump's barbarism, it is only because they fear his white nationalist legions of "deplorables" will not be enough to assure their survival at the ballot box. The least whiff that Trump may yet outlive this outrage atop all the outrages before, and they will scurry back to cower in servile allegiance to their despot in the making. This is what the rise of white nationalist fascism in America -- not too extreme a term -- looks like. If he gets away with this, for whom will Trump come next, to lock up and disappear into internment camps not the American media, not even Senators are allowed to see? To his frenzied crowds cheering "Lock her up," whom has Trump not already reviled as a traitor?
12
“Whoever welcomes a child such as this for my sake welcomes me. And whoever welcomes me, welcomes not me, but Him who sent me.” Mark 9:37
11
"Republicans are ostensibly the party of Christian family values." Really, does anyone believe this lie anymore? They are the most unChristian of Christians, these Evangelical Christians! Where's Rick Warren, Saddleback Church, Orange County CA? I don't see him/his wife speaking out about this immoral, cruel policy! But, why would he, these churches are just "businesses"; providing he and his wife, IRS perks as clergy and massive amounts of income from their followers...
7
Thank you Jeanine, for a look at the reality of what happens when a child gets under the thumb of a tyrant president. Its getting worst every hour.
God Bless you, Charles Wallace, Arizona
6
Trump has unleashed a dreadful nightmare into the minds of every US citizen who believes in basic decency. The unbearable trauma the caged children are suffering is beyond measure. As an American citizen I have been made complicit with acts I am sickened to hear about. My father said that the worst and most despicable act a person can inflict short of killing is to torture children.
Trump said he wanted to bring back torture and he has. My British father fought the Nazis from Anzio to Rimini and came back wounded with PTSD. Trump makes a travesty of his sacrifice.
14
Does virtually every non-American on the planet have a right to resettle in the U.S.A. whenever they want to?
Because that is the crazy-extreme position I am taking away from the articles in this newspaper, the comments in this newspaper, the remarks of Congressional Democrats, and the coverage on NPR, CNN, and MSNBC.
6
What a load of hysterical malarkey
(1) The migrants are being separated ONLY when they commit the CRIME of ILLEGAL ENTRY
(Note: Or in the rare asylum application where there is reasonable doubt that the adult is related to the kid(s) they are dragging along)
(2) Yes you can be separated from your kids and the kids put into care IF
(a) You commit a crime and get arrested
(b) There is no adult to take the kid - other parent, family member with a power of attorney etc
(c) Then the kid goes into the care of social services
(d) And you have to deal with the legal process of regaining custody AFTER you get out of jail
So if you want to avoid that happening Step One is Do Not Commit A Crime
See how easy that is?
8
Have kids? You might change your tune.
1
Why is there no 'port of entry' at the border? Then the immigrants wouldn't be 'illegal' and their children not subject to separation?
Actually, children are also being separated (kidnapped!) from parents who ARE presenting themselves at proper Points of Entry and requesting asylum! That’s if they’re even allowed to; most are being stopped by US officials and told “No Room, you need to wait”, and forced to camp out on the road for days, weeks. Or one parent and one child may be allowed to present while the other parent and the rest of the children are forced to wait.
Children held hostage and tormented while Trump lies and demands ransom! How is he different from any other kidnapper telling the victim’s family “if you don’t pay up, it’s YOUR fault if I do something to your kid - you made me do it, I had no choice!”
Anyyone who’s not in a white-hot rage over this abomination is just as monstrous as Trump and the rest of his criminal gang! Wake up! Call and write! March! And most especially, VOTE D for Decency!
5
First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
-- Martin Niemöller, German Lutheran pastor.
He was an anti-Communist who first supported Adolf Hitler's rise to power. But when Hitler insisted on the supremacy of the state over religion, Niemöller became leader of German clergymen opposed to Hitler. In 1937 he was sent to Dachau. Released in 1945 by the Allies, he continued his career in Germany as a leading voice of penance. His statement is a model for describing the dangers of political apathy.
If it can happen to one of us, no one is safe.
17
Thank you for this context. It's troubling to read dry accounts of our new concentration camps. This article has helped me put it in human terms. The long term effects of this injustice can really be understood from close up.
5
Thank you, Ms. Cummins. Your story is... well, it is difficult to find the words for the children's suffering and for your family's welcome. Your family did a good thing.
May I simply note, as I join you in outrage at what our country is doing, that one does not have to be Christian to be outraged.
8
The issue of migrant children being seized from their parents who have entered the US illegally is being presented as an abomination of the rights of the parents, who have no business crossing into a country they do not have a right to reside in. The problem of illegal border crossings is also being addressed in Europe, France has new legislation pending which is in the final stage of approval. The new legislation would criminalize illegal border crossings but aims to cut the waiting time on asylum applications. Migrant rights groups have called for the bill to be withdrawn, labeling it "too repressive." The reality is that to quote President Macron "We can't take them all". What do all of you who lament what the US is doing with the "zero tolerance" suggest be done instead?
2
Simple human compassion would suffice. Unfortunately, even that seems to be beyond the capabilities of some of our fellow citizens.
3
How about considering the plight of children being taken from their parents? We can enforce immigration laws without breaking up families and inflicting psychological harm on innocent children.
3
Is this how SuperSmart© Democrats finally understand the danger of an overly powerful Executive Branch? Is this how Democrats finally realize that States Rights are important and become Anti-Federalists?
Nah, I'm sure they think some kind of tax will fix this.
2
Has everyone been sufficiently shocked out of complacency? Good. Maybe you'll seriously consider what I have to say, because it objectively is insane. The country is in danger and we need to start people confronting it.
Note please that our president is holding children hostage for the ransom of legislator votes. This is not the first time he's done this. He's done the same thing with children on CHIP. He's lied (it's the only completely truthful way of putting it) to the Parkland kids and to everyone afraid of children being killed in schools because of easy access to guns. So he's being completely consistent and predictable.
During the campaign he promised armed insurrection if he lost. Several times in the last year and a half he promised armed insurrection if impeached. He means it.
15
The whole point of this is that Trump and his enablers want us to realize it could happen to us - if we don't toe their line and give them what they want.
It's all about dominance. The message is simple. Give us what we want, or else. See what's happening to those kids? It'd be a shame if it happened to yours.
When Stormy Daniels told about her kid being threatened by some thug if she told her story, some people scoffed that Trump would do such a thing.
Now? It's all too credible.
3
Those putative Christians should heed Jesus' words, such as Matthew 18:6 about children, and more generally Matthew 25:40 where he says that anything you do to the weakest you do to him.
3
Walls keep people IN, too. Just ask the people of Berlin.
1
Yes, the little one was right to be afraid.
And so should we all.
Once the monsters are loose they attack anybody and everybody.
10
This country is headed down a dark and ugly path. It is actually worse than I imagined. This country has no values, certainly no family values of any kind. It is horrifying to see such evil people running our country. Everything that I believed we stood for as a nation has been pretty much dismantled in a very short time. We were a democracy, but Citizens United ended that by giving power to corporations and rich the power to over ride individual voters will. The evil and cruelty is just beginning. Everyone, all people, will need to suffer before this is turned around. How long will that take? What will be left of our country?
5
Trump's motto was to make America great again.
What does such a cruel action of removing children of every age from their parents do in making America great again?
How does putting children in obviously near concentration camps make America great again?
Is this what Trump meant when he said he wanted to make America great again?
If so, could we just go back to being not so great and far less cruel to children?
3
So the author takes instructions from her child.
2
"But now it’s happening to people who are behaving exactly as good parents should..." NOT TRUE! The vast majority of children being held by DHS et al, are children sent to America by their parents, with strangers, with smugglers, with cartels, with adults who simply want to use the kids because they have a better chance of staying, etc...kids arrive as young as four years old with their phone number written on their shirts, girls 12 years old are given Plan B (Morning after) pills, because the parents already know they will be likely raped by the smugglers,....parents are doing bad things, kids are innocent.
2
Remember your three Rs
Repeal and Replace all Republicans
Dave
11
Righteous Christian outrage? Don't make me laugh! I'm sick and tired of the absurdity of religion and having it "infest" our government. We have an AG who quotes a book of fantasies as justification of an immoral action! What happened to separation of church and state?
4
Trump's actions on the children are cruelty for cruelty's sake. There can be no political benefit from it. So some questions: 1) who gets rounded up next? 2) is this Trump's Reichstag fire? Imposing restrictions on all citizens under pretence of national emergency "caused" by migrant crisis? I have a sinking feeling that these children are not the only ones who will be seeing the inside of these cages.
2
A picture is worth a thousand words. Remember the picture of the little girl on fire running down the street afire with napalm that turned public opinion firmly against the Vietnam war? Maybe the picture of the little girl in the red dress crying as they take away her mother will final shake this country enough to get rid of this hateful, callous and un-American administration.
2
"Republicans are ostensibly the party of Christian family values."
Let's stop the charade right there and right now.
This has never been the case. it will never be the case.
Republicans, elected and voters, are being complicit in the machinations of the worst administration Americans have endured in the past 100 years.
Trump is a vulgar, narcissistic, sociopathic, opportunistic, unethical, compulsive liar and we need to extricate him and his family from the White House...now!
4
Anyone who is not afraid is brainwashed or ignorant. In the case of those who leave Fox on all day and never look for news anywhere else, it is both. Trump is evil by nature, but his professional apologists deliberately decide to endorse evil for personal gain.
7
There are simply no words to adequately describe the Republican party and their knuckle-dragging enablers. Decency and fascism simply can't exist indefinitely. I vote decency. There's no room on our planet for such trash. A storm is coming. Work out the details for yourselves.
2
The the long hate. Ignorant hateful retches are helping our demographic implosion not solving some problem. Don't whine when the next generation is not there to pay for your social security. We've been having negative net migration for years. Evilidiocracy!
It’s technically “wretches” but I like your version better!
Almost every editorial in the NYT is about blaming President Trump for something.
Last week the NYT had a review of a book on dinosaurs. I had to read it twice; there was no blaming Trump for the demise of the dinosaurs.
And no, I don't feel hordes of illegal aliens have a right to come here.
5
How lucky you were to be born of such class and great privilege. I hope you express gratitude for that every single day and never take it for granted.
5
Do you "feel" it's okay to abuse children?
Because that's what this policy amounts to.
3
First they came for the immigrants, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a immigrant.
...
Wait, the government is now arresting immigrants who legally entered the United States?!? Wow, I didn’t see that in the paper, you think it would get some media coverage, that’s a huge story.
Can you please share some details about the rounding up of legal immigrants?
Sarcasm aside, I understand your point but it is a little extreme.
Illegal Immigrant. Fixed it for you.
Yes. If you commit a crime and get sent to jail then your child will be separated from you.
7
If you are asking for asylum, you are not committing a crime.
9
how long will you persist with this false analogy, in fact American children are separated from their incarcerated parents, they are not however sent to an internment camp in the Texas dessert and locked in cages.
11
Arrest the employers who hire them, and put them in cages. End this policy. Vote Blue. We have a Social Contract, and policies that will help people - even the white ones.
1
What's happening at the border is beyond my understanding. I feel the Republican party has run away, has changed into something I can't even recognize.
This has been planned for a long time. I'm a Catholic and my church has become part of this as the church became part of the Nazi regime. I say this because why didn't the Catholic institutions where these toddlers are being house (warehoused) speak up when they were contacted. Was it the million dollars they were offered?
3
Call it what it is: kidnapping for ransom. If the Democrats don't kiss his ring and give their vote he'll keep 'em locked up.
6
I just finished watching a movie that, among other things, detailed how the State Department conspired to keep out Jews fleeing Hitler up through the end of WWII. History repeats itself.
3
Absolutely horrifying tragic consciousness raising moral tale! Thank you. As a student and teacher of Holocaust Studies to see what is happening at our borders, to hear the excuses and lies from leadership, to witness the twisted justifications and moral hypocrisy from law enforcement is an experience I never thought I would have to live personally and feel responsible towards. To watch children being used as pawns and treated no better than animals in a pound is unspeakably evil. This nation is repeating an evil we perpetrated upon the Native Americans, the African slaves, with the Chinese and with the Japanese. We have countless Holocaust Museums! What a sham.
7
Animals are treated better in pounds than these children are, in those animal pens.
1
The signs of psychopathy have been evident in Trump and his entourage from the beginning. From the Josef Mengele smile of Sessions when quoting scripture to justify this cruelty, to Conway proving she has a conscience because she's a mother and a Catholic, to Trump's obvious enjoyment in his justification for this cruelty, I can find no other explanation.
This cruelty proves Trump is a tough guy, and that's all that matters to him and his accomplices.
5
Maybe this is what it takes for Trump supporters in flyover country to understand that you don't play with fascism. The only thing Trump never lied about was his white nationalism, and this gruesome policy of putting children in concentration camps is sadly par for the course. Every black and brown person in this country knows that they can end up in chains or murdered for no reason. Maybe it's time for the 'Good Germans' in flyover country to wake up and realize that it is happening here, and every governor, every member of congress, and the senate, every member of law enforcement, and every American with the power to stop this atrocity needs to do so immediately. All it takes for evil to win is for people to do nothing. And everyday I see a whole lot of nothing, but things getting worse. How long till the NY Times is wringing their hands about the 'Final Solution', and what they can't do about it.
5
Don't just express the horror we're all feeling.
Take action now!
https://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/a21623492/children-separate...
The sad truth is that these children regardless of age or circumstance, are just pawns in a greater game that the president and his advisors callously move around on their board of checkers. I specifically refrain from using the word "chess" because there isn't as much thought given regarding a long-game when it comes to administration.
It is all about the short and painfully simple game. One of intimidation, fear, and persecution of those without a voice. Of fear of being ostracized and perhaps of being re-elected by those who should know to reach deeper. And it is all about making certain that your base is scared to death 24/7.
We are now living in our democracy's worst nightmare. An executive has installed himself as the unwavering truth of his own lies and his government is happy to stand by and support him regardless of the price America will pay for accepting lies as truth and the setting fire to all of our moral purposes. Early Nazi Germany wasn't so incredibly different.
Jeanine's daughter is right to be afraid. So are all Americans.
6
Trump, the draft-dodging coward, is committing a crime against humanity. Everyone who is participating in this barbaric, inhumane, and criminal policy are equally guilty. The Nazification of the U.S. government is underway. If you are not protesting, you are complicit.
7
I just returned for 2.5 months in Germany. Germans would talk to me about their sadness and horror over what is occurring in the U.S. Older Germans, with tears in their eyes, told me this is what happened in Germany in the 1930's....when the Gestapo came for their neighbors, families and children. None of whom were seen again. (They, of course, were Jewish.) This is how the nightmare happens. As one old man said to me, with tears in his eyes, "We didn't stop the creature in time (he meant Hitler) and we know what happened. " Here we are, fellow Americans.
15
Geez, the white privilege here. Try looking at some American history... the Native Americans, the treatment of Black children under slavery, the Japanese incarcerations. White Americans know nothing about American history... except white people are always right.
6
Republicans..."the party of ....Christian values." Nonsense! Until Christians, Republican or Democratic....Catholics, Muslims, and atheists stand up and resist the Nazi-like methods of our appalling leader, we will, as this beautiful article implies, all be subject to the racist actions of Trump and his minions. I am embarrassed at our country and its treatment of fellow human beings. As the father of a five year old little girl, I don't want her growing up in this atmosphere. We are moving out of the US. Sayonara Trump.
2
Mr Sessions, Ms Nielsen and Mr Kelly are "just following orders" from the would-be Fuhrer and his Jewish soulmate (Stephen Miller). That's what they are implicitly pleading now in their trial in the court of opinion and that's most probably what they will try to plead in a future Court of Justice. The Attorney General of the United States is guilty of executing a new form of crime against humanity cooked up in the minds of the two dangerous lunatics who sent the order. If these people are not in prison in the next few days, it means that there is a fascist takeover of the US Government. It is a national and international emergency.
6
The way this child separation story is being reported is a sham. Even a moment’s research would confirm to anyone who bothered that President Obama was also separating migrant children from parents and it was barely reported.
Everyone knows that when parents are caught committing crimes they are separated from their children. In fact, American parents who endanger their kids and involve them in crimes can lose custody permanently. It’s a sad fact of life being disingenuously exploited by the media, and you’re all falling for it. The NYT and other left leaning news organizations are using kids to manufacture outrage.
All of these once reputable news sources have lost their way. Their hatred of Trump, however justifiable, has blinded them to their abandonment of truth and journalistic integrity.
It’s fascinating that liberals have no problem correctly identifying Fox and Breitbart as propaganda, yet somehow manage to convince themselves that *they’re* not being brainwashed at all. Perish the thought.
Your trusted media is comparing our immigration policies to the Holocaust and likening our border patrol to the gestapo. Wake up. You’re being manipulated.
1
If you are (or care about anyone who is) Jewish, Muslim, Hispanic, Black, brown, handicapped, born outside the US, or adopted from another country, you should be asking yourself the same question.
6
Elsewhere today in the Times, David Leonhardt asserts that Trump is not a Nazi. Although his vocabulary and that of his spokesmen ( "infest", "stab in the back") is remarkably like that of the Nazis. Is his saving grace that 'some of his best friends are Jews'? Whether or not he is a Nazi, he is certtainly doing a good imitation of how they seduced the 'good Germans' with a combination of hate propaganda, endorsement of racist violence, demonization of the left and pandering to the rich.
Use of child hostages is, as Frank Bruni points out, abominable. Every parent can understand how unspeakable the arbitrary use of prosecutorial powers to inflict pain on innocent children is. We need not go to international law to understand how disgusting Jeff Sessions' abuse of his powers is, nor should we allow President Trump to hide behind Sessions -- he could stop this with a phone call.
The President has chosen immoral and abominable measures, clear violations of international treaties signed by the US, to inflict pain on the innocent in the hope of deterring seekers of asylum and getting $25 billion for his wall. If the GOP will accept this, it will accept anything.
4
GOP/NRA true American Christians through and through.
3
On what planet would this happen to your children without you going to jail and nobody being able to take them in? You are committing child abuse by perpetuating this idiotic fear in children, presumably so you can hyperventilate about it in an Op-Ed instead of explaining to your child that this wouldn’t happen to you because mommy and daddy don’t commit crimes.
Again I say: if you commit a crime as an American citizen, your kids do not come to prison with you. Why should someone entering illegally gain special rights on that basis?
2
Your 7 year old needs a lesson in citizenship.
1
When did Christians become the lions?
4
By the way I would like to translate one phrase from far far away place, may be it has already exist in english.
What I disagree is this concept. Becasue republican party is a christian party.
Himm
phrase goes like this
" because you are presuming that yourself is pious ( faitful-religous) , you do not necessarily require ( to learN or acquire) moral values ( you presuming dafultly , you are religous so moral comes with that)"
Moral and Religion is different thing.
Many Nazis were piously Christian like Daesh people , they did to most immoral things.
So republican party's Christianity can not be a defense.
Approximately 4 billion people would gladly leave their countries of origin and come here. Ms. Cummins may have a justifiably bleeding hear,t but national policy is not made based on her kids' reaction to information that they cannot possibly understand. The Times has sadly, more and more, become a dumping ground for sob stories instead of a place for thoughtful, informed people to express views.
5
Trump is waging terrorism on kids and those who care for kids
6
Christian values and the current occupant of the White House? It's a joke, isn't it? The guy has shown more than once an utter disregard for the Christian value of marital vows. Or for the idea of not committing adultery, for instance.
So anyone who says that his order to separate the immigrant kids is not Christian must be from another planet. Pluto, I suppose?
1
Listen to Chaplin's Final Speech from The Great Dictator; you'll find it on youtube.
History repeating.
1
Trump and his Nazis will not stop what they are doing, and traumatizing children doesn't bother any of them in the least. It's hard to believe that the US was once a beacon of hope for everybody.
The only thing left to do is to get out and vote in November and get rid of Trump's entire clan and assorted freaks - hopefully with a nice long stay in prison for Trump for treason for selling out his own country just so he could get a "position" he is so completely unqualified for.
2
Trump was a nightmare for Hispanic children before. Loving foster parents for children left orphaned are one thing. This is an atrocity.
But now he is the devil incarnate. Babies in cages. Hundreds of toddlers and babies in the new jails for "tender age" children who have been ripped from the arms of their parents.
This is an atrocity happening in real time, and it is accelerating.
Babies will die. Toddlers and children will die. Some of the children taken from their parents have included a boy with epilepsy, a girl with Down syndrome, and who knows how many others have medical needs they can't tell anyone about. They have nothing but an aluminum blanket. Everything else has been taken away. No toys, no pieces of paper with their information. Some are in cages. Others are in icy conditions. Dictator Trump will probably take off for one of his usual weekly golf resorts soon.
It's 3,000 now and rising (700 by April, an addition 2,300+ in the last six weeks). Trump is dug in. He won't budge on this. He enjoys the idea of being tough on immigrants, regardless if they are children.
A nation is judged by how it treats the most vulnerable. This is a Nazi strategy, and it is inhumane. The trauma will be ever lasting, and it is entirely imposed by Trump. It isn't something caused by other circumstances, just Trump policy changed from anything ever done in the U.S. before.
4
Good parents don't break the law and enter a country illegally. The parents are irresponsible. These children are being held in nicer facilities than what they had in their original countries. Tired of the whinning.
1
Poignant statement about the abuse Trump Administration is inflicting on these children and parents. Trump knows no boundaries and will stop at nothing to get his way. He is well on his way to being among the world's most heinous figures. It is not too much to compare him to Hitler-type personality.
2
What is implied but not expressed in this piece is that Republicans are evil people. They do not have the American spirit or compassion. They are heartless and we have elected them. Remember that many in the US supported Nazi Germany. Those same people are now in charge of our executive branch and legislative branch of government. It happened there and it can happen here. We are only 4 generations removed from those people. Have you seen the camps where these migrants are jailed? Have you heard the wails of the traumatized children? Do you realize those perpetrating these horrors are American Republicans? What are you going to do about this atrocity?
5
The issue here isn't "illegal entry." It's Trump. His government is illegal. He will disrupt, destroy, and divert attention from his criminal behavior and lack of legitimacy as president by any means he can. That is what all this chaos and flailing is really about. Remove Trump and his minions and place them in jail and this nation will begin to heal, along with the rest of the planet. Sounds dramatic? No. what was dramatic is that we stood by and allowed this moron and moral ignoramus to attain our highest office through criminal fraud.
6
I am guessing you are not from the United States.
Nobody refers to the government as “his government”. It is the people’s Government, regardless of who is in the executive branch. That type of terminology is very European and parliamentary.
Also, Trump was properly elected to the executive branch by the electorate college so what exactly is “illegal?”
It is time to re-visit the words of the philosopher Martin Niemöller.
---------------------------------------------
"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me."
---------------------------------------------
Only this time, vulnerable immigrant children and their parents are first. With the unprecedented villainy at our highest level of self-governance, the rest of us will be next, sooner or later.
Make no mistake about this.
3
oh please! are you planning on going to jail soon?
1
Jeanine, please buy a book on United States Civics and you and your daughter will have the answer to your question, "Why Can't It Happen to Us?"
(Hint: You are a US Citizen with civil rights).
2
This just another fluff piece to justify open borders. Ms Cummins should explain to her children that the children she refers to are the victims of the crimes of parents who, by coming across our borders illegally, defied our law.
1
There is no way not to think about Nazi soldiers separating children from their parents as they marched them into death camps. There is no way I can ever forgive the people who help keep this monster in power, and there is no way I can ever forgive myself for not doing more to stop it.
