If this president can take migrant children hostage to force us to give him whatever the wants, how many steps is it from taking your children or mine for whatever "Trumped up" whim he decided he wants? These atrocities are magnifying the more we feed the monster.
32
Thank you Mr Bruni for calling a spade a spade. I don't think your conclusion, that these children are in fact being held hostage - as bargaining chips for Trumps end game, is inaccurate or overstated. It gets to the heart of the matter. And then it begs the question....who could support such a policy?
Regardless of your views on immigration policy, this is the ultimate perversion of our core values. "Give me your tired and poor...your huddled masses.." .... so I can take them hostage and use them as bargaining chips? Seriously? That this could even be conceived of is frightening.
14
As tragic and unnecessary as it is to hold children hostage, the one good outcome of this is that it shows everyone in the clearest terms who Trump really is. Even some of his staunchest supporters find themselves unable to support this horror show.
12
TTaking children away from their parents is just heart wrenching and horrible.
But let’s remember, we didn’t go into their homes and take these kids. They were brought here by their parents (in most cases), usually after passing through a few other countries they could have stayed in. They chose to come here and probably think that if we have kids we will be more sympathetic. What are we supposed to do? Adults without kids can be detained, but adults with kids shouldn’t be? Is that fair? Should we throw the kids into detention with the parents? Is that better?
Seems like these kids are also being used as hostages, in effect, by these parents, who bring them here and essentially dare us to enforce our laws.
These kids are also being used by democrats, who are using these photos and stories to their benefit instead of actually trying something. Reform the immigration laws, work with the republicans. Do something.
7
Make him give the children back. DO NOT BUILD HIS STUPID WALL. Those are my hard earned dollars. This is blackmail, plain and simple. He has always bullied the less fortunate. We have to dig in our heels. He just keeps taking more away.
and Leaving the United Nations Human Rights Council means we are now in the swirl down the toilet with him.
19
Donald Trump and his accomplices have humiliated America on the world stage every single day since he began occupying the White House.
30
Foreigners who risk their children's lives in the commission of a crime should be jailed for child abuse and permanently separated from the kids - who should be immediately deported to their nations of origin and raised in orphanages at the expense of the failed states they come from. And in the mean time these children receive better care and are safer in any 1st world detention center than they are with their cynical illegal immigrant parents that have been using their own or other people's children as "hostages", as get out of jail free cards to violate the sovereignty of the United States for decades! At least in a detention center they will not be sold into sex slavery, starved because their parents are working for $3/hour 'under the table', made pregnant at 10 years of age or join our 10's of millions strong wage-killing illegal immigrant business 'plantation' system. I have used the term "hostage" to describe this illegal immigrant parent child abuse criminal scam for years before Bruni recently appropriated it!
6
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.
7
Martin Luther King said, "To ignore evils is to become an accomplice to it." If we do not protest this abomination of taking children away from their parents and keeping them in holding pens, we are all accomplices in this evil act.
Einstein said "it is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man." We can not change the evil spirit contaminating this country by Trump and his minions, but we must, we absolutely must make our voices heard to stop this inhumanity and cruelty. We must scream, yell, do whatever we need to do to in this contemptible struggle to treat the most vulnerable among us with dignity, compassion and mercy.
If we need to march on Washington en masse, then that is exactly what we should do. To do nothing is not an option. Actions speak louder than words. Desperate times call for desperate measures. The world is watching. We must resist. We can not let this evil triumph over our humanity. I am ready to let my voice be heard loud and clear. Enough is enough.
10
There are local groups organizing marches. I believe there's one scheduled for June 30 in Union Square Park in NYC.....a train ride from you. See you there.
6
There is some fundamental defect in people who engage in or cheer the abuse of these children and their families. Perhaps it has to do with their toilet training or their own fear of abandonment as children. Happy, contented people do not behave so sadistically to fellow human beings.
So I can only conclude that Donald Trump, Stevens Miller and Bannon, and the rest of the axis of cruelty, must carry an unimaginable burden of self-hate and loathing which can only be allayed by persecuting and grinding down those around them. Picture an existence in which only the slightest relief from this agony that ever can be realized is to lash out or inflict suffering on others, especially those weaker than them.