4
On top of separating the kids from their parents, when they cry in distress they are not picked up, touched, or consoled. This policy is planting the seeds of terrorism. Stupid, stupid, stupid, as well as immoral, and cruel, and all the other things people are rightly calling it. The icing on the cake is using the Bible to justify it. This is why I’m not religious—the hypocrisy is too much for me.
10
Don't want to see overblown hysteria about the children of illegal aliens? Don't watch leftist news. Oh, wait. There isn't any.
1
If she understand it better than you, you need to pay closer attention.
Nice humblebrag on the daughter, though.
1
"The detention camps where the children are living away from these so called parents will probably be the best time in their lives."
I understand the idea behind this comment but really ...
The lunacy has really begun & the apologists are out in full force. The Internet has certainly given rise to this craziness.
Can you image what this person & others like them will say the day after Trump declares himself "ruler for life ?" Will anyone say anything ? Other than the apologists ?
Look at the BOLD type Font on this story. HUGE. Plain in its message. If & when this is all over, Down the road (Decades ? Ever? ).
they will be out again in force, declaring they didn't know. Didn't see. Sure ...
Feels a bit like 1930 /1935 / 1937 doesn't it ?
4
None of this has anything to do with the problem - the non-stop illegal immigration into the US. There is an open border that is used by many, good or bad, who choose not to live in their own country. A harsh policy but what else do you suggest to get the message to this flood of people ?
1
Of course. Our country has a history of removing black, native and other non-white children from their loving families. Either their families were considered too poor or, too inconvenient, as in the case of Native Americans and, Japanese Americans during WW2. This is not news.
2
The right thing to do is to stop at an official port of entry and apply for asylum. Legally.
The right thing to do is to do this at the FIRST country you reach other than your own.
For Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador the first country they reach, and should apply for asylum at, is Mexico.
I feel for economic migrants. I want them to be able to earn more money. I have less sympathy for people making faux asylum claims and who are breaking our laws.
In no way do I support taking children from their parents. That has got to stop.
1
Are we to have vast refugee camps waiting out the two year vetting process for people fleeing ostensibly untenable lives in foreign countries on the south side of Trump's Wall when the dust settles from this?
It's easy to tell someone else what "the right thing to do" is when you don't have a clue about the reality of their situation.
5
When I was stationed in Germany (in the US Army), I took a brief course in conversational German taught by a German woman who had married a US serviceman after WWII. She had been taken from her parents by the Nazi government at age twelve. Her parents had not done anything wrong, anything the government considered a transgression, nor were they considered unfit. She was taken as part of a program that had two aims. One was to "homogenize" the German "Volk," (the country having been unified rather recently); the other was to provide help for influential families whose servants had gone into the armed forces or war industries. From East Prussia she was sent to Bavaria to work under an imperious cook who spoke a dialect that was completely unintelligible to the girl. It can happen here.
4
The "Box Car Children" were better off than children these kids who are stripped away from their parents and locked in cages.
Homeland Security is making us very, very insecure. Trump and his party are creating new enemies every day. As our enemies multiply, our allies shrink away in disgust and a new Korea-Russia-China alliance forms, our entire nation is at risk.
6
The first imperative of civilization is protection of the children. Without them, humankind has no future.
4
Unfortunately, our current President has chosen the side of barbarism.
2
The coming election this November is the most important of my lifetime. Everyone needs to vote a straight blue ticket so we can put checks on this monster in the White House. It is the only way to stop the horrors. Volunteer for canvassing and phone banks, support democratic candidates and make sure you and your family votes this November.
5
Kay, you are so right!!! It’s too bad the old Democratic NY attorney general isn’t on the ticket, I mean we would still vote for him even though he sexually abused woman.
We need to vote a straight blue line ticket regardless of the quality of the candidates!!! No critical thinking for us here!!!! Go Democrats!!!!
Perhaps, just perhaps, in November we should vote for good and kind individuals, regardless of their party affiliation.
He can easily fix this problem with his pen. If he wants Congress to solve the problem then they should consider using impeachment.
2
‘If It Could Happen to Them, Why Can’t It Happen to Us?’ First they came for the immigrants, but I wasn't an immigrant, so I did nothing . . .. It can happen to us.
Please VOTE on 11/06/2018 to change that.
4
Thank you for this. Very well said. And thank you for taking in foster children and also helping them to reunite with their parents.
5
Trump and the GOP have sunk into a morass of depravity they can never recover from, the road from here is into deeper and more terrifying acts to keep his "Base" entertained. I weep for America, it's being destroyed along with all of its humane traditions.
2
Goldwater began promoting the myth and Reagan successfully used the propaganda the Republicans were the party of Christian family values. That's overt manipulation and arrogance, if you don't support them family values are not your priority. That brought religion into government that has created the division we are faced with today.
Republicans are rabid when the subject of abortion arises. Removing a fetus from a mother is murder, some Republicans tossed around the idea of prosecuting mothers.
These same individuals condone, promote, participate in removing babies, toddlers, children, teenagers from mother's and father's.
A Fetus takes precedence over traumatizing a child and their parents.
The reason even Senators are barred from these facilities is most likely not only the kennels they are placed in but the sounds of agony and heartbreak must be deafening.
We viewed the warped short video Trump gave Kim Jong Um. We are now shown kids playing pool, video games, basketball and doing art work as if their internment in Texas is summer camp.
Trump is diabolically evil and so are those gutless, morally corrupt individuals who lack a conscience to stand up to him with a vengeance. Elijah Cummings is a man to respect, we need more like him to voice outrage.
6
The first Republican nail in the coffin of freedom from religion was the legislation that mandated the addition of "under God" to the loyalty oath recited daily in US schools, in 1953.
1
“I am the law and the law is not mocked.” - Inspector Javert - Les Miserable.
Javert, although a fictional character, can be easily recognized on Lawrence Kohlberg’s stages of moral development and stage four is marked by a rigid adherence to the law; thus, Javert pursues the hero, Jean Valjean who only “stole a loaf of bread to feed my sister’s son.”
Many comments here suggest that Trump and his ilk are spinning their wheels in Kohlberg’s stage four.
These migrant children are all our sister’s and brother’s sons and there are higher laws that put human life first; great men and women - Thoreau, Gandhi, Aung San Suu Kyi and Dr. Martin Luther King exemplified allegiance to higher laws; these are the laws we should all aspire to.
5
“Republicans are ostensibly the party of Christian family values.” Please don’t attach this to either Christians or Republicans in general. something about modern times has caused us to allow empathy-less sociopaths to take over both our government and our churches. Pastors and politicians quote the Bible about obedience (to them) while being completely unable to understand about love and charity.
3
How many of the people protesting this treatment of families at the border either voted for Trump in 2016, or a third party candidate, or stayed home from the polls and didn't vote at all? We are stuck with Putin's first choice for OUR president, and it's too late to expect that the GOP, which has enabled Tweety since he won their nomination, will be able to either effectively control his worst behavior or influence his constant media attention-seeking actions. This situation is an entirely GOP-created nightmare, and I hope that voters who don't like it turn out in droves next November and just vote for DEMOCRATS.
8
Human rights violations. Enough said.
9
"Republicans are ostensibly the party of Christian family values."
This is really a joke and not just for the present problem. This is the party that wants to take away our social safety net the also keeps families together, all very SAD!!!
5
At what point do they start coming for children of Americans?
Will they come for my kid because we’re not Christian, or the wrong kind of Christian?
Maybe because I let my daughter have short hair and blue clothes?
Maybe because I’m against fascism?
Maybe when developers want to turn my apartment into a casino?
Maybe because I wear glasses?
This administration needs to go.
10
Congress passed a law that says that people crossing the border illegally get arrested and deported. Temporarily, during the detention process of those adults, families are separated. I suppose if Congress had passed a law prohibiting one from wearing glasses, they should worry as well. I am not aware, however, that such a law is on the books.
2
I am not for separating any child from their parent at the border. However, I do not believe in unlimited and unauthorized immigration from Mexico, the Caribbean, Central and South America, Asia, and the Middle East into the United States. Europe also cannot take 100s of millions of people from the Middle East, Asia, and Africa either.
Let's face facts -- our world is overpopulated, there are billions of poor people and limited resources (we are killing all our wildlife and natural areas because of it) and to invite everyone in who is sick, abused, poor, or fleeing war would destroy our own country with the onslaught.
Every stable country in the world must make an effort to stabilize those countries that abuse and neglect their own people, not take in 100s of millions into their own country. The world right now is witnessing the effects of human overpopulation and we only have ourselves to blame.
2
No one is recommending or advocating for unlimited or unauthorized immigration.
3
Of course these parents should obey the law. They understand ICE may apprehend them as they illegally cross the boarder. Of course they have a choice to show up at a border crossing and ask for asylum, but people running the underground trails north probably won't let them. Americans who think the government hasn't dealt with immigration for years are buying propaganda peddled by conservative zealots in Congress and online who will never approve of any immigration reform short of shutting the boarders to all immigrants, especially if they aren't from Norway. But, the family separation and cages we see keeping children penned like zoo animals inside warehouses that are already secure with solid walls and locked doors is new and barbaric.
5
If this administration is willing to do this to innocent, immigrant children, don't think for a moment that they won't hesitate to do the same to you or your children, for any reason, even contrived ones.
8
What must happen to Trump, to all Republicans who hold political office, and to all the supporters of these evildoers: removal.
Not until we rid ourselves of clowns like Trump, Pence, Ryan, McConnell, and every Republican will this madness end.
We have a cancer growing on the presidency and in the halls of Congress. It will get worse before it gets better. There will be a lot of heavy lifting to be done. But there is still time, to remove all Republicans from the seats of power. Let US begin now.
DD
Manhattan
6
You still don't see, do you? You assume because this happens in America the parents must, necessarily, be responsible. Maybe they're in this situation because they bought the pap they get from the time they're born: Education is for nerds and long hairs, borrow to get an education, car, a house, work hard, everyone for himself and the devil take the hindmost. Taxes, subsidized
education and national health care are for the socialists in Europe, the freeloaders.
1
It is happening here.
1- We have in effect a one-party state with no checks and balances,
2- We have Trump, a power-hungry extreme narcissist acting as a self-proclaimed dictator
3- We have the equivalent of blackshirts taking children from their mothers and tracking down immigrants at work
4-We have a fake news propaganda network that around the clock is extolling the virtues of an amoral, ignorant and inhuman so-called president
5- We have a corrupted electoral system that is financed by corporate dark money and aided and abetted by foreign powers with special interests
The citizens of Germany and Austria failed to believe that their countries could be taken over by a minority of ruthless thugs. Failure on the part of Americans to recognize that it is happening here is exactly what Trump and his Republican enablers count on.
16
America is no longer a beacon of hope. We are being rapidly turned into a beacon of hate, a reflection of the man elected president by a minority of the voters. And as he has doubled down and redoubled and redoubled again on his appeal to the ugly side of his bigotry and ignorance, his supporters have done the same.
5
Thank you for your excellent piece. We should all be very, very afraid. This truly ugly, evil and lawless regime is capable of anything and everything.
4
Its not about illegal immigration, I meet many pretty young blonde European girls daily in NY who overstayed their Nanny Visa. Nobody is rounding them up. Its about race.
13
People who are seeking asylum in this country are NOT breaking the law by trying to enter. The law requires them to turn themselves in at the nearest border station and request asylum. In that case, the Trump administration would have no grounds for separating kids and parents and turning the lives of the children into a living hell.
You might say that what happens in Central America is not our problem, but we, the United States, have been involved there for many decades, certainly since the US helped to create the nation of Panama so it could build the canal. You can turn your back, you can close your eyes, but the problems of the world will come knocking on your door, one way or another.
The big draw of workers from Mexico comes from the lack of jobs there, the higher wages people get here and the lure of the exchange rate which means even modest pay here buys a lot more there when money is sent back to relatives or saved up to build a house.
These nations are our neighbors. We are fortunate to have built a rich, successful society where conflicts and maximum violence do not rule our lives. We can't solve all the problems of the world, but we can't turn our backs on our neighbor's problems, either. If we do so long term, we will inevitably suffer right here, even if walled off.
4
Ms. Cummins article makes a very good point. When I was a young child I was aware of what was going on in the country and the world. Today's children can't help but know about the children being snatched from their parents at the border. It's only natural that many would worry that the government may one day come to their house and snatch them away from their parents. I think the children have a right to be afraid. Our government has reached the point where they can do anything they want and get away with it. I am a great grandmother of four children and I am scared to death of what they will be facing in the future as our country sinks into totalitarianism. Our country has been going to hell in a handcart for decades, and if we don't fight, and fight hard, we will complete the journey.
4
Thank you so much, Jeanine Cummins, for telling the story of children separated from parents using images we all can understand.
The trust of a child, especially a young child, is not given easily to strangers and at certain ages, everyone seems to be a stranger. How much of the trauma of the youngest children who are victims of two old white men--Trump and Sessions--will be remembered by them is unknown. The sounds and images of children taken needlessly from families to make a political point should linger in the minds of US voters--- with the exception of those voters caught in the cult of Trump.
Apparently the new "zero tolerance" policy of Trump and Sessions is considerably more expensive than other more humane options used by Bush I & II and President Obama as they tried to respond to the increasing global problem of people fleeing violence in their home countries. That some of the violence was a result of American policy decisions decades old or within their own administrations gave their decisions extra impetus to reflect what they saw as US values.
Trump is using children--very young children--to whip his voters into a frenzy of fear that their white privilege is ending. The very words he uses hark back to old demagoguery which has always resulted in crimes against humanity. "Never Again"? how about, right now before our eyes, in our ears.
Ms. Cummins daughter has it right. "Why can't it happen to us?"
What are Trump's targets? Public education, CHIP
6
Oh please. Do the right thing - apply at a US consulate in Mexico or at the UNHRC.
People who would have no valid grounds for a visa if they lawfully applied at a consulate are assumed to have rights to stay if they cross the US border illegally.
This sort of article, projecting government action to keep out illegals into a desire for open borders, is just rubbish.
Insanity.
3
Ladies and gentlemen the prime example of a deplorable dotard
3
In our new dog-eat-dog, zero-sum, winner-takes-all world, there is no place for compassion or empathy. These traits are for losers, and America is not a loser anymore. You do what you need to do to win, the ends justifies the means, just ask any Evangelical, they understand. If you don't like it, you can always move to another country. This is Trump's country, MAGA.
2
"Republicans are ostensibly the party of Christian family values."
Really??? Ripping families apart, making healthcare unaffordable and unavailable, saying the solution to gun deaths is more guns; this is what the Republicans stand for. (Not to mention ripping up all treaties with allies and wooing dictators) Spineless, me-first, steal from the poor to help the rich seems to be what the Republicans stand for.
Keep your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Allow these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to fall, I lift my guns beside the golden wall!
4
Disruption of our historic values is Trump's aim as he continues his conspiracy with Russia. Trump supporters do not see the treason because they share the racism upon which the disruption is predicated. There are many racists in the country, however, they are not the majority, though a sizable minority of whites.
PROSECUTE RUSSIAGATE!
1
I don't recall anything like this when President Obama did the same thing, in fact, much more of it. No, not a peep. And then the Obama Administration decided to send each out across the country into foster homes. I don't recall such stories like this one being printed and displayed in the New York Times. Of course not.
Furthermore, it does happen to many American children, when they are sent off to daycare at mere months old.
2
Here Len: http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2018/jun/19/matt-schlapp...
And, do you really want to say that this is equivalent to a child going to daycare?
2
Good article, good story with a happy ending. At least I hope it was happy. As to the larger picture, Trump and the GOP has made official what their voters have always wanted--to get rid of the "others". I hope the more sane of us vote out the GOP enabers of Trump on NOv 6. This is the only solution.
5
It will not be enough to simply reunite these children with their parent(s).The US must provide them with reparations — physical, emotional, spiritual.
In addition, the US must punish those who issued these heartless directives, in addition to those who will say they were just “following orders,”
2
This event is worse than the Muslim Travel Ban. If this was as liberal a country as Denmark During WWII Federal Employees would strike to protest this outrage. All states bordering states with mexico should make child detention illegal and send state troupers to enforce state law to detention centers. One cannot think that the country that incarcerates more children than anwyere is advanced. Lets hope we get up to Brazilian standards on this score let alone more advanced countries like Scandinavia.
3
"Republicans are ostensibly the party of Christian family values. Their leader is making a mockery of those values at our borders, separating even asylum-seekers from their children, and then using those children to force migrants into voluntary departure."
And not only that, but he's lying about it ...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/16/us/politics/trump-democrats-separatio...
2
Your daughter should be terrified. Everyone should be terrified. First, they came for the others, and lied about it, but I thought I was safe......
We all know the rest of that story.
We are in grave danger. Don't kid yourselves.
12
Thank you for this.
2
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore." What a Sophie's Choice for these parents who are trying to immigrate to our country, as did the parents of most Americans at some point in their family's history.
3
So here is Trumpism, manifested in its most cruel form, ripping toddlers from the arms of mothers. The man is devoid of decency as are his enablers. McConnell, Ryan, Sessions, on their knees before the all powerful Oz. The curtain was been torn away a long time ago but these spineless, amoral munchkins refuse to see the evidence with their own eyes.
6
After several decades of the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons all their slavish followers pushing around the country to yield to the tyranny of the "religious" right, we see where it goes.
Children being treated like this. LBTQ people still being terrorized. The natural enviorment being torn apart.
The entire country being torn apart.
9
To be fair, one’s reaction to this crisis is a litmus test for being human. You fail if you’re one of those privileged nativists going “gee golly gosh, they just shouldn’t break the law.”
11
Now we see how children who are not the direct subject of Trump's cruelty are traumatized.
Children have rich imaginations as well as a firm grasp of the obvious.
They see how the leader of our country can commit what were heretofore unimaginable acts of cruelty. Their parents abhor his actions but are seemingly unable to do anything to stop him and hence unable to protect them against this monster.
The child did nothing; the parent did what he/she thought was best for their child; the child is severely punished by being stripped from his/her parent.
It used to be considered good parenting to keep certain particularly frightening scenes in movies or TV from our children because it could frighten them and possibly traumatize them emotionally.
Welcome to our brave new world, children.
4
So what about all the children of legal U.S. citizens that have been separated from their parents because their parents did something illegal and or are incarcerated?
And why exactly is this being done? The answer is a long list of words like racism, greed, fear, hatred, stupidity and arrogance. It's an abuse of human rights and an affront to human dignity--but since the US just joined a handful of reprobates (including North Korea, Trumps new bromance) in leaving the UN counsil on human rights, the likelihood that it will even be discussed in the corridors of power in Washington is exactly zero.
6
I'm frankly horrified at the number of comments of the "..oh well, you did an illegal thing, don't you know there are consequences..." variety. Have you no empathy or humanity whatsoever? These are sometimes nursing babies we're talking about. What have we come to?
15
We should all be afraid of what the Trump Administration is doing.
Trump is abusing children for political gain.
He has now labeled immigrants as vermin. Using the word 'infestation' is part of his strategy to justify his policy of jailing babies.His lies and distorted fake facts are meant to increase the hate and fear of immigrants who therefore do not deserve to be treated in a fair and humane way.
Just as he accuses all Mexicans of being criminals, he has stated that African Americans as represented by NFL players are not 'real' Americans and maybe they shouldn't even be here.
Trump sees the office of POTUS as giving him unfettered power. While this is not so, the GOP Congress is so scared of Trump's tweets that they have failed their duty to check and balance.
So when Trump continues his racist assault on people of color in America, will our government be there to stop him?
Today, the answer is a clear NO.
Trump is a cruel man. He seems to chose the worst and most devastating policy because he delights in punishment as a sign of strength. We should be afraid.
What will he do next?
13
I agree with everything you say, except, "we should be afraid." Fear and outrage are exactly what the traitor and his minion want. We should do what we can to get back to majority rule by supporting organizations such as Eric Holder's redistricting project, get back to the rule of law, and if we get a majority Democratic congress this year, demand that they relentlessly investigate the treason and epidemic criminality of this "administration." My "fear" is that democrats will once again regain power only to cave and give us another, "we want to move forward," surrender.
3
I appreciate the clear, unadulterated facts of this article. I do not understand why some fellow-Americans are closing their eyes and their hearts to what is happening. We act as though, somehow, God himself handed down our borders like the Ten Commandments, and that we have been put on Earth to defend them (and our amazing national prosperity) at all costs. Really? Is this what we want our children, grand children, and history to remember us for?
By absorbing tens and tens of millions of immigrants this country has become great. It is a lesson not to forget.
5
Trump Derangement Syndrome has reached a new high with these false analogies to the Holocaust. I mean no offense to those of you suffering from these paranoid delusions, but you have lost fundamental connection with reality. The detention centers are not for creating slave labor or mass murder, but are temporary solutions to caring for unaccompanied minors who have crossed the border illegally under the care of people who may or may not be their parents. It is mandated by US law and it is being enforced with the interests of the children foremost. Your assertions that this is going to lead to Nazism is creating an incendiary political climate where the very fabric of our society will be ripped apart based on your overwrought misuse of history.
6
Over the top as well as completely wrong. Separating the families was not done by prior administrations. Keep the families together while processing them. Trump’s enamorement with dictators and authoritarianism has come out in his actions here. Invoking Godwin’s Law as a distraction does not help solve the problem.
8
First of all, deriding righteous anger for derangement is pure rhetorical silliness. "I mean no offense" always means that whatever follows will be offensive. Your rationalization of human rights abuses is not admirable. People with a knowledge of history know that it all starts with dehumanization of actual humans, because if we were able to rip screaming and crying children out of the arms of their parents without public outrage, we would be or may be well on our way to doing awful things to our own citizens. You are putting the cart before the horse in your logic.
1
No, it's not comparable to the Nazis, and to do so lessens the horror of the ultimate crimes they committed against humanity. Convincing yourself that this is done in the best interest of the children is ludicrous and it does sound like an excuse a modern Nazi may use in order to soften the images that are right before our eyes. "Nothing to see here, just taking care of these children." The incendiary political climate was created by the GOP's Lee Atwater during the Reagan campaign, of which he apologized on his death bed. Trump brought it back 10 fold. The country is already ripped apart. Hopefully the midterms can lead to some healing.
Thank your thoughtful piece. You say, "Republicans are ostensibly the party of Christian family values. " Let us emphasize the word "ostensibly" and add that the modern day Republican party has never been about family values -- it is a phony label they have given themselves to mask the cruelty of their policies as they injure the most vulnerable families among us. We looked the other way as they cut food stamps, school lunch programs, nutrition support for poor pregnant women, health care subsidies, planned parenthood clinics which serve poor women. Republicans refused to support sex education as millions died of AIDS. Each time we were not willing to look behind the label they wore. We allowed them to wrap themselves in the trappings of 'family values' as they took money from the mouths of the poor and gave tax cuts to the wealthy. We allow them to act helpless about gun laws as hundred of our children die each year because Republicans place their need for power above the lives of our sons and daughters. The Republicans have always chosen leaders who make a mockery of family values and laughed and sneered in the face of those bleeding heart liberals who did not think that ketchup was an adequate substitute for a vegetable in school lunch programs (think Reagan). Now with their family separation policy and the pictures and sounds coming out of the warehouses -- it is there for all to see. Remember this: 55% of Republicans support this policy.
5
This is a beautifully written piece. enlightening and sad. i hope these poor children quickly find themselves in the loving arms of their parents. my inability to help stop this is painful beyond description.
6
If you believe that "Christian values" are what drives the Republican party I would refer you to Michael Gerson's excellent article in the May 2018 issue of The Atlantic, "The Last Temptation."
Christian values long ago slipped under the waves. What remains is a storm of personal, self-serving politics based on a toxic blend of fear, racism and, now, cruelty beyond comprehension.
9
Thank you for using your experience to illustrative how traumatic the removal of a child from their parents is. Having worked in the foster care system, I saw similar affects on children even if removed from homes where they were abused or neglected.
This is an article Kirsten Nielsen needs to read. Listening to her defend the separation process by explaining how well the children are treated, I found myself yelling at the T.V. : "You really don't get it! The mere fact of separating the children is abusive!" Not sure if she is just oblivious or deliberating pretending not to understand.
10
This monstrous policy, this obscene perversion of justice is US, it is being done by our country, in our names. Every one of us is complicit. What must it take to turn the tide against the monster perpetrating these sinful acts? The November elections seem an eternity away and the prospect of undoing these crimes is too remote and unlikely to bear at the present time. We need our many voices to become one voice and demand change, demand Trump to be gone, dealt with, impeached, and even incarcerated for HIS crimes.
10
When an administration creates a policy which closes off the opportunity for an individual to seek asylum, and then are accused of the crime of attempting to seek asylum, that is insanity and the policy itself is immoral and criminal.
When the previously cited to approach to asylum seekers are housed in facilities which are more than likely run by DJT type soulless 'failed business folks', one is compelled to inquire who is making money off of this approach to immigration?
When a mere phone call can result in ICE arriving at one's door, being taken into custody and possibly held and/or deported, despite the fact one is an American citizen, we are next.
DJT have attacked science, medicine & despite what we know about the needs of children, babies are being ripped from their families & the families blamed for trying to enter the US as the law states.
People need to realize that when all the protections, based upon science, medicine, history & law are eroded, an American citizen stands naked. The trade off that folks made, absent racial animus, jobs for alleged prosperity will result in their own deaths. One's whiteness, middle class mores or religion will not save you from being discarded.
Paul Ryan wants to eliminate Social Security & Medicare to balance the budget. We will soon hear, you should have had a better job or pension & it was your own fault which caused your poverty, illness or death. This is the new America & we are all next. MAGA is for the 1% only.
22
If you believe you are Christian then rise up and demand humane treatment for the families at our border. Protect everyone from trump. Save America. We should be a nation who welcomes refugees. These families deserve respect and compassion. trump knows nothing but meanness and pettiness and unnecessary cruelty. He was not elected president. He lost the vote by a very large number. A failed Electoral College handed our presidency to the most unqualified person.
2
Who are we? We are us and them. We are capable of atrocities of incomprehensible horror. The wall of "Values" is a veneer that can be walked through any time, anywhere.
7
It is coming to this for me. Should we allow this to stand then though I am American born and raised, with a family line going back to the 1600's, America is no longer the country of my birth. That country has died and been replaced by a narcissistic and fearful people of whom their WWII grandparents would be ashamed.
13
Well, if both your parents are felons then it could happen to you. It happens all the time. If I were to illegally enter a country it could happen to me. So what’s the lesson to be learned? Perhaps your parents shouldn’t break the law. Explain that to your child and then the child will have a better understanding of how civil society works,
1
This is the ignorance America needs to fight. No, the parents are not breaking the law. They are in most cases seeking legal asylum under international and national laws. And even if they were, the laws broken are not criminal but civil. Not even close to deserving such torture (yes, torture). The dollar amount of resources we are dedicating to keeping people out of our country far exceeds the claimed costs of a reasonable system of managing immigration. The moral costs are incalculable.
1
Tell that to a weeping toddler and see if that quiets them, gives them peace. Your narrow view is missing the reality of the broader civil society. And if you want to live in a country where this is deemed civil behavior, there are several in the world to which you could move today! Don’t bring that type of ‘civil’ behavior to my country, United States of America. Good bye!
1
I fear you are mis-informed. Families presenting for political asylum in the proper way at ports-of-entry are not being separated. The difference is that between legal and illegal entry, assuming anyone cares. By the way, the best way to apply for political asylum is at the U.S. Consul in the persons native country.
The most powerful writing I've seen on this exploding moment.
Let's never lose sight of this or separate this from the issues:
Donald Trump is a mistake.
A mistake the voters made in the election of 2016. A mistake the voters will begin to undo this November.
He is an aberration.
He is not American.
His election was most certainly the result of an act of criminal treason - namely collaboration and coordination with a foreign, adversary nation. And, covering up inside knowledge of that nation's criminal cyber activities.
Name any - repeat, ANY - other presidential candidate in our history whose campaign, over and over, had so many people have so many contacts with Russians.
Russians with an agenda to help that candidate win. Russians who committed cyber crimes against one of our major parties.
You can't.
Because it's unprecedented and, until the inherent criminal impulses of Donald Trump, unimaginable.
This article rightly, poignantly brings out the horror of an inhumane policy by an inhumane, mostly psychotic man.
But, let's never lose sight or stop talking about the main issue:
That man is a mistake.
A traitor who came to power in a criminal way.
Everything we are experiencing is an aberration foisted on us by an aberrant.
He's unpopular, naturally.
Soon, we'll get back to sanity.
8
Getting back to "sanity" will require lots of work; it is not a sure thing. The Republican party and Trump will not give up power easily and their voters are convinced Trump can do no wrong.
The damage done to the US by the Republican party policies and Trump will be very hard to repair. It will take years ---if not a generation-- to get back the respect of allies which were trashed by Trump and the respect of the rest of the world.
1
As an American I am ashamed at the number of people in these comments who are huffing "well, if they just followed the law......well obviously they're irresponsible parents if they're coming here illegal....well if they just stayed home then these horrible things wouldn't be happening to their families"
Shame on all of you. Just because something is "the law" doesn't mean its ethical. Just because someone breaks a law, doesn't mean their rights as human beings go away. Shame on you for callously assuming these people don't have a good reason for doing what they're doing. They are fleeing here because they are afraid of death. For them and their children. I bet you anything that if violent gangs were threatening to kill your family, you'd flee too, and if you had to make an illegal crossing to keep your children alive you'd do it in a heartbeat. Shame on you all for shaming them and calling them "bad and irresponsible" parents, when they are fleeing for their lives.
7
Don't know when, don't know where, don't know how, and it may take a while, but karma is coming, as it always does.
2
Yes indeed, it is coming, and it has no compassion for those who have no compassion.
1
There are no words on earth, in any language, in fact no one can put together any adequate response to describe the mental and physical anguish, and damage, Trump and the American government apparatus is doing to immigrant families, legal and striving to be legal, here in the United States and throughout the planet.
I predict, with every fiber of my being, that these violent evil acts will destroy Trump, the Republican Party, their acolytes, and their hardcore enablers and supporters.
And to you, Mr. Trump, I say this, not that I expect you to see my words, "If ever in your apparently heartless existence, you felt the cold fingers of desperation squeeze your soul, because of mortal danger to your children, then, if you can see, for only a second, the awfulness of what you, and your partners are doing, you will issue an executive order, now, to aid in every way, those lost souls running into the arms of Liberty, arms you have shackled and encased in the hardened steel of hate.
May God forgive you.
9
'I told my kids this kind of separation happens only to children whose parents don’t do the right thing. But now it’s happening to people who are behaving exactly as good parents should. To parents who endure inconceivable hardship to get their children to this country, precisely in order to protect them.
Not so. On the face of it, it appears tthat he parents whose kids are being taken away are sneaking illegally across a porous border. The parents waiting patiently in line at the official ports of entry into the USA are not being separated from their kids.
'For those seeking asylum at ports of entry, we have continued the policy from previous Administrations and will only separate if the child is in danger, there is no custodial relationship between 'family' members, or if the adult has broken a law.' ~ tweet by Kirstjen Nielsen
Of course, such is the dishonesty and incompetence of the current White House Administration, Nielsen could be lying, misinformed or mistaken. In which case, the NYT needs to provide precise, concrete proof of this.
2
This is exactly what happens when the conversation is flooded with lies. We are trying to keep up wth the lies this admin puts out there. Trying to find the truth. But we do know this admin is filled with opportunist liars. Makes it nearly impossible. Putting blame on the messengers is a diversion.
"Where is our righteous Christian outrage?"
It's already happening. I saw on the Internet that Methodists are sending petitions to Sessions' church, demanding that he be disciplined for his actions under Trump, particularly misusing the Bible to justify the Trump agenda.. This is a very rare action in Methodism, which historically avoids getting involved in politics, and shows their degree of outrage.
Of course the Times knows noting about this because it thinks "Christian" means "evangelical" or Catholic and that mainline Protestants don't exist.
How come Trump and Secretary Nielsen are not concerned by the many Russian and Chinese women flying to the US to give birth? I wish this would get more headlines.
3
So when parents of American children break the law, aren't their children ripped from their arms and placed in foster care?
2
Uh, no they are not. And children aren’t out in literal cages or maybe they are. I do live in Texas.
Some are.
"And how are the children?" This is how the Masai tribe members of Africa traditionally greet each other, whether they have children or not.
We had our children's service at church a few weeks ago and our RE director provided this beautiful reading by UU Minister Patrick T. O'Neill about how the Masai, one of the most "fearsome and intelligent" warrior tribes of Africa, treat their children.
"Even warriors with no children of their own would always give the traditional answer, 'All the children are well.' Meaning, of course, that peace and safety prevail, that the priorities of protecting the young, the powerless, are in place."
The basic premise is that every single member of the community has every single child's welfare first and foremost in their thoughts before any other community business is conducted.
O'Neill concludes, "What would it be like... if the minister began every worship service by answering the question, 'And how are the children?' If every town leader had to answer the question at the beginning of every meeting: 'And how are the children? Are they all well?' Wouldn't it be interesting to hear their answers? What would it be like? I wonder..."
https://www.uua.org/worship/words/reading/and-how-are-the-children
16
Trump has no perspective on being a parent. His kids were raised by nannies and butlers. So, he will continue to create policy that is, in every way, contrary to what any normal and decent parent would adhere to until, hopefully in the near future, we will all hear from him what so many silently wish for........his last word
8
A modern variation "Sophie's Choice" ?
4
Does anyone out there still believe in American Exceptionalism?
3
"...Christian family values." After the election of 2016 that no longer exists. Christians overwhelmingly voted for an anti-religious, racist candidate, and support him to the tune of over 80%. Christians no longer can claim the mantle of morality or "values".
2
I've been ashamed of being Christian, ever since I came to know, and understand, how we have perverted righteousness.
1
Sadly Trump and those that follow his lead on forced separation of families are IMO phony Christians. And hypocrites. But it's the law they say. We are just following orders. Please remember where you heard those lines before.
2
Its Sophie's Choice again and these good parents will live with this horror foisted upon them for political reasons only until they and their children die. Does history teach us nothing?
4
For all you "law-abiding" posters here. Your comments remind me of a scene from a "Few Good Men"
-----------------
Lt Kendrick kept repeating louder to Cathie that the men "disobeyed an order" for giving a marine food.
Cathie replies, "it wasn't a really important order-- because the defendants exercised their moral values and gave a hungry man food"
There is a way to handle the immigration crisis which comports with our values. However, character and integrity in leadership matters! When those are lacking you have what we have at the southern border.
12
Great article, that made me very sad. The "party of Christian family values" and its thrice divorced, serial adulterer leader are again showing their true faces that they try to hide behind Sunday church services and revivals. The GOP is the party of hypocrisy and hatred.
Separating children from their parents is a measure that should only be used as an absolute exception.
1
The children will remember this and they will tell their stories to their children and Trump and his minions will be hated for 100 years.
21
Americans will be hatred for years. We will be judged by the actions of this man, after he has passed on. They will not make the distinction between Democrat and Republican that we make in how they treat us as individuals or our policies as a country.
1
I don't disagree.
With apologies to Pastor Martin Niemoller, who must be weeping from the beyond.
When trump first came after the Muslims, I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Muslim
When trump came after the federal labor unions, I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t in a labor union.
When trump came after the life-long federal employees who spoke truth to power, I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a federal employee.
Now that trump is coming after the Hispanics, will I finally speak up even though I’m not Hispanic?
Darn right I will! See you at the rallies across the country on June 30th and absolutely at the polls in November!
12
If you share the outrage, attend a rally in your area or DC on Saturday, June 30. Check out MoveOn, Indivisible and other similar groups for listings by zip code. Then call your Members of Congress, and show up to Keep Families Together on June 30.
2
We are judged by how we treat those who can't defend themselves or take care of themselves. Right now we're failing and the whole world is watching.
14
It can't happen to us because we teach our children to obey the law, and practice what we preach.
1
If it never happens to us, we are among the most fortunate of people in the world. History shows us that obedience to law is not always rewarded, that any group can become a target. The history of the U.S., the entire world tells us there is no certainty that law abiding groups are still targeted.
4
There's a conclusion in here somewhere, EC, but I'm not sure what it is. Is lawlessness the answer? However imperfect our system of law abiding government is, it's clearly far better than most. or we would not having nearly so many trying to come here illegally. Let's change the law. If we choose to break the law, it's at our own peril and may result in the heartbreaks we now see.
Sure. Not so long ago, lots of Jews were saying that in Germany.
I am the grand child of immigrants. My wife and I were foster parents to a boy and girl, both very young when they came to us. We were very fortunate and were able to adopt them. They are now successful adults. What is different between my experience and that of my two children and what we are witnessing at the southern border? Our children were met with compassion, not with political vitriol from the mouth of an authoritarian. My grand parents were met at Ellis Island by the meaningful words etched at the base of the Statue of Liberty. Where have those words gone? They have been replaced with tweets from a mad man.
16
Every senator and representative in Washington D.C. and every Trump administration member should be required to read this article.
Though I have had only limited and indirect exposure to the foster care system, that is enough for me to know that children, even in the best of circumstances, are greatly traumatized by separation. Some may never recover. These are very dark days for this nation.
3
What the author describes does happen to us every day in court rooms across this nation when parents break the law and are sent off to jail. This nation is built on laws and justice is blind. If the parents described in this article were really good they would have went to a counsel office in there own country or a port of entry on our border and claimed asylum then they would not have been separated. It is sad for parents and children to be separated anytime but the parent has the ultimate responsibility.
3
You are obviously grossly ignorant of the situation of families escaping horrible conditions in their home town. What counsel offices are you talking about? Counsel offices are hard to find in small towns in the US and you expect them to exist in small Central American towns?
48
Many of the children held at the border came with a parent who wanted asylum. It didn't work out the way you suggest.
4
You are short sighted. Many, if not most of these parents are trying to escape terrifying circumstances in there own countries.
1
I will not celebrate the 4th of July this year as a personal protest to the human rights crisis at our Southern border.
Thank you for the compassionate words and for your first person account to the trauma of separation even when in a necessary situation.
44
Agreed cruel but the parents are to blame for "illegally" entering our country using phony asylum claims. Do you allow strangers to break into your house? and what would you do?. Same thing here and this is a problem that you should demand your Congressional representatives fix with a law. Do you support open borders? if not you should support the President.
1
I'm with you. No fourth of July for me. And I'm letting people know. In place of the pretty flag bunting over our door, the bunting I bought years ago when I organized a town-wide anti-Iraq war teach-in, I'm putting up a protest poster.
Wow.
Way to draw a completely false analogy and speak of something of which you cannot comprehend.
No one supports “open borders”. It’s not open versus closed.
Nor is support of the president relevant to this conversation.
You’re defending the indefensible, and using Fox-speak to do so.
1
"Republicans are ostensibly the party of Christian family values. Their leader is making a mockery of those values at our borders, separating even asylum-seekers from their children, and then using those children to force migrants into voluntary departure. In immigration court, migrants are being told that the best way to see their kids again is to plead guilty, to return to whatever they’re running from. And yet even if they do just that, some parents still don’t get their children back. Where is our righteous Christian outrage?"
The majority of the Republican Party is pretty much a Christian party. Much of those who support force separation, are in the party's base. Trump is using this for his own political and autocratic gain. He is campaigning for 2020, and possibly becoming president fro life, if he gets that Constitutional Convention.
And, by the way, it can happen to us. An autocrat needs to instill fear in the population. 1/3 of the US population supports what Trump, and the GOP are doing. They already target Muslims, Arabs, Catholics, and yes, even Jews. They are fearful that the WASP population is now a minority in this country. Couple that with Hispanic, Asians and Muslims are the fastest growing populations in the US. And, on top of that, they alraedy are going after opposing views and intellectuals.
If the GOP, Trump, so called WASP, Christian conservative bloc, gets its way, it will go after other groups.
See "First they came....".
33
Trump has done nothing but pull back the curtain that discretely his our governments power and how it's used. Now it's harder to look away, and people have to confront it. Which is a service to us all. Government shouldn't have the power to do these things, we can't give it do much "discretion".
1
This is what makes this unbearable as an American with a decent amount of humanity : I want so much to help these children, all the while knowing that the only person that will make them feel safe and loved and secure is the one person they cannot have. It is unconscionable- UNCONSCIONABLE- that this is allowed to continue.
6
These kids mean NOTHING to Trump...he has no empathy for anyone but himself.
AND what he has said or promoted must never be challenged or he will double down on it.
I don't think Trump HAS a plan or any consistent goals as a president. He was a Democrat , now he's a hardline Republican. He is lead in the direction his advisors (such as the truly detestable Stephen Miller) want to lead him. Right now, the immigration "issues" and how they're being handled are following Miller's longtime beliefs.
From the Atlantic: "First, it should be understood that Miller’s hardline approach to immigration predates his work for Trump. In 2013, as an aide to then-Senator Jeff Sessions, Miller made his name on Capitol Hill fighting ferociously against a bipartisan immigration-reform bill alongside populist-right media allies like Breitbart News. The effort to sink the legislation prevailed, and his credentials as a true-believing ideologue were secure. He is, by all accounts, an avowed restrictionist, and he likely believes that separating children from their parents at the border will deter future illegal immigration."
(from: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/stephen-miller-fami...
Trump really doesn't seem to CARE what U.S. policy is, but will fight tooth and nail not to be frustrated or stopped in ANYTHING he has supported and put him name on.
4
Trump chose to make children bargaining chips in his need for a win. That says it all. A Sophie's Choice for the modern age.
6
Hold your children closely, but do not avert your eyes. Evil is afoot and unless we rise up and speak out no one is safe. I am a college-educated US-born woman who likes to think of herself as well-informed. However, I only learned in the past few days that asylum seekers must present and declare themselves at an official port of entry. Why would anyone think that poor, frightened and possibly poorly educated parents from El Salvador, Guatemala or wherever know that little wrinkle of US immigration law? Having already walked perhaps thousands of miles to escape horror had they understood that walking only a bit more to an official entry point would legitimize their quest who thinks they would not have done so? This is more like the "double secret probation" of Animal House than a country of compassion.
I cringe when officials of this country which is becoming unrecognizable to me says children of law breakers are separated from their parents every day all over this country. While true it ignores the fact that virtually all of those children stay with their other parent or family member and stay in their community. These children are ripped away and even separated from siblings before being put in a chain link gulag where it is against the rules to hold and comfort them.
Xenophobia has become the rule and the frightened, small people running our country are deaf to the cries of these children and more than willing to advance their own agendas at the expense of children.
70
Thank you. Your are a kind couple for fostering. My wife is an immigrant. I was touched by you statement that the love we have for our children gives us an illusion of safety and strength that turns out to be so fragile. Tragically our own government has demonstrated it's terrible powers on the littlest of ours. Trauma inflicted, we think bad parents do, is now done through our bad government's infliction.
9
Last night I couldn't sleep for thinking about the children in cages also trying to sleep who didn't have the comfort of a foster mother -- let alone their own mother -- to soothe their crying. There are hundred of these children in America now. They are alone when they cry at night. It's been reported "caregivers" aren't allowed to pick them up or touch them.
Among all of the horrible thoughts keeping me awake -- the children's misery, the questions we ask about Germans "how did they let it happen under their noses? How could they 'follow orders?'" -- I am also worried about the kids not being touched, and the kids being touched.
In every situation where children are left with adults not their parents, we have seen over and over that they are abused -- churches, scouting, sports teams, institutional hospitals -- why would we assume that on top of being ripped away from their parents, some of these children are not experiencing abuse?
What will Trump say when the first child dies? Has the first child already died?
22
“We love our children so much, it’s easy to mistake the strength of that feeling for invincibility.”
A brilliant perception, based on experience. Thank you.
4
“I tried telling her that it happens only to parents who don’t, or can’t, take care of their children. It happens only when parents aren’t doing what they’re supposed to do.”
In many instances the parents are doing nothing wrong, they are merely applying for asylum, fleeing Guatemalan gangs, for example. They are lucky to be alive. If they don’t apply in the proper way or at the proper time, they are prosecuted. The parents are yanked from the children’s lives, in many cases permanently. This is like dropping nerve agent on refugees for misdemeanors, with the bereaved, permanently traumatized children as collateral damage.
Refugees are not enemy combatants. They should be treated humanely. Obliterating families is cruel and unusual punishment, something you would expect from Syria’s Assad.
14
"But now it’s happening to people who are behaving exactly as good parents should. To parents who endure inconceivable hardship to get their children to this country, precisely in order to protect them." ... Really? I'd say these are bad parents, threatening the health and lives of their children, intentionally and knowingly breaking the law. If I were to take my child with me to rob a bank, I would be put in jail when caught and my child would be taken away from me. How is this different?
The people coming to the border with their children are not robbing a bank, although you seem to think they are robbing you. They make an arduous journey because things are so bad where they live they feel they have no choice. But you may not have to worry about this much longer. The way things are going the US is headed for a dystopian era when we will be the ones trying to emigrate and only mobsters and thieves will want to come here. That is not the country I want to live in and I will work very hard to save my country from that. Your lack of compassion tells me you stand on the other side of the fence. Guess you believe Ann Coulter that these are child actors and you don't care how they are treated.
2
It simply doesn't have to be this way. What is occurring at the border is a consequence of a hard-lime America First paranoia that was fostered and funded by the donor class of the Republican party, and reinforced by Fox News with its incessant pandering and mindless critique of anything that smacked of moderation and concern for others. It was cemented with the election of a self absorbed president who has populated his administration with opportunists interested only in a their own power and without a shred of the notion of service or any value other than personal profitability.
21
The left has lost its mind (as usual). The people attempting to cross our border aren't migrants, or immigrants --- THEY"RE PEOPLE who are illegally trying to enter our country. They are not American citizens who are functioning as foster parents or who are foster children.
No one likes the idea that we are having to separate families. But the left acts like US agents of Trump are crossing the border into Mexico, kidnapping people, dragging them back across the border and then separating families.
We certainly need to fix the immigration problem, but the left is pushing their position for political purposes. They aren't looking for a solution.
2
We don’t ‘have’ to separate families.
2
It's a MISDEMEANOR. Since when do we rip children from their parents over a misdemeanor? And these people are escaping horrors as it is, and then they are met with this by the US??? And stop saying that no one likes this idea. That is not true. If "no one" liked it, it would not be happening. Trump obviously liked it. And as for the hardcore sudden, black-and-white view of the law by Trump supporters, considering you voted for a man who was found to have defrauded thousands of Americans, and decry the Mueller investigation into illegal activity, among other things re: Trump's own lawbreaking, the claim that lawbreakers must be penalized and and treated inhumane tactics falls on these deaf ears.
1
The French should come and reclaim the Statue of Liberty. It is false advertising and it doesn't represent the present state of the US under Trump. Interesting that Trump admires authoritarian totalitarian dictators more than democratic leaders. Will the US become a member of the Axis Powers.
11
The foster children left in Ms. Cummins care were much more fortunate than the children separated from their parents at the border. They were put into a home, a home with caring adults, even foster grandparents. People defending our actions at the border refer to the situation faced by children whose native born parents have committed crimes and say we're doing nothing different with the children at the border. I have never heard of children of Americans accused of misdemeanors being held in cages with nothing but an aluminum foil blanket. Americans have witnessed the horrors of the concentration camps and the gulags and said, "That is not us, that is not what we stand for". Sorry folks, denial aside, that is us.
2
Trump has used his own family member as a way to get what he wants.
He did that to his own nephew,
For money.
He might not be addicted to alcohol or drugs, but he is addicted to money.
Too bad his wealth can't be confiscated like those kids are from their parents.
I hope that Mueller has found that there is money laundering, tax evasion, among other things involving money in Trump's dossier.
If Madoff can lose all, then Trump can too.
4
Thank you for sharing your experience with us. Heartfelt.
1
I just do not understand the logic in taking these children away from their parents and in essence making our country their foster parents. Isn't this exactly what Republicans say they don't want - more people dependant on our government? It seems that this will become a very costly - in human, moral and monetary terms - monster of their own making.
4
I wonder about those who support this approach to people seeking asylum and a future for their children. Do those pictures of wailing toddlers make you feel more secure? Less angry? How do you explain the news to your own children and grandchildren? Can you envision other methods that might slow immigration while supporting basic human rights?
This article clearly opens our eyes to the terrors visited upon children torn from parents and the lives they've known and dumped, literally, into an alternative world.
With these foster children, a safe place and regular food wasn't enough to ease their fears, and we can assume everyone involved here spoke the same language.
I weep to picture the torment these detained children will face for years to come and I am ashamed that my country is responsible for it
5
We are avoiding the real problem here
All of these people are fleeing their homes because they are afraid
I am sure most people would preferred to stay in their homes, jobs and with their families
We need to take a bigger look at the problem
A summit of Nations, focused on solving the gang violence, the drug running, the opioid addiction turned into heroine addiction that is plaguing all of our countries and causing such horrible results
Immigrants could be given temporary safe housing and be helpful in fixing the situation; identifying who the culprits are and their networks in their home countries
I am sure the temporary housing could be matched with work and education to pay for itself
Solve the problem so immigrants can go home
If we don’t fix the root of the problem we end up with foolish, cruel and expensive solutions
We as Americans are better this
5
Yes, but looking at the economic, political and social history of Central America, much of the violence and corruption points squarely back at us over the last 50, if not 100, years.
1
The administration feels it has no options under existing law. So Congress could immediately end the separations if they only decided to.
4
Oh, stop. Just stop. The President has cited no such law, and he could end the situation if he wanted to.
2
Well, I would say the "feelings" of the administration are disingenuous in this case, but that's not strong enough.
This is an outright lie.
The administration absolutely has options. Trump himself could immediately end the separations.
The administration does not want to solve this problem. They are using the children as bargaining chips, and don't have any "feelings" one way or the other about the lasting trauma they are causing them.
2
Dead false. The President could end this with a phone call.
2
Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
3
"Republicans are ostensibly the party of Christian family values "
The seizing of moral high ground by the hypocrites is complete when the author, a compassionate and bright individual, concedes this as reality. As America re-evaluates it soul in as the children cry, may we take a long hard look at the propaganda that allowed patriotism and religion to be part of the GOP brand. There is no pro-life here, nor is there an ounce of this butchery in Jefferson, Madison, Adams and Paine.
3
With this policy, the Trump Administration and its supporters crossed a line. We are much beyond what is decent and arguable. The expression "political evil" can no longer be avoided.
That Trump dares to say that he is applying "the law" or defending "national security", that his supporters dare to say that "child actors" are involved cannot be considered to be sad jokes anymore.
We are talking about direct insults to the humanity of those children and their families. To the humanity of all of us if there is a drop of empathy left in our blood. Particularly cruel insults.
I'm boycotting American products from this day on. And under no circumstance would I consider visiting a country with that policy in place.
14
We are the bad guys now. Our entire so called Justice system is by definition is guilty of crimes against humanity there's nothing nothing we do that can be construed as "good".
6
“It’s not a deterrent; it’s forcing migrants to make an absurd, unnecessary, detestable choice: Would you prefer to keep your children in a dangerous place or risk losing them in a place you can only hope will be safer?”
With respect, the author (and many others), still seem to have trouble seeing the truly “deplorable” nature of the Trump administration. “Absurd, unnecessary, detestable” choices are the GOAL of this policy. US asylum and immigration policy is to become more monstrous in the minds of immigrants/asylum-seekers than whatever dangers they are fleeing in their home country. Whatever might be happening to a person elsewhere, Trump, Sessions, Miller, Kelly and hardline immigration hawks want the world to know: the US is willing to do worse.
Many parents would quite literally rather risk death than have their child taken away by an unknown person to an undisclosed place for an indeterminate period of time. The cynical creation and exploitation of fear, hatred, jingoism and paranoia is the essence of the #MAGA political campaign strategy.
19
Ms Cummins explained to her daughter, "It happens only when parents aren’t doing what they’re supposed to do." She then indicates that statement was incorrect.
No, that statement IS correct. ILLEGAL immigrants broke the law by crossing the border ILLEGALLY! Regardless of their reasons, they came without permission, There are thousands of others,from the very same countries on lists, waiting for legal entry. Allowing those who feel rules are for others to stay, makes a mockery of out system.
BTW, If these kids are traumatized, blame their parents. What about all the American offspring whose legal American parents are in American prisons because they were convicted of crimes. Should we free them all because they have children?
2
I notice the author is a former foster parent and obviously knows little about why the system exists. For foster children it is a temporary reprieve from the horrible existence they have with their birth parents. People who just pop out kids and then ignore them or use them for their criminal activity.
It is no different from what these people at the border are doing. I am also not surprised that there are Americans who see nothing wrong with their behavior. The United States has the highest infant mortality rate of an industrialized nation.
One of the reasons is a continued belief in this country that children are the property of their parents, like a handbag, that can be used any way thy want. Another reason is a lack of universal healthcare. How ironic that the children in those camps will probably get access to better healthcare and treatment than the children of many American citizens. I notice the media and politicians aren't outraged over that.
These people knowingly have hordes of children they can't afford. Then they drag them around for miles and coach them on how to lie just to get in the United States. In some cases these kids are being passed around to various relatives or friends to used. Stop pretending human trafficking isn't an issue where these people come from.
The detention camps where the children are living away from these so called parents will probably be the best time in their lives.
4
So you think these screaming children were 'coached' to behave that way by parents who are so desperate for a better life or so abused in their home countries that they take the time to profusely propogate ? And they should be 'grateful' that they have been ripped from their parents arms and placed in these wonderful locked cages like animals ? I don't think so. We all understand that immigration reform should include standardized protocols and appropriate protection of our borders. But we behave in a compassionate and morally conscious manner in this country - regardless of who is within or without our borders because we are humans first and as citizens of this great country, we are models of ethics and decency. It's regrettable that you have set your standards far lower than this. Mine and my fellow citizens remain higher.
6
Helllen, NJ:
What about the caged children's Mental Health Care? What do you recommend? Any thoughts?
But: Even if the physical health care they are receiving temporarily is (by someone's standard) "adequate", you - and I don't know what source of health history the teens, children and toddlers are providing the doctors with. Right? Since their parents are not present for exams and there is probably a severe documentation problem.
Now back to any existing program to address the mental health issue. So far all we know is it consists of a guard saying "Don't cry."
In a few years, one of these kids will be Willie Horton-ized when he emerges from the chain link fencing of this meat grinder. And you will learn of the new anecdote-as-news from Hannity.
1
Says the person who has never carried a child a thousand miles to seek safety.
2
When Trump was elected, my 8 year-old adopted grandson asked his mother if Trump would send him back to South Carolina. Kids don't understand the context and worry. Sad.
3
This entire column is based on a false premise, namely that parents of these children are "behaving exactly as good parents should."
That about like saying I'm going to drag my kids thru Death Valley and show up somewhere expecting to be fed, clothed, and housed -- all for free -- in hopes that someday I and/or my offspring will become employed and pay enough taxes for various governments to recoup 3% of what they have expended to sustain us.
What's wrong with this picture?
2
I state the following as a fact, and I will stand by it until someone can prove otherwise: Donald J. Trump has never changed a child's diaper. I realize he is not alone. A man cannot nurse his child, and thus does not have that mother-child bond. Changing a soiled diaper may be the closest thing a father can experience to it. It is, first of all humbling. That, by itself, is proof that Trump has never once performed the act, the service, of caring for a helpless person. One cannot do so without sensing that he, too, was once helpless, and very well may become so again.
None of us has any recall of having our diapers changed. Our brains are too immature; they lack the structure of language to give sense to things experienced, for one thing. Trump, never having cared, physically, for another human being in any way other than lust, is thus not concerned with the consequences of family rupture. The concept is meaningless to him. This is why he says, "We have to separate" children from their parents; not because there is any security reason. It is a sadist's pleasure.
Ms. Cummins's daughter is justified in her fear. In a totalitarian regime, which is the direction Trump (and his apologists known as Republicans) are taking this country, separation of families is accepted practice. It is necessary to maintain the fear of authority; it does not one thing to promote respect for authority.
48
Great post. I disagree on one point, however. Trump and his apologists are not taking this country back. They have stolen and looted it. There will be payback.
Come on man. Changing my baby's diaper was the easiest thing I ever did and I did it allot. I don't know and neither do you whether Donald Trump ever changed a diaper. Maybe Mueller can ask him if he ever gets the opportunity. The problem with Trump is not whether he has changed a diaper, but rather that he is arguably the most powerful person on the planet and has no idea or doesn't care what he is doing.
As a non-Christian, I'm more than weary with the faith equating itself with virtue and justice. I see a disproportion of our nation's current hate-mongering volleyed in the name of Christianity. Some prominent Christian clergy like Robert Jeffress embraces our president as a spiritual leader. I implore Christians to re-examine their public sanctimony; it's far from an example of righteous lives.
17
I am deeply concerned about those immigrant children.
However, they are coming to a country which also has extreme poverty and high crime rates. Try living in any inner city in the United States and you will find children (often innocent and young) being killed.
And more than likely those immigrant children will be living in cities that have high poverty rates and high murder rates.
They certainly will not be living in the neighborhoods where the 1% live.
One other thought. We just pulled out of the UN human rights group. Probably a good thing, before we got kicked out. The United States is guilty of human rights abuses because of the way we treat minority groups and immigrants.
5
There is not enough space here to comment on "Republicans are ostensibly the party of Christian values". I will say that the families described herein are exactly the kinds that we should welcome into this country. If you are willing to endure the pains of a thousand mile migration in order to build a better life for your children you have proven that you have the values we (should) cherish. These children will grow up with the best of role models, will assimilate, and will no doubt be key to the next wave of American prosperity - like the English, French, Polish, Irish, Swedish, German, Chinese, and all other waves have been in the past.
5
Here is a chance for enlightened mayors of small towns with diminishing populations to stand up and say, "send me 20 families." The fallacy of overpopulation in the United States is rampant, and if you asked people to settle in the thousands of small towns that need workers, businesses and children in the school systems, they'd go there with gratitude, and in a heartbeat. Come on, American mayors! Get together with your colleagues and take a stand! Save your towns with a new wave of immigration! They're perfect: they work hard, they have families, they're mostly Christian, they mostly speak one of the world's great languages--and will happily learn English, too.
8
Okay, reasonable idea to bring asylum seekers to small towns--on the surface. However, how would they get around with no public transportation--if they are not citizens they won't be getting drivers licenses. Don't even go there. How about grocery stores to shop in? There are already people living in small towns who are looking for work. Some US citizens, in order to retain Medicaid, need to have jobs. What about housing? Too many variables and I don't think people in small towns (especially the deep South) would welcome an influx of foreign people.
I'm thinking north--which is it: articles about the empty midwest towns like Wisconsin or northern Minnesota, or over population. We have both. We could remedy at least one.
I live in glorious suburbia. I see Latinos walking miles along the highway to get to their restaurant jobs. Small towns have housing in the core...because other people have moved out to the lakes, the country. Workers will find a way to get to where they need to go....
This president continues to create undue trauma--- on purpose --which he admits is motivated for poll numbers and the dedicated cult of Trump.
The cages are referred to by unit workers as "the dog pound" and the warehouse is "the ice box" where fans + air conditioning freeze those kept there. It's abuse.
Despite negative impact explained, the president sees it in terms of himself. We must recall that psychiatrists and psychologists came forward with a duty to warn that Trump is dangerous/unfit.
The Department of Homeland Security informs us if you see something, say something. Psychiatrists did. Now Mr. Trump is frustrated with bad press, and could escalate with additional brutal policies in response. We are in trouble.
23
It is torture, physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual. Some of these children will die. Many of the babies are left in dirty diapers.
1
So far the profession treats the enabling Congress with kid gloves.
1
It feels like the very future of our nation and the entire world is at stake right now, given a docile and complicit Republican Party. I have never felt worse or less hopeful.
We all know this but we must act immediately. Google the names and phone numbers of your senators and congressmen and leave a voicemail expressing shock, disbelief and outrage at the Trump administration's actions towards refugee families. This is wrong, immoral and self -defeating. From a position of self-interest, we have a huge labor shortage! The people in the news committing mass murders are white men with guns. Remove politics from the equation and the answers are clear.
7
The dishonesty from the left is at new heights here. You can decry this supposed "cruelty" (people are separated all the time during criminal proceedings), but you don't have any solutions. What do you propose the administration does with these people? We don't have the facilities to house individual families together while their pretextual asylum claims are adjudicated. If we just release them with a promise to show up to court, which 90% of them won't, then they'll disappear into the undocumented underground never to be heard from again. Then, 10 years down the road, if they're discovered, if anyone attempts to deport them, you'll say, "They were just looking for a better life for themselves and their families, and you can't deport their innocent, precious children from the only country they know."
So please just admit that you want complete open borders with no enforcement. That would be more honest than this display of crocodile tears.
2
People need to stop equating what's happening with these immigrant children and the children of incarcerated parents. Parents who are in jail know where their children are living, which is usually with relatives. They can speak to them by telephone. They can visit with them on visiting days. They can write and receive letters, cards, photos, school papers.
It is entirely different than what those immigrant families are experiencing. They have no idea where their children were taken, who is caring for them, or if they'll ever see them again. Adding to that, Homeland Security doesn't even keep track of the children. How will they ever be reunited with their parents, when the US government doesn't even know where they all are? This is way more cruel than anything parents that are incarcerated go through.
What our government is doing to the immigrant families is criminal--kidnapping by the state. And, it's disgusting.
9
You don’t want this to happen to you? VOTE THEM OUT IN NOVEMBER. Then, let’s talk about reasonable immigration laws and enforcing the laws we do have without separating families.
4
Where is our righteous Christian outrage? Lost, unfortunately, in the shell game of politics. At first, politics demanded that Christians vote for a candidate who betrays all their professed virtues, so that by some magic we can have a country that somehow possesses those virtues. Now it no longer seems necessary for the country have them either. Instead we have a country that lies, and struts, and brags, and supports authoritarian dictators over democracies, and now abuses children, and to what purpose? What, exactly is the end game here?
14
Yep.
We are lost as a nation with no moral center.
#VichyRepublicans
#VichyChristians
#VichyHumans
Hopefully there will be a next president (if trump doesn’t declare himself dictator) who can say “I inherited a mess.” And truthfully mean it.
2
Things got so bad here, down in our little Southern town, what with the drug-addled thievery, the poverty, the racism, we gave up.
We knew it was time to get out of here.
We fled to Canada for protection, leaving everything behind.
But when we got there, they took away our kids and put them in a holding cell with the other kids of people looking for protection, claiming refuge, just like us.
We are still waiting for status. They say the kids are ok.
But now the shoes are on the other feet.
1
Our nation should be drowning in tears....but the GOP and Trump are still playing political power games. When is enough enough?
1
Except these parents were not doing what they should have. They risked their lives and by bringing their children, theirs as well. Although I don’t believe separation is good for children, parents who choose to pursue illegal activities can and will be prosecuted. And will be separated from their families. Americans go to jail and leave children behind. It’s a price to pay for breaking the law.
2
Trump is not religious, Republican, Democrat or a caring person. So let's not expect something that is not going to happen. Trump loves the chaos and the press is feeding it. But don't stop feeding just because Trump enjoys such reactions. With just a bit of luck, we can take both houses in November. We need to be very careful about Russian interference this November. Note that Trump was most likely illegally elected. He cheats at everything. He will do it again if allowed. This situation with the separation of families is appalling but I have great doubt that Trump will end it. It is more fun for him if he can keep this going. It has left the Russian investigation in the dust and serves as one of his most disgusting acts. When you don't about anything but yourself, nothing matters except protecting your overinflated ego.
6
Is it possible that the GOP has been masquerading as the party of Christian values until their agenda was better suited by open corruption, greed and evil? What is happening at the border is evil, pure and simple. History, although it often does not move as quickly as we would like, has not been kind to evil regimes. Hard to believe, but we are now an evil empire. It is up to us to change this. At the polls and, if necessary, in the streets.
1
Maybe it is time for the United States to prosecute illegal immigrants entering the country with children for child abuse and endangerment. These people choose not to report to a Port of Entry and apply for asylum but instead expose their children to grave threats to their lives and emotional trauma by illegally attempting to enter our country. On a positive note, Trump's policies are reported by the Times to be having an effect on illegal migrants decisions to criminally enter the United States.
2
These parents are acting out of desperation to protect their children. We have become the abusers.
2
Not true B Windrip. Over 80% of these people are having their applications for asylum denied. Almost none of them are fleeing Mexico. They are economic migrants who want access to America's economic opportunity. We can't take in all of the world's poor just because life is hard in their countries. We have a right to systematically decide who to admit.
Have you not read that many did this but we have too few judges to hear the cases. Trump said he doesn't want judges. He doesn't care what the are escaping.
1
Witnessing what we are witnessing at the southern US border today gives us ALL reason to be afraid. Our fear will be turned to constructive ends only if we excise its source.
At a minimum, please make your voice heard to the people who act in your name in Congress.
Be afraid, but be brave.
2
"Christian outrage." There is no such thing in the country where the so-called Christians support an immoralist like Trump and his policies that continue to harm people. The word "Christian" has no real meaning anymore to me and a lot of others who see the hypocrisy we refused to believe was there and is now revealed. A house cleaning is in order.
3
Ask yourself if Trump will declare a war, re-institute the draft and then draft your sons and daughters? I know many in D.C. are expecting this ploy. Lower headcount in anti-Trump demonstrations, selective draftees drawn from Blue states, and control of free speech via the military. So don't count on your young adult children being immune from this Tyrant.
1
Trump claims that he is a Christian. His supporters pretend that he is a Christian. This issue is a test of faith for both of them, and they are both coming up short.
4
Absolutely the best argument I've heard on the immorality of separating innocent children from their parents, and best argument on the hypocrisy of the Republican "Christian Values" stance. It should be read in congress!
4
'I told my kids this kind of separation happens only to children whose parents don’t do the right thing. But now it’s happening to people who are behaving exactly as good parents should. To parents who endure inconceivable hardship to get their children to this country, precisely in order to protect them.'
Not so. On the face of it, it appears that the parents whose kids are being taken away are sneaking illegally across a porous border. The parents waiting patiently in line at the official ports of entry into the USA are not being separated from their kids.
'For those seeking asylum at ports of entry, we have continued the policy from previous Administrations and will only separate if the child is in danger, there is no custodial relationship between 'family' members, or if the adult has broken a law.' ~ tweet by Kirstjen Nielsen
Of course, such is the dishonesty and incompetence of the current White House Administration, Nielsen could be lying, misinformed or mistaken. In which case, the NYT needs to provide precise, concrete proof of this.
1
If it weren't for a free press, we would never know the horror Trump and his anti-immigrant storm troopers have unleashed on our southern border. From championing human rights around the world, our nation has become a human rights abuser. Trump can never be forgiven for this stain on our values and our international reputation.
5
We now live in a time when the content of our characters matter more than ever before.
No more hiding behind expedience or convenient excuses.
Now is the time for all good citizens to come to the aid of their country.
2
I can understand the interest in helping foster children whose parents can't take care of them because of drug abuse, abandonment, etc.. But it seems that the writer's biological children are being needlessly exposed to a foster child's trauma, and thus becoming traumatized themselves. That is unfortunate.
1
It's about hate.
The passions of hate determine our national policy these days. King Donald is never so happy as when he is putting down people and nations as a way to build himself up before his supporters.
Only the King knows best.
Only the King does no wrong.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
10
There are 10's of millions in full agreement with you, and therein, waiting impatiently, is the guillotine which will end this evil chapter in our history.
1
While these stories break my heart, and I feel like we're living through some real world version of The Empire Strikes Back where the white patriarchy is winning, part of me suspects that we're being lured into a giant trap.
Let's consider who these immigrants are; many from Central America are deeply conservative, either Catholic or Evangelical. They have traditional attitudes regarding women's rights, gay rights, and "work ethic." Those from the Middle East are even more culturally conservative, and I think we're all seeing how right wing many East Asians can be when it comes to defending discriminatory standards for school admissions.
What if Trump is luring us into supporting open borders and amnesty (I for one support both), so that in a decade or two the Trump base can align with these newcomers to overwhelm the progressives.
I bring this up because while this author is right to adopt children and share what she has with others, I wonder what she could be doing to "de-program" her foster children, and push them beyond the rigid gender binaries and superstitions they may have been raised with. Because unless we de-program these immigrants, if all we do is take them in, I feel like they're going to take their trauma and then turn toward a strong man when one reaches out to them.
This is why the progressive fight needs to be multi-faceted, relentless, and deep. No child is too young, no culture is too distant, and no level of discomfort is too deep to break.
2
If we have "open borders" then every other country needs to do so also. Otherwise, being the only country with open borders means every person on earth will want to settle here. Not to mention we would have no idea if criminals or those who want to do us harm will be entering. Pure folly.
We have 5% of the population, and 25% of the world's wealth. Ergo, we stole it. Ergo, it's time to give back.
This is why we are obligated to open our borders when others aren't, especially those who have been oppressed.
On the same principle, European countries need to open their borders too. They caused the Crusades, and it was their colonialism that damaged the region so badly. So if those people want to restrict churches and expel Jewish and Christian people, I believe they have a right to. At the same time though, they still have a strong claim for being able to migrate at will into Europe and into the United States.
This isn't rocket science. The home you live in, the money you make, none of it was fairly earned and it's high time that those stolen goods were shared more equitably with those who were oppressed.
These are difficult times for Republicans. They're ostensibly for some higher goals: family values, safety, rule of law, freedom, charity, life, honesty. Yet they seem to adhere to "the ends justify the means" mentality. For example, who in their right mind looks at a gun safety and asks, "How can more guns reduce in our society fix school shootings?"
The solution starts with honesty. Sadly, the top man is not honest.
3
My heart swelled up as I read your story. You and your family were heroes. You took in two children and gave them a home and provided them with care, love and stability as they wrangled with intense, emotional turmoil due to being separated from their parents. It must have been a very painful experience working with the little one and I thank you for your ceaseless efforts. I can only imagine that your seven year old started to have anxiety, especially when you mentioned you were immigrants. It hit too close to home for her. I work with foster care children as a volunteer through Family Court. Currently I am working with two girls who are in the custody of a relative, but that was almost lost recently and I cringed at the thought of the girls being displaced. My girls are very, very attached to their Mom and love her dearly and want to live with her, but for now that is not happening. You were right to explain things to your daughter about being good parents. I hope that waylaid her fears. As a former Assistant Principal, I worked in a school with a large immigrant population and we were immediately given directives as to how to handle a situation if ICE showed up. We were not to turn children over!!! I forget whom we were suppose to call, but it was and still is very scary.
3
We are not looking at the real problem. It isn't the immigration laws for those parents who are sincere about giving their children a better life in America, it is the conditions they are coming from. What as Americans can we do about that? Poverty in Honduras, gangs in El Salvador, drug cartels in other places? We have protected many people in the world when it was in our national interest to do so. We are deeply engaged in the Mid East conflict to keep 911 from happening again. Isn't this immigration problem in our best interests as well? By helping to fix the root cause, there would be less parents willing to leave their homes in the first place. Let's figure out the root cause of this problem, not put on a band-aid at the border. A wall is not the answer. Tougher laws are not the answer. Abusing children is not the answer. Let's be human beings first and politicians last.
6
For two decades I have worked as a volunteer to educate parents and grandparents whose children and grandchildren have serious emotional or behavioral struggles. Too many of their children were removed from their homes after reporting parental abuse, most without adequate inquiry, some with no inquiry.
A woman whose first job out of college was visiting homes to determine whether a child should be removed from the home. She told me she did not know what she was doing. She was smart, savy, and from a top college. She did not seem to have a sense of remorse when she said this to me.
There are many wonderful foster parents and many horrific ones. But taking children away from parents is business as usual for the Departments of Child and Family Services across the country. They are really, really good at it.
4
I fear like himself, many of his supporters are hate filled & bigoted because they did not have loving parents as children. They say, look at me I wasn’t loved & I turned out ok (?).
I was tutoring Somali/Muslim first graders in November, 2016, when Trump was elected. Even at their young age, many of them sensed that Trump stormtroopers would be coming for them and their families. Many of Trump’s supporters sensed the same thing. In fact, that’s precisely why they were Trump supporters.
27
What kind of record keeping is there of where and who? With the multiple of languages as a barrier, what will happen to get an accurate accounting of the whereabouts of children and families?
17
HHS admitted recently that they have lost track of thousands of children. The agency attempted to contact the sponsors of children that have been placed over the past year, but thousands did not respond. Some sponsors said the children were no longer in their care, but didn't know where they were. All told, it's estimated that Trump's government has lost track of around 6,000 children. But, the administration claims this is not their problem, because once a child is placed with a sponsor, the government is no longer responsible for the child. You'd think they were talking about dogs for all the concern the administration shows.
2
Given what we learned about what UN troops did in Somalia and the south Sudan --raped children in their care-- I am also extremely worried about children being abused in numerous ways, and like you, think the potential for children to be "lost" in this nightmare is immense.
It is not a pleasant feeling, as millions of us are learning, to be disgusted with your own country. There are no words to accurately convey what this feels like.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/united-nations-soldiers-paedophilia...
In the meantime the Dows drops another 287 points as a result of Trumps economic policy on tariffs.
Trump is a genius .
21
Yet when it was rising, the liberal pundits all claimed it's not an indicator of a strong economy for the ordinary person. How convenient for the Democrats that the same data can support two sides of an argument. Typical.
2
And what about the special needs children, or the ones with chronic conditions that need ongoing medication?
An epidemic could start and run rampant since no knows about the immunization of the little ones or the others?
The horror has just Begun, I fear.
24
"If it could happen to them,why can't that happen to us?"
This question gets to the essence of what it's like to live under an authoritarian government. It's a question everyone, particularly Trump supporters, should be asking themselves.
98
It's a question the illegal immigrants should be asking themselves as well. My advice to them: Go! Flee! --to a safe place on the other side of our borders.
2
I've come to realize they literally don't do questions. The Guardian had an article a few months ago about the fact that Trump supporters do not consume news, many of them don't even watch FOX. They, themselves, confirmed this. They do not want their world order and blind convictions challenged.
Trump appeared to offer the comfort of not having to think or make choices. His bluster presented as knowledge. His thuggery as toughness. His phobias and prejudices confirmed their own biases in comforting ways.
That--this blind, hard obstinacy and refusal to consider other stories and views--is precisely why these children have been thrust into this nightmare.
I read yesterday that Trump wants to "round up" Puerto Ricans, who are American citizens. So yes, if Puerto Ricans can be rounded up at the order of a lunatic President, so can any other citizen.
1
I came to the US legally at age 8. My family came for a better life because Europe was still recovering from World War II. I still remember the raw strangeness as we went through customs. I did not speak english so I had to keep asking my parents what the gruff immigration agents were saying as they ordered my parents through the entry process. I was very afraid even with my parents there. The experience left me with separation anxiety for years. I can only imagine they damage we are doing to these children. I also know that my legal status came because of a quirk in the immigration laws. I have have heard some legal immigrants claim that because they came here legally they are morally superior to those who are undocumented. I cannot accept that an obscure clause in the immigration regulations at the time makes me morally superior to those who who did not have that advantage.
113
Would the press and the politicians please explain to the American public the difference between a policy and a law. The president can make policy but it is not a law. The president cannot make laws. Only congress can make laws.
21
They are following the law. For years, out of compassion, the previous administrations made it their policy not to separate families.
6
The previous administration was also following the law.
The current administration decided to change policy.
And that difference is huge.
6
DKC: The law does not require this separation. The Obama "law" the administration refers to is non-existent, a complete fabrication. Equally, the decision in the Flores case does not require this. Custody does not require incarceration, nor does it require separation of families. Those tent cities and Walmarts could be holding families, not crying infants. The current horror is purely a discretionary matter on the part of the administration.
9
And what of the child who is separated from their parents when the parents commit a crime - including natural-born US citizens? Where is the outcry for them? Where is the outcry for the parents & family members such as Kate Steinle's parents who were also separated, permanently, from their daughter after she was murdered by an illegal immigrant?
I think we should do all that we can to keep these kids with their parents. I am a parent too. But then if we are willing as a nation to be a place of refuge for these families, then we should establish dedicated ports of entry along the southern border akin to Ellis Island and direct immigrants to enter there and be processed in accordance with the law. And let's also remember the families who have suffered loss as a result of our uncontrolled immigration policies.
17
The difference? They had a trial with a real lawyer. The children had a guardian ad litem who represent them in court and other government agencies. Do you see that happening here? These people went to designated ports of entry and were turned away, after days/weeks they were desperate and crossed a little further down. This was by design of the Trump Administration.
32
These are the same nonsense GOP talking points trotted out by a conservative talk show host being interviewed on NPR yesterday. She ignored the questions and the issues, and spouted the same phrases word for word as you are doing here Keith.
A child separated from a parent when the parent goes to jail is not incarcerated in a different cage because Jeff Sessions wants a deterrent.
Kate Steinle was an adult victim accidentally killed by a homeless man who fired a gun he found on the street.
1
Those parents know where their children are and can reasonable expect to be reunited with them upon completion of their sentence.
1
The only moral justification for forcibly removing a child from their parent is to protect the child.
An impartial hearing in a court where the burden of proof is on the child-taker to establish the danger to the child, and convincingly argue that all other less draconian means are insufficient to that end, is an ethical necessity.
Period.
Anything else crosses the line into immoral barbarism - and while I'm generally skeptical of 'slippery slope' arguments, human history has repeatedly and graphically demonstrated the slipperiness of the slope beyond THAT line.
Obedience to the law or potential societal benefits are ethically insufficient justifications for forcibly removing a child from their parent without the due process described above.
These are mothers and their children! Reflect on that. Imagine yourself in their situation. Ponder that. And, finally, consider what further greater transgressions you'd accept - and by accepting invite - beyond this.
73
I feel, perhaps, this final insult perpetrated on all of us, by Trump, and his legions, will awaken us from this truly unbelievable evil we are permitting.
1
Thank you for reminding us of a few of the ways such trauma impacts children. While I'm still flummoxed by the people condoning the forced separation of immigrating parents and their children, I'm also hopeful that so many of us are putting our intense emotions into action designed to end this barbaric practice.
50
its being reported that many, if not most, of these snatched kids will never be returned to their parents.
the government has been winging it with no system for reuniting families. his is a needless tragic crisis totally manufactured by Donald Trump to make himself appear "tough" to his angry base of anti immigrant racists.
I've also heard it won't stop with border crossings and that a newly created data office of naturalized citizens will be conducting purges if their application process.
This is Trump's America: it begins with Latino border crossings and proceeds to naturalized citizens. He won't stop in this quest to purge brown-skinned people.
who is next? which ethnicities or undesirables are next?
I've never seen reporters cry over a government policy before.
this is no different from the ethnic cleansing of the 30s in Europe or today's targeting of migrants in Poland and Hungary.
I this really what unemployed coal miners and angry white retirees voted for?
148
Christine, there are no words to adequately describe this nightmare of evil the American government is forcing on those least able to protect themselves.
Not that I'm at all religious, but I do believe in the natural instinctive parental or not, response to danger to our offspring, which is "Protect, and nurture, regardless the cost, the least of our people.
It is said, from ancient times, and repeatedly by Mother Theresa, "One of her favorite texts in the Bible, which she often quoted to support her ministry to the poor, is "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me" (Matthew 25:40, 45, NIV).
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Christine,
“Who is next?” Indeed! Were Liberals to regain power they would reinstitute policies designed to reduce wages and increase government dependency.
This is about who controls our borders American Citizens or a variety of interests that benefit from increased immigration. The question not addressed here is that 80% of the “Asylum claims” are rejected ultimately. Since those making the claims know that they fail to show up for any subsequent immigration hearings.
In the past (Obama) those falsely claiming “Asylum” and their families could simply disappear into the underground economy that feeds off of them (Thus depressing low income wages) while hoping for ultimate Amnesty
How many of the current “Asylum Seakers” will be separated from their families because they fail to show up for subsequent immigration hearings?
As I'm reading this, CBS is reporting that babies and toddlers are being detained and held apart from their parents.
That a third shelter in Texas is being opened to house more babies and toddlers.
Babies and toddlers. Taken from their parents and caged.
If this is how Republicans govern, we no longer need them.
Vote Democratic on November 6th.
Changing Congress is our best hope to begin fixing this.
I was a child once, weren't you?
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I was a child indeed, but my parents didn’t break the law. I guess having a child with you is supposed to be a get out of jail free card?
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Ok let’s just vote for a person’s policy or agenda not along party lines because that is what got us to the current situation. Both parties are not perfect but the extreme of both parties are not helpful to our country. They are obviously polar opposites and cannot or will not come to the middle to work for the betterment of the country. They are both only interested in being right and in power. Their beliefs/agendas are not for the benefit of the whole country but for a segment of population. Each side is only interested in enacting policies that will help them with the better chance of being elected re-elected. So can we stop bashing each other and realize we need to work together to preserve the best parts of this country that make America great. We must remember why and how this country was founded. Yes we have many flaws and dark histories but overall we are a place of freedom and self determination
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If you want new to vote for Democrats, don't offer me Democrats that promise to compromise with Republicans.
Compromise with Republicans is tantamount to treason.
The misdoings of the parents are not the point. Whether they are right or wrong, it is the children who are being punished. Many are far too young to understand what is going on, and the trauma is real and will continue to unfold in their lives. By separating them from their parents, we are creating additional and unnecessary problems for the future as well as the present.
Even if the parents are in the wrong (and I'm not saying that they are), that does not excuse such a draconian response.
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I haven’t seen any MS-13 tattoos on any of these babies so that lie that they are gang members is broken. Would smugglers write their contact information on the kids clothing? Wrong in so many ways.
Anything to create mass hysteria in his base. Cruel, Monsterous, Disgusting, UN-American!
I was born in the depths of the Depression and studied The Rise and Fall of The Roman Empire in school.
Now I’m living through The Rise and Fall of the United States of America that future generations will study.
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No way will the US endure for the roughly 1800 year history of Rome and fragments of its empire.
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I'm really getting sick of people acting like it's somehow the end of the greatest country in the world.
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
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Thanks for a painful, but eye-opening piece. One of the many things that infuriate me about the current family separation is the claim some on the right make that "they are only using the children as pawns." Do they suppose that a Latino parent brings his/her 3 year old on a journey "only" as a pawn? They are fleeing violence (or hunger). Who in their right mind would imagine such a parent would leave his/her child behind?
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The children are being used as pawns- by the trump administration.
What is missing from this piece is mention of the role that the United States plays in fostering the poverty and violence in many of the places from which the refugees are fleeing. Democratic governments at times are overthrown in military coups encouraged or even organized by America. A large public record shows this, and a joke I've heard when in other countries is that America has never suffered a coup because there is no American ambassador in Washington to order a coup. American corporations are supported by our government in exploiting other lands to elevate their profits. Deportees from the United States often make up much of the membership of the gangs who terrorize the lands in which they themselves are strangers having become gangsters in America. Neoliberal economic austerity programs further impoverish those already poor. Privatization is forced on other countries so that American and British bankers, among other, can exploit the resources of poor countries.
American hands are unclean and, to a far larger extent than we can understand from reading newspapers like the NY Times, we are responsible to a large extent for the plight of the refugees whose children are being tortured through separation when arriving at our borders. Many of these people are arriving at our borders because of what we have done to them in their own lands.
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Yes! Remember our support for Papa Doc, Batista and the other Banana Republic dictators we supported.
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Western science brought life-extending vaccinations to places with high birth rates, without the cultural shift to reduced birth rates that eventually set in throughout the first world nations.
Missionaries sought more converts for God, so they did not think about the cultural transition between a precarious existence stalked by famine and disease, requiring a high replacement rate just to sustain population, and the technological culture that allows many people like me to attain ages unheard of in pre-modern times.
Amazing how people who want to detain immigrants and separate them from their children ignore the statistics on alternatives. In fact, more than 90 percent of immigrants show up for hearings. Many are monitored with radio location bracelets or daily check-in phone calls. They don't have to be jailed and separated from their children to ensure they won't disappear.
Trump also lies about the problem of immigrants bringing crime. In fact, crime statistics show immigrants commit fewer crimes than native born Americans. Add to that the need of many industries for immigrant labor because Americans won't do the hardest work, and policies designed to prevent immigration deny them a work force that is almost universally praised for hard work and determination to do well in their new country.
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Yes. If there was no work in the US for immigrants, legal or illegal, it would be a less attractive place to flee too. It's ironic that Trump made his money in construction and hotels, two industries that rely on illegal labor to keep costs in line. Basically, women and men, the ones who's work allowed him to be a very wealthy man, are now being abused, held, so that he can have some good optics for his fan base.
The rhetoric of immigrants stealing jobs from uneducated whites is sad and wrong. Uneducated whites don't DO the immigrant jobs. They don't want those jobs.
Why they continue to support a party who just makes their life worse is beyond me. Holding Central Americans at the border is not going to bring $25 an hour manufacturing jobs back. It's not going to make education more accessible. It's not going to help people get new skills. It's not going to make life better for the MAGA set.
A lot of people have been automated out of work, which is sad, going to get worse and a hard problem to fix. Americans don't want jobs that pay minimum wage (and why would they- those jobs don't pay enough to justify the costs of getting to work). Making scape goats out of people who are desperate does nothing to help that situation.
Above all, Trump needs to go.
As a mom, and an immigrant (I left the US for Germany in 2005 and have kids here) the stories about children being torn from their parents haunts me in a deep way.
Like the people seeking asylum in the United States, I left the US after experiencing firsthand the results of US foreign (9/11) and domestic (police brutality) policies.
I found love and a home in Germany. My children, 9 and 5, hold dual citizenship. I have permanent residency and a secure job (not a given for immigrants here!) My children, and I, are safe. Yet the images of small children - not much littler than mine - crying for their parents, crying for comfort, will not leave my mind.
Here in Germany there is a common understanding what it means to be a refugee, and how important human rights are, for all of us. Except for the increasingly loud voices on the far right -who Trump is using, and who are using Trump's ideas to justify their hatred of immigrants and particularly Muslim refugees - there is a societal consensus that war is terrible and refugees deserve protection.
Any one of us could be the Salvadoreans or Guatemalans, the Syrians, Afghanis, Sudanese seeking refuge elsewhere. We are all human beings and it is time to call for a politics that recognizes this.
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How are you going to do that from Germany. Did you really believe that your children weren't safe in the USA because of 9/11? I also noticed a new attitude after 9/11, but I realized it was ridiculous and perpetrated by a bunch of clownish fascists just coming out of the closet. My child at the time was in kindergarten and for a few days I kept her at home in Los Angeles, because like everyone else I wasn't sure what was happening exactly. But I never left this country and I am still convinced to this day that the safest place to raise children is here. I think the migrants also realize this for their own children.
You were correct when you told your child "It happens only when parents aren’t doing what they’re supposed to do." You've provided a pithy, warm description of childrens' ungrounded fears, but you have not shown any evidence that this statement is in any way untrue. It happens only when parents aren’t doing what they’re supposed to do!
Further, Trump has escalated these separations, but the policy and a substantial number of seperations predate this administration. Obama seperated children from their parents.
This whole affair with all the rightious indignation makes for terrific news - in that Memorial-Day-to-Labor-Day sort of "everybody's talking about it" way - but it's not headed toward any more sustainable policies.
We cannot let everybody in and, at the same time, build the social welfare systems and infrastructure we desire. We just cannot do that. That's not a law of the land, it's a law of physics.
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I grew up in New York City, and on a clear day I could see the statue in the distance. The one with an inscription that reads send me your poor, your timed, your huddled masses yearning to be free.
We have traditionally been the beacon of freedom throughout the world, and so many immigrant groups first faced discrimination and poverty, then within a few generations were able to partake of the American dream of security and relative prosperity.
With the average age of our population increasing, immigration of relatively young people willing to work hard to establish themselves in a new country are a necessity if we are to maintain our high standard of living.
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The Issue of separation of families and non acceptance of asylum seekers are two separate actions. Families should be kept together. The the families who are not accepted are sent back together. The United States did this during the early 50's.
During the Obama Administration, Families were not separated. Children were removed from folks who brought children across the border who were not related.
The US immigration system I'd dysfunctional and the actions the US is now enforcing is an extension of that dysfunction. POTUS is adding to the mayhem by enforcing separation and not developing a plan for the long term care of the incarcerated children. The US government is creating an orphan population.
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I agree, David. But your proposal is for a policy that allows for immigration, not for an "open boarders" policy. I'm no advocate for Trump - the funny thing is that George W had us headed toward a humane and positive (in both an economic and a compassionate sense) policy but then his party turned on him post 9/11. I'm all for immigration - descendent of immigrants myself, as a matter of unsurprising fact - but not for board anarchy. My post is mostly meant to point out that emotional vignettes such as this column are interesting but do not help forge reasonable, sustainable, humane, and strategic policy. I'm no advocate for Trump and this crisis is of his making (although factually we need to remember that it's a matter of degree - Obama certainly did separate children from parents but only reluctantly and at a much smaller scale).
Hadn't there been an unspoken agreement to the effect of, leave the kids out of it?
Among all parties, in all situations?
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A beautiful depiction of being a parent.
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Thank you so much for your eloquent reminder of what's at stake for all of us.
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Excellent article, Mrs. Cummins: thank you so much. I cannot imagine a more challenging undertaking than seeking to integrate foster children into your daily lives. You are, I sense, a very good person.
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As a liberal I have no problem with a modern, rational approach to immigration policy. Canada’s merit-based system has worked well for them and would for us, and closing the diversity-based system is fine, since most contemporary immigrants aren’t coming from Europe. I’m also for strong, albeit humane, illegal immigration enforcement.
But Trump’s neo-fascist policies or fear and intimidation that don’t recognize the benefits of immigration are our undoing.
Since Trump’s election foreign student enrollment in our universities is down 10%, almost 100,000 fewer students per year. Undergraduate foreign student tuition supports American students and graduate foreign students are the backbone of our R&D. Canada, Australia, and the UK are already capitalizing on this, as are American ivy-league schools that are opening campuses abroad. This trend will compound and in a decade our university system will be a husk of what it once was.
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That is their goal. Look what Scott Walker is doing in Wisconsin. Remember, they love the poorly educated.
Only 10% ?? Would have expected it to be MUCH more. Same for foreign tourists. NYT ought to do a study and story on this.
It is possible for well meaning people to enforce the law in a humane fashion. Note those who support this as I note modern conservatives ever day. They have morphed into those who stood by watching and justifying brutal acts for ages. As who cares about the Other. Note them well and trust them not. They will justify your pain and sorrow should it come.
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US citizens who break the law in the US get separated from their kids. Why should it be different for foreign citizens who break the law in the US? If you want better treatment for refugees, you must first work to elect a president and congress who will tax rich people and companies to pay for this treatment. As it is we have a second class government structure.
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Children in America are not separated from their parents because they break the law. They are separated because they are unfit to take care of their children. What is this obsession with people who break the law? I broke the law every time I didn't come to a 4 wheel stop at a stop sign. Actually I always do a full stop at stop signs, but I am making a point here and it is straight forward and simple. The mere fact that a parent technically is breaking the law should never be the reason they are separated from their children.
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Trying to enter the US illegally is a statutory minor misdemeanor. Therefore, separating kids from their parents who are fleeing desperate circumstances, which by the way have been worsened by American policies, is tantamount to requiring cops to drag your kids out of the car, traumatize them, and take them to an undisclosed location under circumstances where the bureaucracy may lose your kids, if you get stopped for a minor moving violation.
Anyone who espouses this argument that they “ broke the law” is supporting child abuse and human rights violations. We can solve the issues of immigration policy without terrorizing thousands of innocent children. By the way, if they were blond and blue-eyed, we all know this policy would not exist. Support forTrump’s vile policy is tacit support for white nationalism and racism.
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Last time I checked, being arrested and accused is not the same thing as being tried with a guilty verdict rendered. Except, I guess, in the case of those accused of illegally crossing our border. This whole situation flies in the face of the tenets upon which our judicial system is based. Lady Justice weeps under her blindfold.
I mostly try to shield my 9 y.o. son from the news these days but today, as he was eating dinner, he overheard the TV coverage of the family separations at the border with reporters crying on TV. He got so scared he ran up to me, hugged me tight and asked if he could be taken away from us. I had to force the words out of myself that this only happened to people crossing our border illegally. I could not explain why this has to be happening to them, to begin with. Ours is a family of naturalized US citizens, and our child is a first generation American. Never in my lifetime could I imagine having to have this conversation with my child, in this - now my - country.
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The biggest immoral act of Bush administration was providing legal justification of torture. For Trump administration, it is the forced separation of little kids from their parents. Both acts were falsly justified in the name of, and appeal to, national security.
We did not punish perpetrators of torture and became complicit. If we do nothing now, we will become complicit again.
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Trump and his administration should be charged with crimes against humanity. The officers that separate young children from their parents should be charged as accomplices. Anyone participating in this evil should be charged, including Congress.
It is clear what our society is, and perhaps always has been.
"The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members", Mahatma Gandhi
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In my opinion, the charge of crimes against humanity will be heard more frequently as children in custody die of any disease and neglect, and the horror of not returning children to their parents, i.e. creating orphans, becomes more evident. This policy is enough to support a bill of impeachment, were the current party in power not complicit.
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And today the US withdrew from the United Nation's Human Rights Commision. I'm quite sure the other nations were relieved.
All of us look upon our stable lives and think ourselves invincible. But our safe, prosperous environment is but a theatre set that can be changed at a moment's notice. We are all potential victims of geography and history, we can all find ourselves suddenly powerless to protect our nearest and dearest. The image of powerless parent, such as many chidren are now experiencing at the US border, lasts a child's lifetime.
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Nicely stated. But that is what it means to be a parent. What you realize as a parent is that all the delusions of invincibility accumulated in the first 30 to 40 years of your life are destroyed when you have a child. You have to go through it all again, but this time with someone who is not yourself and must necessarily be out of your watch. What it means to be a parent is to be constantly worried when your child is not with you.
Some migrants come to the USA for the hope of a better economic future. So if the current administration wants to discourage that kind of behavior, they should undertake foreign policy initiatives that boost the economies and political stability of all nations.
As the old saying goes “high tide raises all boats”. I am sure less people would be trying to sneak into the USA if they lived in a democratic society with a good economy.
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Also, the government is not entirely innocent in this matter. Employers who employee illegals get a small slap on the wrist for violating the legal provisions. As long as employers are willing to hire illegals (often under horrible conditions), illegal immigration will occur.
Make no mistake, Trump wants to throw most of us (even U.S. citiznes) out of the boat. He wants to live in a gated, gold-plated palace with only those he considers the "best" people--i.e., fellow kleptocrats.
Today on Fox, Corey Lewandowski, Trump's former campaign manager, mocked a 10-year-old girl with Down syndrome who was taken from her mother at the border. This is what the Republican party has become, a bunch of puerile boys who weren't raised right mocking anybody who isn't white, male, healthy, rich, and rude.
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Trump’s employees are all like their boss.
You’re exactly correct. I saw it and it was sickening. A new low for Trump followers—something I didn’t think was possible.
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And “christian” and straight.
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The Republican Party was never the party of Christian values in any way, shape or form. That was only a marketing claim to appeal to voters who were afraid of anyone who didn’t meet their 1950’s stereotype of who should be an “American”.
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Well written. I have never had children, but I refuse to be a good Nazi.
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Many of the comments here are disturbing. There is so much victim blaming and lack of empathy....both of which could be considered psychological disorders. But I don't mean to judge those who spout that response, but to say, that I hope when whatever tragedy happens in your life that doesn't fit your worldview of the "good person" you receive a more compassionate response than you have given. Anything can happen to any of us at any time, and you really don't know what you would do until you face those circumstances.
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Actually, most of the bad things that face humanity can be traced to there simply being too many humans on this planet. The answer to such problems is not to import more of them into this country.
Should I be concerned? My dad 78 year old Mexican American military,1958-1962 Army served in Germany, where he met my future mom. German-Mexican Am I an American? Born in in Milwaukee, Wi, But should I be a real person? Would trump deport us, or not because my mom is german,and she is nordic
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At this point Trump and the Republicans have managed to make many Americans and people throughout the world afraid and right to be afraid. Shock, horror, and dread will haunt us every day that Trump and the Republicans are in power. We will never forget the voices of the crying children we heard today and their guard laughing at them and calling them an orchestra without a conductor. Trump and the Republicans are the conductors of that orchestra with its terrifying music echoing across the entire world.
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Please tell your child that some of the worst adults in the world are those who would endanger children to take advantage of a situation for their own gain.
That ambiguous sentence applies both to the current Republican regime, and to each and every parent who would take their children on a 3000 mile trip across Mexico to try to sneak into the United States, instead of presenting themselves to Mexican, Costa Rican, Panamanian, or Belizean authorities and seeking asylum in those close-by nations.
We're not stupid. We know why they wanted to sneak in. They thought their odds were better. Bottom line: let the parents stay with their children until they are put on a bus back to the Mexican border, and hold court proceedings 24/7/365 until that happens. Then, build a walll at the most common crossing points, start E-Verify for employment, housing, and benefits, and end chain migration.
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Arrest the employers- some how this piece is never discussed anymore as part of the immigration reform system.
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When you say "end chain migration" I wonder if you include Melania, who then brought over her parents, and her child Barron Trump?
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if you don't get why people would risk that treacherous journey to get here, and actually think they're sneaking in to gain in some kind of silly competition, it says nothing about their reality, but screams volumes about the kind of person YOU are. Your self-righteous thoughts betray you.
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American children have been separated for years from their parents when the parents do something illegal and go to jail. It is a simple proposition to explain to a 7-year-old. "Imagine that our house was suddenly asked to take on another person. We could do it, but now you'd have to share your bedroom. And if 20 people showed up to live in our house, no one would have any privacy and our budget would be strained. Dad would have to borrow money to take care of the new guests and send them to school. Also, our environment would suffer, since we live in a rural area and our septic system wasn't designed to sustain 20 extra people. Oh, and one more thing - these extra people would complain about what we're doing for them and the media would criticize us. Son, how do you like that picture?"
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First, our country can take in more immigrants. I believe our birth rate is lower than our death rate, so without immigrants our population will fall which will have serious implications for our economy. Second, this is not a binary choice - either take children away from the parents or let everyone in. This is a refugee issue and should be handled as such. We should be working with the international community to help them resettle into safe communities.
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The population in the United States has doubled since I was a teenager and we are already seeing the effects on our resources. These people are fleeing their countries which are overpopulated and unable to sustain their populations. Now they want to do the same to the United States.
Ask your son how he would feel if he could live in comfort while the other 20 people all were cold, starving, or ill right outside your door. I believe most children have a very strong sense of fairness and are quite willing to share.
As to your argument that the environment would suffer - if you turn the people away, they will not disappear. And I would prefer the people using the septic system, even if not up to par, to having them use the streets!
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"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out..."
Most of us are familiar with the poem by the Lutheran minister Martin Niemoller whose words are just as meaningful now as when he wrote them.
Let none of us neglect to vote; our country and our lives depend on it.
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The children taken from their parents are Trump's hostages and the ransom is enough money to pay for the Wall he promised, hundreds of times, Mexico would pay for.
If toddlers and children suffer, it is inconsequential to him. This is all about the wall.
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This is about the wall, yes, but it's more than that.
Since they got into office the trump administration has been deliberately terrorizing the American people. The attacks on the ACA alone, CHIP, DACA, the environment, education, consumers, women's rights, the elderly and poor and disabled; chipping away at our national monuments and undermining the hard work done by our Federal agencies for generations - this is a blitzkrieg.
trump is assaulting our basic values. Bannon said he wants to "dismantle the administrative state." They are trying to destroy our democracy.
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"The wall" is an ego projection of Trump's sick, twisted mind. He wants it to show his very base base what a big man he is. You can be sure he's sweating the mid-terms!! But being the ultra fool that he is, he gambles that the damages he does will serve his political and, even more, financial objectives. The man is the lowest form of humanity ... GO VOTE, just 5 full moon away!!
I have consistently made 3 points about the children in government internment camps.
1. They are living genocide labs for children. The science Republicans deny irrefutably says children's cognitive/emotional development is damaged by neuro-chemical imbalances caused by the forced separations.
2. The current White House narratives are not to defend this government atrocity, but to normalize it. To associate law with any form of cruelty absent of justice. To make forced separations no different than removing a baby from the car seat of a drunk driver is to deny the deliberate, targeted forced breach of the most universal, sacred relationship of child-parent without cause. To suggest forced separations of parents and children are like summer camps is to deny the fundamental place and power of women in human community as mothers.
3. The White House is also using this issue as a wedge. Like Central American gang intimidation, it is using the intimidation of separation to establish a regime and return to white supremacy. The exaggerated claims of M-13 (none trotted up for a perp walks or photo-ops), the concerted efforts in creating a Pavlovian fear of an empty threat, suspending due process, civil liberties, and human rights for immigrants, while also denying these actions, all are part of the effort.
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As he puts children into internment camps, nothing can hold him back.
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An asylum-seeker can apply at any regular port of entry and THE FAMILY WILL NOT BE SEPARATED during the process. The adult cry babies need to wise up about what is going on. The GOP bills in the House will fix immigration issues at the modest cost of a wall. The wall is needed to keep out children and drugs and has long been supported by Democrats until Mr. Trump wanted to build it.
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@Eugene Patrick Devany. That would be wonderful if it were true. Virtually every respectable media organization has said that it’s not true despite what the president’s lackeys repeat over and over. In fact the Trump Administration has made it extremely difficult to apply for asylum at the specified ports of entry. That’s problem number one. Problem number two is the assertion that GOP bills in Congress will fix this situation. The truth is, the president can fix it tomorrow by ending this inhumane policy. Children are being destroyed. Psychologists agree that forced separation will leave them traumatized and scarred forever. Many will never recover. Yet Republicans blithely talk about GOP bills in Congress. In the meantime, who cares about damage to thousands of children? After all, they’re not even white. That’s what it’s about. If these children were Norwegian they would all be living In with their parents while awaiting a disposition of their case. And there’s this: “The wall is needed to keep out children and drugs and has long been supported by Democrats…“ What is the conflation of children and drugs? What does a sentence like that even mean? As for being supported by Democrats, Mulvaney lied. Democrats voted for 700 miles of fence and that’s all they voted for. That’s where we are in our country today. Children, drugs, walls. Nonsensical babble. The president’s supporters have learned to do what he does so well. Talk incoherently and lie.
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Seriously, it is not true.
See: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/12/deportation-migrants-flee-...
The majority of the immigrants involved in this
Zero Tolerance situation are from Central America.
Walls do not keep people out. They dig tunnels. They use boats. When the choice is starve it’s rationale even if you may die trying.
I’m pretty sure my 7 year old is going to make this connection too soon. I’m trying to hide the news from him: quickly changing the radio dial when NPR starts US news summaries or an immigration story, diving for my phone (which streams news since we don’t have cable) when he walks into a room I’m hiding out and listening, quickly stopping talk about the news with friends as soon as a child walks by. I walk a fine line between shielding my kids from the news yet feeling a moral obligation to condemn this administration in every way possible. When they ask why the president is a bad man I don’t want to go into details for fear of scaring them. I have difficulty sleeping these days.
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I think you're doing the right thing by shielding your child from the news. I was a child during the McCarthy trials and can still remember coming home from school for lunch to find my mother transfixed by the live TV broadcast. I remember the hunted look on those being questioned and was afraid.
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I think you'd be better to sit him down and talk to him, explain it on his level.
Someone will mention it to him, or he'll overhear or see something about it, which will likely scare him more.
I grew up during the Cold War and can't even remember now how old I was when I first understood that the world could be ended at any moment.
I clearly remember the Cuban Missile Crisis.....I lived in Miami, and we had Cuban refugee kids in my school, and I knew something of what they'd been through.
The day the Soviet ships "turned around" was huge in my life at that time. I didn't know many details, but remember standing in the playground that day, and wondering (as did all the kids) if we'd survive the day. Literally.
Most kids are pretty resilient when you let them be.
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I am not sure you can sit your kid down and explain this on their level and keep them sane. I vaguely remember the Cuban Missile Crisis. I was 6 at the time, living in Detroit. All I remember was that my father took the entire family to what we referred to as the farm owned by my Great Grandfather about 60 miles West of Detroit. He had to know that a nuclear war with the Soviet Union meant virtually instant death, but he didn't sit me down and explain it until I was older. He did what he thought was best at the time. What it means to be a parent is to keep your children safe, if not physically then psychically as long as possible.
Who are the agents actually implementing these policies - and why do they go along?
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They are following orders. That is the long and short of it. Many people fear losing their jobs. They may be traumatized by what they are being told to do, too. That doesn’t excuse it, but it does explain.
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History informs us that enough people will work for tyrants to survive, for money or for power. History is replete with those who were just doing their jobs.
26
People of character stand up against what is wrong.
We all need to be doing everything we can to stop these crimes against the most sacred of human relationships - the bond between a mother and her child - from being inflicted on families by the abusive, immoral, american government.
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Many in this country shrugged when 20 babies were massacred in their elementary school classroom. Everyday, they shrug as children get slaughtered in their classrooms. The people who shrug in the face of these atrocities have no problem with small children being ripped from their parents' arms and imprisoned in cages. People who dismiss the suffering of others are barbarians. They are uncivilized brutes, and if we continue to let their barbarism govern our nation, we will wind up without our Constitution or laws. Those of us possessing the wrong skin color, religion, or ethnicity, will lose our lives. It has already happened to the young black men gunned down by police simply for being black. We think we live in a civilized nation. We don't. The question is: What are we going to do about it? Are we going to capitulate or stand up for what is right?
437
Maybe the original sin was our shrug in the face of the Sandy Hook massacre of small children. Maybe that was the real turning point. Maybe there's no turning back.
Maybe Stephen Miller as our leader is our country's future.
We are going to go to the polls in mass and vote for Democrats Over and over and over and bring all our friends with us.
1
Trump and his administration should be charged with crimes against humanity.
1
How many times a day can my heart break?
64
The author, who thinks she is well intentioned and sympathetic, totally misses a KEY part of the CBP's lawful mandate. Namely, if a foreign national crosses the U.S. order illegally, he has broken the law and the protocol is to treat the adults as criminals, which they are according to the law, and separate them from their children TEMPORARILY until the adults are processed and reunited with their children. Why is NO news outlet reporting this procedure, which is standard for any US citizen who breaks the law and their children are held by social services, if they do not have a relative to keep, them while their parent(s) are adjudicated? Most unfortunate that this reporter and many others don't have the skill or take the time to report fully on the situation. CBP and ICE are only implementing the laws on the books. If we don't agree with the policy, let's change it.
15
If this perspective has gone unreported, how did the writer become aware of it? Could it be that the repetition of the same points over and again by representatives of the administration IS being reported widely? It just isn't being believed.
Illegal border crossing is a misdemeanor, like trespassing or filching a pack of gum from a gas station -- not good but hardly an offense worth tearing traumatized and fearful children from their only source of security just to enact a "Zero-tolerance" policy -- as if that approach has worked so well in a variety of situations.
90
Hey what about compassion? Stop ranting about the letter of the law and focus on what is happening here and what is needed -- discretion to make exceptions based on compassion grounds is also part of immigration law in most civilized countries -- check your law before you talk.
47
It has been reported. And illegal entry is a misdemeanor. We don’t take custody of kids because their parents committed a moving violation, shoplifting, or a petty drug possession.
30
What do we call a man who is "deriving pleasure from inflicting pain, suffering, or humiliation on others."?
What do we call a man who is cruel, barbarous, vicious, brutal, callous, fiendish, cold-blooded, inhuman, ruthless, and heartless?
The psychologists have a word, a name for that type of person...do you know what that name is?
46
yeah... duly elected President of the United States.
To EdwardKJellytoes:
How about a self-centered, amoral, sadistic narcissist who believes he is omnipotent and never wrong?
1
Maybe every parent could use a Trump Cage as an antidote to worry, guilt and helicopter parenting. In the post-truth age, every dog crate is a summer camp experience, as Laura Ingraham puts it. Who needs truth when you Trump Cages are the newest thing in child rearing?
39
Remember how we were shocked on learning Gov. Romney transported his dog in a crate on top of his car for a long distance to the family summer camp...The "new normal" make us long for even the bad old days.
The noun "Dickensian London" will soon be rendered obsolete by the noun "Trumpian America".
64
Why does the Trump administration have the authority to separate parents and children and then lock them up? This has to be illegal or did Trump became what appears to be his life goal: dictator for life? When does the impeachment function for this dreadful president begin in earnest?
67
When you vote in a Congress that doesn’t owe its life to the Koch Brothers billions or are Democrats. They aren’t perfect but they aren’t in the same party as the Prez.
Trump could end this thing with a stroke of the pen, but prefers blaming the Democrats....
AND he WANTS his wall, and by God he'll have it or....!!!
Congress is terrified to stop him due to the clear retribution from voters.
It's legal.
Consider how Trump treats his own children based upon amply verifiable evidence: he publicly and repeatedly has exclaimed his sexual lust for his daughter, Ivanka, and Donald Jr. and Eric, down into the sewer of his corrupt money laundering schemes.
Judging by what we know about the Mueller investigation it is highly probable that Donald Jr. will go to prison, and possibly Ivanka and Eric for a multitude of RICO violations.
Why would Trump regard someone else's children with compassion when he has no respect for the welfare of his own children? By the time this is all over the entire Trump family may very well be in prison.
56
@Jonathan Baker. They’ll end up in prison? I wouldn’t count on it. One keyword is “pardon,” and the others are “fire Mueller.”
The United Sates doesn’t put U.S. children in jail with their parents when their parents are arrested. The federal courts have ruled that the United States cannot put migrant children in jail with their parents either. In 1997, the Flores v Reno Settlement required the United States to transfer unaccompanied migrant children apprehended at the border to the Department of Health and Humans Services, which releases them to relatives or sponsors. In 2016, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the Flores v Reno Settlement also applies to accompanied migrant children, but confirmed that the settlement does not provide release rights to the parents. When the Department of Homeland Security separates migrant children from their parents and transfers them to Health and Human Service, it is complying with a federal court order, not a Trump administration policy.
Ther Ninth Circuit Court ruling is online at https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2016/07/06/15-56434.pdf
14
@William Case. That is simply a selective and dishonest reading of the Flores case. It casually disposes of the truth. That would be disturbing all by itself but it’s especially disturbing to see a lawyer, or someone who sounds like a lawyer, intentionally deceive by speaking as if he has superior knowledge and assuming no one will question it. In fact Flores does not demand that migrant children be separated from their parents. The decision offers the government alternatives: releasing families as a unit, clarifying the status of migrant children by passing new legislation that would permit families to be separated, or simply just separating them. Trump and Sessions have chosen the last alternative. They could just as easily have chosen the first. The Ninth Circuit decision merely expands Flores to include migrant children accompanied by parents. So the essence of Flores remains dispositive. Actually, I should revise my language above. I should not have said “a selective and dishonest reading of Flores.” I should have called it what it was. It’s a lie. It’s a lie to say that breaking families apart is complying with the law. How horrifying to see an obviously well-educated American lie to other Americans to speed the destruction of children. What could possibly compel anybody to do that?
33
Not true. I looked that up this evening. Many prisons across the country and around the world are allowing mothers to keep their children with them in prison. In part, because the recidivism rate goes down. But overall, it's better to do that than to break the most important bond in a human's life.
22
Case - If you are correct why is it only now, when Jeff Sessions says this is the way we are going to deal with immigration and dt says it can stop if he can built a wall, why is it only now that we are putting babies in chain link hotels. Have you no heart? Does any republican have a heart?
These families are fleeing terrorist, right? We have plenty of experience defeating terrorist, right? So, bring the troops home so they might defend us in our own hemisphere.
(Didn't Trump take an oath to defend us? Didn't all of them take that oath?)
4
“I told my kids this kind of separation happens only to children whose parents don’t do the right thing. But now it’s happening to people who are behaving exactly as good parents should.”
Uh, no. These parents are violating our laws. They are doing the wrong thing. Actions have consequences, and these families’ problems at home are not our problem.
14
Yes, they are our problems. One planet sweetheart. Violence is destabilizing wherever it occurs and the effects ripple out in all directions. And do take note: it is a recently instituted POLICY causing so much of the current problems. It is being done intentionally by the Trump administration. Please work for peace. We all need it.
105
QED:
What planet do you live? Taking care of one another is ALWAYS the right thing to do. Children don't choose to be born in poverty and in extreme danger of violence. Many parents don't have a choice, not even a choice of not having the child. This is called humanity. Something, QED, it seems you lack.
1
I suggest you put yourself in their shoes before trying to tell them what's right and what's wrong
3
Trump and his government is all about cruelty. Check out the New Yorker for Masha Gessen's article on the new task force being set up to review immigrants who are LEGAL citizens to review their cases, see if they can find any discrepancies so minute they can strip them of their citizenship and throw them out of the country. No matter that those applications over years and years were thoroughly vetted with biometrics and background checks. Trump wants as many immigrants, legal and illegal, gone. We have now reached the level of purging legal citizens- America is no longer the land of the free. Might be time to consider joining a militia.
42
"Where is our righteous Christian outrage"? Seriously? Where to start? You think Christians have a monopoly on righteousness? That selfrighteousness is something all religious zealots seem to have in common. And then there is the whole hypocracy of the American Christian right where the teachings of Jesus are replaced by out of context, cut and paste quotes from the Bible used to justify self serving or self aggrandizing or outright bigoted positions. There is nothing wrong with Jesus but not so for many who use his name.
34
I like your Christ, I don’t like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
—Mahatma Gandhi
Trump and his gang are enjoying our outrage, they're sure Trump's base will turn out in droves in response to our protests against this inhumanity. We must contribute to the organizations advocating for the kids, and pray Trump is wrong about his supporters.
21
@kim atlanta. We can pray till kingdom come that Trump is wrong about his supporters. Seven out of 10 Trump voters said in a poll they would support him no matter what he did. He could shoot somebody in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue and they would vote for him again. There are no polite words to describe these people.
16
"what remained with me was a new perspective on the fragility of family". Thank you so much for your generosity and your eloquence. After reading this first person account of the damage inflicted, I must say "what remained was a new perspective on the fragility of America".
38
There are many in our country that think this is ok. They tell me that these people know what is going to happen, so they deserve what they get.
This is our country. Trump is a reflection of these people, who tell me these things.
26
"Why Can’t It Happen to Us?"
Here is some basic counsel that most of us already seem to grasp: If you are going to commit a crime - then don't drag your kid along with you during the commission of said crime.
9
These people are "commiting crimes" because they are facing murder threats from violent gangs back home. If "committing a crime" made sure my children would get to live, I'd do it, and I bet you would too.
And even if it is commiting a crime, that does NOT give us the right to ignore their human rights! They have a right to remain with their children so they know their kids are safe. Breaking the rules is NOT an excuse for treating people like animals!
3
OK, StevenRR: Next time desperate parents seek to leave a drug and gang-infested country where they and their children's lives are constantly threatened, they should just leave the kids behind, to die alone. Is that your advice?
2
Even if the crime is seeking asylum in a country that you thought could offer your kids a better life?
2
I don't agree with illegal immigration.
That said, this practice is unspeakably cruel and I can only begin to imagine the pain for both parents and children going through this.
But, then, that being said, parents bear responsibility for the welfare of their children. They walked into the trap they're in right now with open eyes, knowing the current national mood.
Finally, to the gleeful right wingers who believed the Democrats were holding children under a pizzeria: just look at what your team is doing. It's real and it's beyond the pale.
14
Rsantos, You're right about the Pizzeria, but wrong about the trap the asylum seekers walked into.
How could they know? US citizens didn't even know the Trump administration could be this cruel.
26
First they came for the immigrants, and I did not speak out -
Because I was not an immigrant.
Then they came for the Democrats, and I did not speak out -
Because I was not a Democrat.
Then they came for my children - and there was no one left to speak for them.
37
In light of the facts, this is a ridiculous opinion piece.
The facts, confirmed by HHS, are that about 10,000 out of 12,000 immigrant children who are in government care were NOT separated from their parents by the government.
They were willingly sent by their own parents to make a long, dangerous journey with human smugglers, facing potential violence and exploitation on their own.
These irresponsible and cruel actions by these children's parents are a classic example of abuse and endangerment. In the U.S., such actions would lead to a lengthy prison sentence.
An opinion piece that roundly criticized these parents would have a much greater positive impact than this exercise in hysteria and hyperbole.
7
My grandmother came to this country in 1917. She was 14 years old. She traveled alone, an unaccompanied minor, sent on a "long, dangerous journey" as you called it. She was sent to escape from pogroms and bolshevik persecution. You would call that "irresponsible and cruel action" by my grandmother's parents. Our family knows better. It saved her life. Her parents never got out - they were killed. Please add that fact to the long list of things is this world that you obviously do not care about.
63
LenRI:
I'm sure that you are aware that your grandmother's situation was fundamentally different than the situation facing the vast majority of Central Americans.
The Central American would-be immigrants and asylum seekers are seeking better job opportunities and/or to escape "routine" violence that is endemic to their countries. While I truly sympathize with their plight, neither of these reasons are accepted grounds for asylum or illegal entry into the U.S.
If poverty and non-political violence were acceptable ground for admission, we would have another billion people in the U.S very quickly.
Would you support that?
8
John, what exactly is "routine" violence? I don't know about you, but any violence sounds like something I would try to avoid for myself, and most definitely for my children.
1
Excellent piece. If only you could get the supporters of this policy to really read it...
21
It does happen, to poor people when someone, usually a social worker, a teacher, or a doctor decides that the parents aren't taking good enough care of the children. A poor parent can be arrested for leaving her children unattended in a playground while she works. Why would she do that? There aren't enough slots of affordable day care available, the day care isn't there when she needs it and she has to work to pay the bills, or worse. Her children will be taken from her. She will be forced to take parenting classes but not given the financial help she needs. And even if she complies with everything she's told to do she still may not get her children back. This has been going on in America for decades.
The only guarantee that a parent has that his/her children will not be taken away is to have enough money to keep prying eyes away from the family's home life. Money and economic status determine how child abuse is handled in America. If one is poor any perception of child abuse is usually handled by reporting it and once a parent is on that list it's very hard to get off it. The entire family is traumatized especially if the report was an error.
60
It's not just Trump. Mi watched the congressional hearings on the FBI the pastv2 days. What those people did is what we should really be afraid of.
8
The Trump administration is being needlessly cruel in their zero tolerance of new illegal immigrants. There has to be a better way to dissuade people from crossing our borders illegally beside separating them from their own children. From the reports I have seen, there is no effort to re-unite these families before the adults are deported back across the border.
What are the Trump administration's plans for the children who have been separated and held in these temporary shelters? Will they also be deported? If yes, will there be any effort to reunite the families at all? The Trump administration is making us all criminals by kidnapping these children and not facilitating their return to their families. And the Trump administration response is, "they are criminals and must be separated." Two wrongs don't make a right. These families cross our border together, we are breaking their families asunder. This is the best we can do? This is winning? Shameless Trump leading his shameful White House gang.
52
We should all be afraid. The trolls are here. Now they are attacking the most vulnerable, those who have no rights, those who are disenfranchised, then they will step up the witch hunt. Who will be next. Christian values?? The only gods are money and power. Welcome to the new United States.
218
A wise child, indeed. It can happen. It is happening. It will become worse, not better. Trump is a stubborn man surrounded by fanatics. But where is the push back? I would have thought by now that the Cardinal of New York would have stood on the steps of St. Patrick's to deride this terror. And so on. We are waiting.
194
Don't wait. Take action, support the organizations trying to help these kids.
12
It's not up to cardinals and others of their ilk. It's up to all of us. It's past time to stop silently collaborating. Nationwide general strike.
1
Your story is so important. Law enforcement is completely blind to the excruciating pain of the acute injury of separation and the irreparable damage children will endure for many years to come. This may or may not be resolved soon. And even if it were, thousands of children are damaged. It is done. I shudder, because I know too many in this country see it simply as collateral damage.
49
Ghandi said “a nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members."
As a nation, we're failing badly - but it's heartening that people like Jeanine Cummins and her family are here to show us greatness.
165
@COMMON: These people are not our nation's weakest members. They are not members at all.
5
So it doesn't matter how we treat them? We can separate them from their parents and it's OK?
5
So if they are not "members", we should treat them like GARBAGE????? Let me change Ghandi's words a bit: As a community of human beings, our greatness is measured by how we treat our weakest members. ~~~ There. I fixed it.
Thank you for sharing your story!!
38
Left unchecked, he can come for all of us, one way or another.
268
This is the reality that the trump supporters do not see.
1
Thank goodness for the checks and balances in the constitution! The Congress will protect us! Miscreant beware!
It's not he. It is they. Trump is a direct product of the Republican Party and the Fox and friends propaganda machine
The ostensible righteousness of those convinced they are doing God's work will be the downfall of civilization much less our democracy. This becomes especially true when these zealots allow themselves to believe that the ends justify the means.
62
Presumably you are a strong critic of Islam. I'm an atheist, but I would much prefer to be governed by ostensibly righteous Christians than self-declared socialists or oxymoronic democratic socialists or even, given the way the party is sliding ever leftward, the Democrats.
1
Laszlo,
I think he’s talking about the “Open Boarders, One World” crowd!
Trump's policies are an inevitable & unfortunate reaction to the Democrats' increasingly successful campaign to equate the status of illegal aliens, legal aliens, and citizens by granting more and more rights to aliens, especially illegals. To protect these rights, Democrats have eroded the rule of law by turning a blind eye to crimes small & large, actively thwarting enforcement of immigration law, & opposing all efforts at effective border control.
Rights for illegal aliens have followed Cartesian cascades of inevitability:
I am here, therefore I can work. I work, therefore I can drive (without a license). I drive without a license, therefore Los Angeles can't confiscate cars driven by unlicensed drivers (LAPD Special Order 7). And later: I drive, therefore I can get a license.
Or, the absurdity playing out in San Francisco: I am still here (because I am protected from ICE in CA, and, better yet, SF), therefore my kids can go to public schools. My kids go to public schools, therefore I can vote (!) in SF school board elections. Bonus: My kids went to school here, therefore they can get in-state tuition at public universities.
In the near future: I am here with kids, therefore I cannot be detained (so I will disappear to a sanctuary state and escape deportation). I am still here, therefore I can work and pay taxes. I pay taxes, therefore I can vote in all elections. Or, more simply, the amnesty solution: I have escaped deportation for x years, therefore I am a citizen.
22
Finally, a voice of reason!
3
Your logic is faulty. It is possible to detain and deport a family without separating them. Keeping a family together is not at all the same thing as allowing them to stay.
I do agree this could be improved but not on the backs of children’s and true refugees.Do you have any suggestions on how we can improve the situation or at least take responsibility for our portion of the migrant crises.It is easy to dehumanize but hard to solve
12
People who support this cruelty and long-lasting abuse of children – because trauma sears the brain, no matter the child’s age or how soon she is reunited with her parents – do not realize that they are establishing precedent for the same crimes to be perpetrated against their families.
Our laws say that children cannot be torn from their parents unless the potential harm *from* their parents demands that the government remove them to be reared by others.
Here, the parents are trying to save their children from harm. Yet the children, even quite little ones, are removed.
If this becomes the new governmental standard, then against which citizens might the government direct it? – not just now, but in the future. Single people, including those who have been widowed or divorced? Handicapped people? People who engage in citizen protests against unjust or unconstitutional laws? People who cook with wine?
Perhaps supporters of Trump’s ghastly policy remember the WWII-era words of a German preacher:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
-- Martin Niemöller
320
Yes.
Not only do we have the highest rate of police violence against minority citizens in the industrialized world, but we have the highest rates of police violence against white citizens in the industrialized world.
This is because, once you start making exceptions for some citizens, eventually those exceptions apply to all citizens.
"First they came for the Socialists,
and I did not speak out -
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists,
and I did not speak out -
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I did not speak out -
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me -
and there was no one left to speak for me."
- Martin Niemöller
96
All of those people were citizens. These people are not. They are foreigners who would like to take the jobs of citizens by working for less.
In the novel, "Sophie's Choice," a Jewish mother sent to one of Hitler's death camps with her two children is forced by a sadistic Nazi official to choose which of her children will accompany her to the work camp, and which one will be killed. The current tragedy resembles the scene in the novel in one respect. As Ms. Cummins shows so eloquently, the parents fleeing Central America are trying to do the best for their children in an impossible situation. If they remain in their home country, many will be killed. If they undertake the dangerous trip to the US, many will also die. Like the mother in the novel, they face impossible choices in their desperate efforts to save their children.
Those who survive the trip now face officials who regard them as a nuisance and a threat to their political careers. They impose a second choice on the refugees: try to cross the border and we will take your children away, with no guarantee that you will ever see them again. These officials are not sadists like the Nazis, but in both cases the children and their parents serve as pawns in a political contest.
Trump could stop this tragedy with an executive order, but he prefers to use the refugees as hostages to force the Democrats to adopt his immigration policies. He's no Nazi, but he shares with them an indifference to the welfare of people who fall outside the magic circle of his supporters.
72
Why do they trek a thousand miles across Mexico instead of applying for asylum there -- or in Costa Rica, Panama, etc? Because they expect to get more freebies here? It's about time this madness is put to a stop.
8
They do it because for years people like Ronald Reagan talked about the Shining City on a Hill. They do it because we Americans tell anyone who will listen that it is the greatest country in the world. They do it because we are free to pursue life, liberty and happiness. They do it because They are pursuing the American Dream.
Unfortunately, Donald Trump and the politicians who follow him are destroying everything that used to make America great.
13
I think, Irene, it may also be because Mexico is rife with drug and violence-infested gangs. Unless you can afford to live in the very safest and wealthiest enclaves in Mexico, it is extremely dangerous there. And even those very "safe" and wealthy enclaves are experiencing surges of terrible, violent crime.
I have been afraid ever since it became clear that Clinton was NOT going to win Florida, which she could have won.
But I became afraid when Trump ordered his paid thugs to throw protesters out, who mocked a disabled reporter, offered to pay for the defense of a supporter who sucker-punched a restrained, helpless man, who riled his backers up against the Press, one step away from ordering them to assault them, encouraged a man shouting at the Press at his rally "Jew.S.A.! Jew.S.A.!"
I became afraid when Trump raised his arm in a Mussolini style salute and demanded his supporters do the same and swear a loyalty oath to him. It was funny in "Blazing Saddles", but not in 2016.
I become afraid every day when I look at my beautiful son, adopted from Central America before he was 6 months old, documented as ours, and documented as an American citizen 3 different ways, yet with his golden brown skin, the object of scorn and hatred of the racists, including the President, Attorney General, Chief of Staff, and Senior Adviser to the President, who, if they have ANY excuse, would rip him away from us, from a President who calls people his color as "infesting us".
The Nuremberg Laws stripped German-born Jews, back many generations, of their citizenship. I have known we would approach a similar moment since that horrible time when Hillary Clinton was forced to concede to this tyrant, this monster, this irredeemable man who is now, unfortunately, the President.
1133
Were you at all concerned when the Bernie supporters at tacked the young girl at the Trump rally in Sacremento? Just curious.
6
I would be but I am more concerned that you would conflate the actions of Bernie’s campaign to Trump’s.They were not equivalent.Not statistically,morally or ethically.
10
J - For the record, attacking anyone, anywhere, anytime, is wrong. It was wrong for Bernie supporters to do it, and it was wrong for Trump supporters to do it to those they disagreed with and, by the way, they attacked, harassed, and publicly smeared people quite a lot. And they’re still doing it, this time from the vaunted halls of power in Washington. Are you at all concerned? Just curious.
2
It does indeed happen here. Anyone doubting the practice of separating parents from their children should read "The Rise of Civil Forfeiture" ( August 12 issue of the New Yorker).
Police departments and prosecutors have threatened to take away, or taken away, children of parents suspected or accused without trial. Why do they do it? Many police departments depend on the seizure of cars and other property as a means of raising revenue. All that's needed is suspicion that a crime has been committed.
Don't think it can't happen to you just because you're an American citizen.
52
August 12 & 19, 2013, right?
I look forward to Stephen Miller's war crimes trial with great anticipation.
852
It would be necessary for Miller and “Womp Womp”Lewandowski to leave immediately, but even their arrest will not relieve America of the Criminal character of the President and VP. Trump has promoted racketeering throughout his campaign and confirmed his gangster dreams with all of his appointments and with the array of allies who have been exposed under investigation. Thugs like Cohen and Manafort, traitors like Flynn and Bannon have escaped prosecution for association with known criminals and for organized criminal/seditious activities defy reason.
This story illustrates the kind of cruelty that Republican policies mean to inflict on all of the weak in our country with plans to cut food stamps, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Sec and SS disability, housing subsidies, education benefits. Indeed the interests of a handful of Billionaires for more money compel Republicans to cruelty toward children.
1
Problem being, of course, there’s going to be a hell out of a lot of suffering between now and then. And I assume you mean a civil war, because any other war - given where things are headed - would go nuclear. In that case we won’t need war crimes prosecution because no one will be alive.
1
Add a few others to the growing list
Nikki Haley
Mike Pence
John Kelly
Kirsjen Nielsen
Sarah Huckabee
The list goes on
All Trumps willing executioners
All complicit in his evil
I guess don't break the law and don't cross illegally into another country if you don't want to be separated from your kids. By the way, those migrants could have found safety in Mexico or somewhere else in their own countries.
16
Seeking asylum is not illegal; denying one's right to seek it, is illegal.
78
Seeking asylum is not illegal, but experience has shown us that if we do not hold them, they will disappear into the illegal immigrant subculture in our cities and never return for their hearings. Not holding is tantamount to admission.
Where is the outrage on other "illegal" actions? Tax Evation, fraud (Trump University), obstruction of justice?
Go ahead, throw your stones.
26
I have two children, one by birth and one by adoption. Children are adopted because their parents can't or won't take of them. The reasons are various and sometimes involve the fact that the children are exposed to their parents committing crimes. It is in the best interest of the children to remove them from such criminal behavior. Even though the parents often have various excuses for their criminal behavior.
You must have missed the part where these illegal immigrants are engaging in illegal activity in which they teach their children to collude in such activity. When Americans do such things they are removed from their children and placed in jail or their children are removed from them. No excuses allowed.
It seems once again there are different rules for illegal immigrants. You need to teach your child that there are consequences to illegal actions and not just for American citizens.
15
Seeking asylum is not illegal; denying the right to request asylum is, however, illegal.
674
You must have missed the part where illegal entry was a misdemeanor, not a criminal act. You also must have missed the part where asylum seekers present themselves at a control point - they have committed no crime. You may have missed the part where some of these asylum control points where quietly closed, forcing these people to cross the border. Sounds like a set-up to me.
As an adopted person and adoptive parent, you might want to have some empathy for your child’s birth parents. Most seek an adoption plan, and they chose not to take the easy way out and abort (although I support that choice). Most birth parents are not criminals, and I take exception at that characterization. There are enough misconceptions to fight regarding adoption as it is.
136
Seeking asylum under false pretenses is illegal. Even Canada is putting an end to the false petitions and telling people to not even bother coming to their border. The scam is over and it's about time we had a president ready to stop it.
1
And then, US is no longer in the UN Human Rights panel. Timing is everything!
What's going to happen if children disappeared? If those parents don't see their children again? Are we going to blame them because they tried to save their kids?
We should all be scared!
231
Yes, Urbina...They are being punished, and the children are being punished, because these parents tried to save their kids. And, yes, what if they can never reunite these kids with their parents? My blood runs cold. This is cruelty of the most heinous kind. If we are not all scared, the ones who are not are fools.
2
We left the UN Human Rights panel because by these actions we do not belong there. We are guilty of human rights abuses. They should have kicked us out.
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Now we have the internment of babies and young children, stripped from their parents. Internment camps here in the U.S. Ms. Cummins, you are right to be concerned, for yourself and your children.
These children's parents were asylum seekers and went through the proper channels to proceed. But because they are brown people, Trump orders their babies be stripped from their arms. Forty-five per cent of our citizens support this horrific act. You know, the same group who thinks that the KKK and neo-Nazis are some very fine people?
I do not see how we can continue as one nation after Trump. I do not want, in any conceivable universe, to have to "reach out" to people who have no qualms at all about interning infants. If Trump supporters want to live in a white Gilead, replete with concentration camps for brown people, then it is time for the rest of us to disassociate ourselves. They will never change their views. If these camps housing babies haven't changed their minds, nothing will.
We need to partition this nation. The fifty five per cent of us who want to live under a system with our Constitutional rights and protections ought to be able to do so. We should have every right to live in a nation where the rule of law is respected. And there will be no return to the nation we once knew before Trump. It is gone. It's time for us to divide this country into two nations. I certainly don't want to live in one that celebrates internment camps.
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You are writing about children who are getting medical check-ups, vaccination and treatment for diseases which they may have. They are provided with clean beds and nutritious meals.
Their parents either broke the law or have claimed asylum and are being processed.
Experience has shown us that most do not qualify for asylum and know it; they never return for their hearings and disappear into the illegal immigrant subculture in our cities for decades. That is why they have to be held.
It's not that they are evil but we cannot take in everyone who wants a better life or none of us will have a good life.
The U.S.is like a lifeboat. If we try to save everyone, we will all go drown.
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You say you want to live "in a nation where the rule of law is respected." And yet you want to let anyone who breaks our law by entering illegally stay. Pick one.
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Allen: even if some of what you say is true: is there any reason under the sun to separate children from their parents, even if they are illegal? I have nothing against deporting illegals, but taking their children away from them is unbelievably cruel.
"Republicans are ostensibly the party of Christian family values." I am sorry this is simply not true . The Republicans are the party of looking out for "number 1."
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The Republicans may look out for Number 1, but when I listen to most of them talk, they are clearly the party of Number 2.
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If Trump for just one minute could put himself in the shoes of one of these kids, he might see and feel how stressful and traumatic it is. But....that would require some level of empathy. Empathy is a very tall order for our president.
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A tall order? No - an impossible one.
Melania Trump spoke about wanting the country to be governed with heart. Main problem is that her husband has one - but only in the very physical sense. It beats, but that's it.
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He is too busy trying to Be Best!
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I'm not sure empathy is in his DNA, or, for that matter, vocabulary.
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I agree. If you live in the U.S. and walk your children across deserts that regularly kill, travel 1,000's of miles with "coyotes" who often abuse their clients, and violate the law with your children present, you will and rightfully should be separated from your children by the State for the abuse you have caused them....
For those Central Americans wanting to avoid being arrested for illegal entry and being separated from children, stay in Mexico once you cross there....Don't endanger your children!
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You don't consider that seeking asylum in a country that you know will hate you, that will illegally deny your right to seek asylum and label you a criminal, is still better than the lethal circumstances you fled.
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Conflating violence and poverty is a problem. Providing “asylum” to victims of private violence – domestic or gangs – is also a problem. The very definition of asylum relates to one’s status as a political refugee, facing official threat. That does not exist in any Central American country, let alone Mexico.
If your husband beats you, go to the next town. Or the next county. Or even the next country. Why here? Why is it ALWAYS here? Ditto if you’re threatened by a gang. We don’t send people from Chicago, Newark, or Baltimore to Norway, and they wouldn’t get asylum if they tried.
Granted, any parent would want his kid to grow up an American. (Well, except leftist Americans, who believe it’s shameful) But we can’t do it. If “poverty” is grounds for asylum, a few billion people will flood in. We can’t be an international welfare magnet.
And once you grant the principle that poverty or threat is grounds for admission, there is no moral way to exclude anyone. It’s precisely because the US got the reputation for not enforcing the law that the present crisis exists.
Admit one, you have to admit them all. Where does the author propose to put a few million/billion new people fleeing “poverty and violence”? Absent a practical answer to that question, she’s just venting and emoting, which does not form the basis for policy.
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I don’t think anyone is suggesting these asylum seekers should be granted asylum. Many have been denied asylum and deported under previous administrations too. But there is absolutely no reason to separate families while their case is processed.
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The alternatives are: detain the kids with their parents, which I believe is not legal under Flores; let them all go, at which point they disappear to a sanctuary state; or, stop them before they cross the border (aka build a wall). Which do you prefer?
I am no leftist but I am sick of the hypocrisy of the right.You don’t want abortions but don’t help prevent teen pregnancy.You say you want to protect Americans but you do nothing to prevent 88,000 deaths due opioids or guns.We need right wing ideas but we don’t need right wing hypocrisy.You dehumanize but don’t solve
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The world needs more voices like yours. The world needs to hear more from people with inherent empathy.
Thank you so so much for writing this. Today, your column parented me. It reminded me that there are good people in this world.
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Thank you for sharing these amazing insights. Your child is right to be afraid. Of all the outrages this administration has committed, nothing scares me more than this. If we are capable of traumatizing these innocent children, we are capable of anything.
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I agree that this has to stop. But the Republican Party isn't a Christian Party, it's a political party. And family values are non-partisan. Religion is important - but not part of this situation. Human rights, human respect, and human compassion - these ideals are fundamental to us all.
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Your daughter is indeed right, Ms. Cummins. We take our social fabric for granted, not realizing how fragile it can be.
You become the company you keep. And, unfortunately, the POTUS is not in good company right now and has a lot of sway on the future of our beloved country.
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Do not absolve this really horrible person who sometimes occupies the Oval Office from blame because he "is not in good company right now." We have seen throughout his occupation that he fires those with whom he does not agree. So these draconian policies, which he himself has chosen, are wholeheartedly his, agreed to by the sycophants now surrounding him. The only one he couldn't fire if he wanted to is Pence, who smilingly supports whatever he does, says, or tweets.
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Thank you for the foster Mom perspective. I am a CASA and I have been feeling a similar anguish watching this.
For a baby, even a "temporary" separation is not knowable as such.
So it is an emotional trauma that is identical in degree to deliberate parental abandonment, or a parent's death. IThe baby's tether to the world is lost. It is intolerable emotional pain, coupled with the loss of the very person who soothes and relieves pain.
I have seen the PTSD engendered by early, devastating emotional loss. The aftereffects of this degree of early trauma can go on for life. This is the right brain of the child learning that at any moment, anyone you love can go poof. This kind of blow leaves permanent marks.
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Please send this heartbreaking message far and wide. Politicians need to know.
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I was 4 y/o when my mother abruptly died. It stays with you your entire life, and effects your sense of self all your life, as well as a tendency to feel you are to blame. You will never have the chance to become the person you may have been.
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Thank you, Ms. Cummins, for your heartbreaking and heartwarming personal account. You've brought a much-needed perspective to this tragic situation, where thousands of children will not be as fortunate as your foster children were. The profound post-traumatic effects on the children who are currently incarcerated without their parents or a loving substitute will be devastating for years to come. As I'm sure you're aware, the majority of Americans are as outraged as you are. We are ready to take to the streets. We want this madness to stop.
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When are we taking to the streets? It needs to be this weekend. Who has the plan?
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We will be judged by how we treat the weakest, most vulnerable and most needy in our midst. In this global community of ours we are all in each others' midst.
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I heartily agree. Except that we have already been judged for our past apathy and insensitivity. And Donald Trump is the cross we have to bear.
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The only judging that will ever happen is here and now. All laws and norms are simply thought constructs that are agreed to by varying numbers of people, too.
As a teenager I was fascinated (not in a good way!) by how Germany could possibly have come a country that murdered innocent people by the millions, attempted to systematically exterminate Jews...the list is too long. How, I asked my dad, could this have happened? He looked at me and said. More easily than you think. And don’t think it won’t happen again. Because it will.
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Very wise father. "Never again" is a false platitude. It is always happening somewhere and also being resisted somewhere as well. Everyone gets to decide which side they are on.
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When an American parent commits a crime, his/her children do not accompany him/her to jail. So it is with adult illegal aliens; they are detained and provision is made for care of their children. Also, in some cases it is necessary to determine whether youngsters are actually the children of those claiming to be their parents (one of many forms of gaming the system).
The US has immigration laws that allow foreigners to seek entry and citizenship. Those who do not follow these laws and procedures are in this country illegally (i.e., lawbreakers) and should be detained and deported. This is how it is done in other countries, too, not just the US.
The US cannot afford to support its own citizens: the poor, the ill, elderly, disabled, veterans, et al. It is therefore utterly impossible for US taxpayers to support the millions of people from other countries who would like to come to the US. That is why there are laws limiting the numbers of immigrants allowed into this country each year.
The cruelty lies not in detaining and deporting illegal aliens, or forcing those who wish to enter the US to wait for processing. What is cruel, unethical and probably illegal is teaching foreigners how to game the system to enter the US by falsely claiming asylum, persecution, abuse, etc.
Note: The children are well cared for in very good living conditions, not in "cages" as shown in deliberately misleading photos published in the media.
Both countries, Germany then and the USA now, were subjected to similar leadership.
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"Republicans are ostensibly the party of Christian family values." The key word here is 'ostensibly,' and it is supposedly the case, only because they trumpet their self-righteousness. Yet we have all learned just how trustworthy their word is - following in the lead of their true master, not very. They will shake their heads in dismay, or perhaps curse in anger, upon reading these words, yet their actions speak louder than any hollow proclamations of holiness or cleaver 'I know you are but what am I?' comebacks they may spew forth. Garbage. Just like their word - worthless, hypocritical ramblings of mean-spirited people. Nice family values.
Oh, I know all the 'logic' they will try to pass of to excuse their abominable behavior and decidely un-Christian attitudes. "They broke the law, these are the consequences." Here's a deal: any of them who have eevr cheated on their taxes get deported - because after all they are defrauding taxpayers, and it is against the law, is that not correct? They don't deserve to be here if they can't obey the laws, right? Hey, I'm fine with that, kick the freeloaders out, and oh by the way, their children can be taken away and distributed as someone who knows better (who exactly?) sees fit - the criminals need not complain, the whiners, always crying about their rights - babies need to just deal with it. These are the conseqeunces of breaking the law. Unfair comparison? Only because hypocrisy and cruelty reign supreme in Trump's kingdom.
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This is exactly what I keep thinking! How would those who justify this horror feel if we incarcerated the children (even in "nice" conditions) of every parent who has ever gone one mile over the speed limit? After all, that's breaking the law too.
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Our past policies has lead to the violence these people are fleeing. If we don't want them coming here we need to do more to help stabilize their home countries. Desperate people will not remain in unsafe environments indefinitely, especially if they have children. With our hallowed reputation as a nation of immigrants and the land of opportunity it's only natural that they come here.
We're a nation who has never known war, famine, corruption of government, or cartel violence within our borders. We've always been relatively safe. We don't understand what these people are fleeing because it's unfathomable to us that our government would stand by and allow such corruption and violence.
Our good fortune means that we often lack empathy and compassion for those who experience such atrocities. There is no excuse that justifies how our government is treating these people. At least with family detention they stay together and go home together if their claim for refuge is denied.
This is one of those moments when we answer the question about what kind of country we are. Do we still see ourselves as the shining city on the hill that offers refuge to the weak and the poor. Or have we become the country that Trump and his minions envision where Nazi sympathizers and KKK supporters are fine people. We can still be a nation of laws without resorting to needless cruelty.
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It's getting less unfathomable!
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Thank you for for pointing out that US policy has contributed to these being the most violent countries in the world.
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Ami,
“We’re a nation that has never known war”? You might want to study American history. After earning our freedom in the Revolutionary War and defending it in the war of 1812, we fought a Civil War that killed or injured one out of six Americans. Since then we have fought in several World wars because of Europ’s inability to get along with itself.
We as a country should be able to decide who comes here and under what terms, just as Canada, Mexico Europe and Japan do and have done for generations!
The exact same people who decry “American Exceptionalism” want America to be “Exceptional” by accepting anyone who shows up at our borders and wants in! No other country on the Earth has a policy like this!
Europe is falling apart because they accepted once the number of immigrants we accept each year!
If you tolerate this then your children will be next.
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ONly if ICE has reason to believe that you are an illegal immigrant.
"Your children will be next." Really? For what reason?People have definitely gone off the deep end. You think the government is going to round up every single child in this nation (US citizens) and incarcerate them? Seriously? Wow. People have really gone looney if they believe this.
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As a child psychologist who has focused on reducing such trauma with lifetime consequences, I thank you for your compassionate story and insights.
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I look forward to your advocating that Americans in jail should have their children with them also. Oh wait, I am sure that won't happen.
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Helen,
What is the actual point of your comment? Is it a de facto argument that, because there are some circumstances in which parents are separated from their children by the state, that this excuses this policy? Perhaps a slightly more nuanced and compassionate view is appropriate given the administrations wholesale rush to demonize people and in the process abandon and dismiss many of the principles that actually make America great. Without those principles, without the ability to treat people as people and not as political pawns (at best) and dehumanize them, while pursuing a sane and (probably imperfect) policy towards immigration as a whole, we will have, in many many ways, thrown in our metaphorical towels and suffocated our ideals.
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@I&M: Some of the people who come across our borders are seeking legitimate asylum from persecution but almost all are just seeking a better life, which does not qualify for asylum or we could be admitting almost everyone from around the world who can buy transportation.
In the past, we set a hearing date and set them loose; few returned for their hearing as most, knowing that they would be deported, just disappeared into the illegal immigrant sub-culture in America's cities. The system of trust was not working. That is why we have to hold asylum-seekers and others until their hearing.
Is it inhumane when we incarcerate shoplifters, forgers and embezzlers to deter their criminal activity which they are doing to improve their lives? When we do that, we separate them from their children. If it not inhumane for us to do that for American citizens, why is it inhumane to do it to illegal border-crossers? If it is inhumane, what humane suggestion do you have to prevent crime?
The U.S. is now trying incarceration which is also used as a deterrent for many other crimes. When American citizens commit crimes, we incarcerate them and separate them from their children. What's wrong with treating these illegal border-crossers like we do American citizens?
The U.S. is doing the best it can under a difficult situation. No one has come up with a reasonable solution to prevent just anyone from crossing our border and disappearing into our cities for decades that is better than this.
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It is no accident that Ms. Cummins mentions a choice between diabetes and cancer: when young children are traumatized, their brains develop differently, and their physical health is compromised - for life.
The science of epigenetics clearly demonstrates that trauma permanently alters health not just for that individual, but also for his or her descendants. The ripples of the stone dropped into that young life will also reverberate beyond the immediate family, creating a transformation in family systems, communities, and culture - and not in a good way.
History has provided us with millenia of evidence that cruelty and hate quash entire peoples.
When will Americans march in the streets to protest the destruction of the very fabric of democracy - care of its youngest and most vulnerable? When will Americans renounce guns and the absurd idea that millions of children will never be afforded the health care, security, and education that children elsewhere in the Western world have as a birthright? And I write of American children born into a supposedly democratic society. Don't get me started on those whose parents only desperately wanted to provide for their children what they believed would save them from a hellish existence.
I am sure I speak for many Canadians who say, let them come to us. Doubtless, many Americans feel the same way - but until they stand up to greedy and dishonest politicians, nothing will change.
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I am marching tomorrow. Fellow Americans, marches are happening everywhere, every day this week. Find one.
I’m not a marcher or a joiner or a chanter by nature. I do not like protests one bit. I always opt out. But this is a stand and be counted moment if there ever, ever was one.
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@Canadian,
You just might want to look into Canada’s immigration policies before you point a finger at the U.S. You might especially want to note that most immigrants to Canada are buying their way in by investing in Canada. There are probably not a lot of “Your humbled masses” in that group!
You might also take a look at Canada’s treatment of its “First Nation” peoples in regards to their healthcare and education problems.
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Richard,
I teach Indigenous children and base most of the learning and literature around the heinous history of treatment of their ancestors - as recently as their parents and grandparents. Yes, it is a national shame, one shared in many ways with similar horrors on your side of the border.
Also, Canadian immigration policy allows for the streams of people flowing across the border from the U.S. as immigrants realize that there will because no safe haven there. These unfortunate humans risked misery - some losing fingers and toes to frostbite in the middle of winter - to cross the border.
Refugees and desperate immigrants - including, most recently, tens of thousands of Syrians - have enriched this country immeasurably through their hard work and warm hearts, not their finances.
In my early years, we lived outside of New York City - close enough to visit often.
I've seen the Statue of Liberty from our boat as we cruised through the harbor. I've taken the ferry out to her island; I've climbed the stairs and looked out through the ports in her crown. When I lived in Brooklyn Heights, I could see her lit torch many evenings, I've memorized the poem by Emma Lazarus that's inscribed on her pedestal. On our nation's Bicentennial, she was the centerpiece of a gorgeous fireworks display.
Don't we - as Americans - gladly offer our hands to all those who earnestly want an opportunity for a better life?
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The ideas behind the "Liberty Enlightening the People" are French not American. They are who honor egalitarianism under liberty with brotherhood, not us. We are about property rights and privacy. When it (Statue of Liberty) was gifted to us it languished, they struggled to put it on a pedestal. Ten years before that we were grabbing new immigrants off the boats in NYC slapping a gun in their hands and sending them South to help kill other Americans. You may be a bit too idealistic.
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Not if you don't enter our country legally.
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To JPG:
I am afraid that we did for centuries. But, sadly and madly we are no longer living by "The Lady With the Light"'s purpose, symbol and standards. I and all of my family wouldn't be allowed to become Americans by this administration.
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If the parents applied for asylum at US Ports of Entry, then they would wait there - and their application would be processed while they cared for their children. There would be no tragedy of separation to portray.
It is parents with their children who are entering the US illegally who are apprehended, at which point the parent and children are separated. Put otherwise, the separation is a consequence of the parent(s) choice not to follow our country's law.
As a liberal Democrat on the whole - who also handled federal criminal immigration cases (such as smuggling illegal aliens, criminal alien reentry after deportation, etc.) while a federal prosecutor with the LA US Attorney's Office in the mid-1990s, I am concerned that the Times is publishing a series of articles that don't properly represent the facts - but rather amount to emotional sketches. This may resonant with the Times' readership, but ignores the complexity of the issues -and continues to alienate those who for good cause consider illegal immigration an issue that was neglected by the US government for years . . ..
It is this very myopic viewpoint that opened the door for Trump in 2016 . . ..
The irony is that the Times' readership decries Trump's various failures to follow the law, but deem themselves on the other hand to have the moral authority to decide that a massive violation of our immigration laws by literally millions of individuals should be ignored. This comes off as an unthinking tribalism.
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I'm surprised to hear you say this, but understand your experience is prosecuting criminals. The recent steps of the Trump administration are touted by them and are not in dispute. First, asylum seekers are now being sent away.
They cannot get to the first interview to establish the basis for asylum. If you think this is untrue, look at the statistics for refugees from the Middle East. The numbers have gone from the thousands to literally only tens of people granted asylum or visas. There is definitely a change in our policies and practices, people who seek legal asylum are being denied the opportunity to even apply. Second, Sessions has now announced new restrictions on asylum, to refuse asylum to people suffering from gang violence and domestic abuse. This is a change to long-standing standards as applied in interviews by experienced immigration personnel and judges. Many of these refugees have left their countries because of fear of violence and death. Third, the new policy and practice of prosecuting everyone for misdemeanors, including incarcerating them and taking their children away, imposes a penalty beyond belief. Tell me any misdemeanor in this country that includes abduction of your children as a penalty. Finally, when you deny people even the opportunity to apply for asylum and they then cross the border without formal permission, a hearing on the misdemeanor is their only hope of justice. I think you are ignoring important facts here.
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As I understand the NYT reports, the legal situation is no longer as you describe it. What used to be legal points of entry no longer accept asylum applications at all in some cases, and in others, since fleeing gang or domestic violence is no longer accepted as a basis for applying for asylum, people who try to submit such applications are immediately arrested at the point of entry for attempting illegal entry just by showing up to submit an application. In such a situation, there is no "legal" way to approach the border. If an administration wants to implement a "no asylum petitions will be accepted" policy, there are ways to do it that can avoid such suffering, but these involve broad, well-thought-out planning and working with neighboring countries such as Mexico to provide other alternatives for the migrants. "Well thought out" does not seem to characterize this administration's policies in any area.
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A close examination of the facts in confusing times has shown me that the worst has come to past. Asylum seekers are often stopped at the Port of Entry and kept from passing over. So the asylum seeker(s) come back the next and the next day until maybe 10 days or 2 weeks later they are allowed to step over the line. Soon the adults are arrested for being illegal immigrants and their children taken away and put into jails for children. I call them that, because the children are treated exactly the same as prison inmates. This imcludes very young children. If you don't believe me, go look for the facts yourself. They are slow in coming, but they are there if you persevere.
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Out of the mouths of babes, a wise perspective from the children.It hurts me to see what we are doing to these children, and to the parents as well and, worse, using the Bible and God as a defense to this indefensible policy. Luck has it that we still have a free press and people like you, who bring these stories to life. The government needs to look deeply into its soul, deep into the soul of our nation and our values, and find a solution that does not break the family as we are doing.
And, one more thing, some are saying that citizens who are incarcerated also have to give away their children. The problem lies in the difference between Felonies and Misdemeanors (minor crimes which typcally do not call for jailing). Those who are incarcerated know in advance that the crime they commit will likely land them in jail; immigrants typically did not.
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Many are removed from their parents because their parents do drugs. 90,000 of them in 2015.
That is not necessary. It is an attack on a family that needs help, not state violence.
Oh, but if the government only had a soul! Therein lies the problem.
If the issue here is “illegal entry”, why can’t we take some extra effort and transport these families to legal border entry facilities and assist them in processing legally. I don’t think they are handing out pamphlets in Central America on how to naturalize into the US. We are spending money to prosecute people who are not criminals in the true sense. These are not crimes against society. These are families who are doing the same thing that every good American citizen’s family did throughout history; seeking a better life for themselves and their children. It’s just as easy to treat them with some level of compassion as it is to deal harshly with them. It is a choice the current administration is making.
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Exactly
Remember - Trump’s target is “bad hombres”, rapists and thieves. Who knew that 4 year-olds were rapists and thieves, but it must be true because Trump said so, and he never lies.
Great points!
My great-grandparents came here more than a century ago, arriving at Ellis Island with the little children who would become my grandparents. They couldn't stay where they were; think "Anatevka."
They were welcomed, worked hard, and contributed to a great nation.
My other relatives, who did not flee a different country, were likely separated and certainly killed when people came for them. The people who came for them were Nazis.
As you say: people are not criminals to protect their families. They don't expect handouts. They just want the chance to live. Nothing is more basic, and more human, than that.
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Your child was right. If they can use children for pawns they can do far worse because they are blind to human suffering.
The US is in the grip of fear and hatred and has lost its soul.
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They are not merely blind to human suffering, they revel in it. I thought this would happen, then began to hope it wouldn't. Now it is here. Any one of us could be next. Will be if we don't end this.
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I think they rather enjoy human suffering, providing that it proves that they have power. One of Trump's appeal to those who voted for his seeming promise that they would have POWER, power over people who appeared to be immune to their importance and power. Trump, himself, models this state of mind and he is determined to get revenge, as well.
In the 19th-century, federal policy demanded that Native American parents send their children to federally-run boarding schools, most of these situated hundreds and even thousands of miles from the child's home. Many children were separated from their families for long periods of time, even years. Those in charge of the policy argued that this was in the children's best interest. When parents refused to send their children away, the government would at times withhold rations from the tribe, even when these were part of a treaty agreement. Today, many American Indian families suffer from the trauma that was inflicted by the US government more than a century ago. For people of color in this country, a federal force severing family ties remains a familiar echo.
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Many if those separated children were sexually abused. In Maine this has been discussed and brought into the light.
How is this the same? How do you compare Native Americans having their children taken with criminals being separated from their children. This is an insult to America's indigenous people. And to make matters worse, Native American who suffer some of the worst unemployment and poverty in the United States are forced to compete with these illegal migrants for work and scarce government resources.
Funny, I wrote this very thing several days ago, but the NYT did not see fit to publish my comment. My Native American great grandfather was actually arrested for not sending my grandfather to the white school in the east. Problem was my grandfather wouldn’t stay, he kept getting off the train & coming home. The government finally appointed a white man as guardian over my grandfather. That same guardian signed his name to legal papers giving himself the family allotment land to himself. Yeah, the government will always treat you fairly & do things in your best interest.
I feel bad for the kids. However, this policy is about playing the long game in immigration as it's focused on changing the calculus for those who wish to enter illlegally. We can see the calculus is changing based on other articles over the last few days where would-be illegals still in Mexico say the policy will cause them to re-think entering the US illegally. That's exactly what the policy is intended to do. It's unfortunate that kids are swept up in this but it's ultimately the responsibility of the parents for putting the kids in that spot. Hopefully fewer parents will .ake this poor choice going forward.
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Trump is using the children as hostages. It has nothing to do with immigration "reform." It is a policy meant to satisfy the cravings of racists and bigots. If you can justify inhumane treatment on the basis of a political agenda, then you can justify anything. Morality trumps policy.
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Sure it may be achieving that outcome, but at what cost? The end does not always justify the means, especially in this case.
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What part of the Statue of Liberty do you want to tear down. Perhaps the torch should be the first to go.
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Your daughter was right to be afraid. So were my students, especially the ones with moving targets on their backs. My Muslim, Hispanic, and black students knew better than their teachers, though we too were part of those who predicted exactly how ugly this would be.
My brother-in-law, a world-renowned philosopher who happens to be from Columbia, was yet another prescient one; he called my sister in tears the night of the election because he was accosted within hours of the "win" and told to "go back where you came from." Never mind that he's fluent in English, Spanish, French and German and has been a citizen since he was thirteen.
He knew the kind of thuggery, ignorance and hate that created the tidal wave that elected the most unqualified and dangerously depraved candidate in the history of this country would create a world where many would not look past the skin he's in. Worse, they would be empowered to unleash their inchoate hate and prejudice. They were.
Growing up, my family also took in foster babies and toddlers. All week I have been breaking down sobbing while watching these stories. This powerful article helped me understand why. I had buried those memories of what that kind of raw crying sounds like. It breaks you because you know something has broken in them.
We need to start thinking and acting more like children. The adults have lost their minds. And hearts.
Thanks, Ms.Cummins, for being a voice of reason as we descend into the babble of depravity.
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Good way to call it: "raw crying" . Thank you for your words.
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I'm so sorry that any person of color, rich or poor, intelligent or ignorant, is at greater risk than ever to be openly tormented because of the prejudice of another human being. Fox news encourages hate and so does our Putin, Kim Jong-un,Nazi loving, falsely elected president.
I long to hope for the future but I fear the worst of my fellow Americans will win out.
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Miller and Trump are counting on white voters to be racists in their hearts. If they are asked by poll takers or the media, they will express sadness and outrage about the policy of separating parents and children. But when they get into the voting booth, these same white voters will support policies that keep people of color or of different religions out of the country and preserve white privilege and political dominance.
That calculation seems to have been correct in 2016. We will find out if we are really a nation of racists in 2018.
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This is one aspect of the children in cages crisis that I did not consider. We talked about the collapse of the Twin Towers and its effect on our children. This one is so much more immediate, because it's about other kids.
Children view things through their perspective. When parents divorce, they most likely think that they are the reason. When they see children torn from their parents' arms... I hate to imagine. We'll face questions and traumas from our children, no question about it.
Another point - Republicans talk about children whose parents are jailed. How can they even compare the situation? Those children's lives mostly stay more or less similar to the lives before the parent goes away - family, housing, school. Sometimes this is not so, and the children are placed in foster care, some of them outstanding, like the one the article writer portrays, some not so much.
The Central American kids, weary and scared already, lose their one link to normalcy and go into cages (for lack of a better term, those who dislike it).
May the gods help us all.
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Our Nation is what it is not only due to "lucky geography": lawful immigration and enforcement of our criminal sanctions within a just and well-regulated system are key factors missing in the nations generating refugees.
Abandoning enforcement of our laws only makes us more like them, when we would hope the converse.
Please never associate the attacks on America that occurred on 9/11 with the self inflicted (*false claims of children in cages) that is occurring today on the southern border.
People lawfully going about their business were slaughtered by savages and people today suffer the wounds inflicted that day due to the latency period of many cancers.
Any equivalency between 9/11 and anything other than events such as Pearl Harbor/ Holocaust should be immediately rejected by any decent people and this publication.
No one told these people to break our laws and come here - if they are really seeking asylum, rules require it to be sought in the first 'safe' country you enter (in this case Mexico). Asylum is not a magic card to get you to where you want to be (in the US with free stuff).
As you should know asylum seekers are eligible for many public benefits from day 1 if they are classified as refugees, which you and I pay for while US citizens suffer from hunger, lack of opportunity and opioid addiction in wide swaths of the country. Where is your outrage at their plight?
I can't recall any notation in any religious text that states that God is OK with people doing whatever they want if it serves their personal needs. Yes, we need to be compassionate, and that is what charity is for, but we need to act like we do on airplanes, put your own mask on first, then help others, lest you both perish. It goes without saying that that is not an absolute each situation is different
While the comparison with families broken up when an American parent is jailed, is not on point, there is trauma for children affected. The home may be irreparably broken, and children traumatized. As a society, we need to pay more attention to the costs of incarceration.
The brutal truth is that if a parent estimates their childrens' odds of survival are higher leaving them in a tent city in the US over residing in the country from which they are fleeing starvation and brutality, the parent will do just that. We see it in apocolyptic, sci fi and fantasy movies often. Only the parents are white in the movies and we are saddened for them.
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Except here, the children do not have to be in a tent city in the US.
Saw it in real life with the Kindertransport during the 1930s.
As a Christian I keep imagining Mary and Joseph at the border of Egypt seeking political asylum...
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I don't know Egyptian law, but I suspect they'd be told to move on.
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Beautiful! Well stated.
Thank you for sharing this story. Thanks too to the NYTimes which has published it.
There is, as one or another of the interchangeable haters in the Trump administration have said about Canada's Prime Minister, "a special place in 'hades'" for those who tell us to pretend this is fake news, or who try to diminish the humanity of us all by saying stories of human impact like these are meaningless compared to the safety we gain by destroying families to maintain a hermetically sealed border.
It's time for them to be pushed aside for the good of civilization, for the good of our own humanity, and for the safety of our families.
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These innocent children are being violated as much as any child who has experienced physical or sexual trauma. Those perpetrating this abuse on the children should be served citations for committing criminal acts against those who cannot protect themselves, then convicted and made to serve prison time. Perhaps only then will there be any hope of an empathetic response to the plight of these children who are the victims of America’s Worst Nightmare and his claque.
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The children are being violated by the parents who knowingly bring them to the US illegally. THAT is a criminal act. So, according to you, let the parents be convicted and serve time in prison--but wait.... that will separate them even more from their children. How about deporting parent and child together!
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The righteous are outraged. And saddened. And horrified. And disgusted. Unfortunately there are approximately 63 million Americans who are celebrating the harm being done to these children.
Much like the so-called pro-life movement, these people claim to care about children until it's politically expedient for them to cause them grave harm. In the pro-life movement, they demand that every child conceived be born, but once born, it's fine with them if that child starves to death or dies of abuse or neglect. No services, no compassion, no empathy.
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And who said these children are being starved to death, abused or neglect. AGAIN, place blame where it falls--the parents!!!
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The ease of a US president to call asylum-seeking families "an infestation" - and dismantling those families to serve as a deterrent to others - can’t be looked at as a shocking, and, thank-God-it’ll-be-over single event. We know this can happen to anyone: worse, it can happen because this (or any) "executive order" doesn't need justification. Lies worked for this hellish business, lies will work again. It would serve us well to remember the famous words out of a German clergyman: Martin Niemöller, in the 1930s. In light of our ongoing nightmare, Niemöller’s words should HAUNT us.
"First they came for the Socialists and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for Jews and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."
We need to get hateful executives and silent legislators of the ruling party out of running OUR government before our families are separated. For what reason? If all this Administration had was that asylum-seeker' families were threatened and death was all around them, what excuse is necessary? The handwriting is already on the walls about our continuing to be a democracy, and it's in billboard-size day-glo orange bubble-script lettering.
Thank yoo Jeanine Cummins and NYT for this fine and timely piece of work.
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