Unfortunately, this defect is too widespread to be considered abnormal or deviant. And instead of seeking help for this condition, the afflicted have banded together to turn their inner demons into a form of social organization that exalts self-interest, a winner-take-all ethos, and the hatred of the other. This explains the existence of the Republican party.
12
Who owns the detention centers? Who oversees the psychiatric treatment policies implemented by these facilities for the care of traumatized children? Why does the banner on the website for Southwest Key Programs read: "Due to the high-volume of website traffic our corporate website, we have published a temporary page.
We apologize for the inconvenience and hope to have the full corporate website up soon."?
As taxpayer dollars are being used to pay for the care and housing of these "hostage" children, do the parties who are receiving revenue for these services not have a responsibility to make disclosures of their operating expenditures and procedures available for scrutiny and accountability?
10
Trump campaigned with the far-fetched suggestion that he would build a wall and Mexico would pay for it. That was never going to happen, so now he is in effect using Mexican and other immigrant children to force payment of the wall by US taxpayers. It's a corrupt and immoral strategy. The wall itself is a boondoggle with no genuine value.
15
(yawn) (yawn) Re-unite the families then send them back to their home of origin. It is OUR taxpayer money which is being wasting supporting half the world's helpless while blaming children for the situation.............how long must we tolerate this?
6
Sweet revenge will be taken upon Trump when little Donnie, Jr. and little Eric, while they are attempting to flee the country, are the first to be taken hostage by federal marshals after the Special Counsel's report is released.
8
I’m wondering if the First Lady Melania Trump has chosen protecting the dignity of children as her platform why has she not made visits to the detention centers where the children are kept to ensure of their wellbeing? The administration has admitted they went live with a program without enough personnel to manage the outfall. This is a crisis, where is our First Lady who states she wants this to stop? Why is she not seen inspecting these centers?
8
We can only hope that Trump and Miller suffer the same fates as history's other worst despots. Say no more.
13
If their was a leak at a power plant or a natural disaster in upstate NY that you need to flee for your kids safety and the Canadian government grabbed your kids what would you say?
4
So when Ryan reveals his bill, which he said will include an 'elegant' solution to DACA and, of course, the Wall, what should an honest congressperson do? It is clear that this horrible policy and its effects are being used as a lever, and the children treated as hostages.
I'm sorry to say, we should not bargain with terrorists. I have kids and grandkids and I'm having problems with this conclusion, but there it is. He created the problem and he should own it.
6
Excellent restatement of the reality. If only we heard such clear logic from more legislators. Trump is a better liar, and this is a hostage crisis- of the administrations choosing.
4
58% of Republicans support the policy, the reason being that in their minds, we can't have open borders and take in everyone who is suffering. There are people/children all over the world suffering horribly, and we do nothing about them. These children provide unfortunate photo-ops, but for the voters who have bought into the argument that our open borders are a catastrophe, Trump's actions are akin to desperate measures being taken in desperate times.
If Democrats really want to take the high ground, they need to point out Republican hypocrisy about illegals (the many Republican voters who benefit from illegal workers, the illegals helped in the reconstruction of New Orleans), they need to sell their comprehensive policy, and they need to demand that so called moderate Republicans across the nation take a stand and support their position. They need to argue that unions and labor laws and regulations and minimum wages protect workers and that the same Republicans who oppose those laws on account of it "costing jobs" are essentially opposing measures to increase the cost of labor, and so will never truly support any measures that would effectively shrink the labor pool and allow workers to demand better wages. They need to explain that the Republican vision is for Americans to take the jobs formerly done by immigrants, and at the same time to shrink the safety net so that Americans will then be willing to work at the same wages and under the same conditions as the illegals.
10
Reminds me of another time when Republicans used a child as a hostage to make political points with their base. In 2000 they went into full spin mode to prevent the Clinton administration from returning 6-year old Elian Gonzalez to his father in Cuba after Elian’s mother drowned in an attempt to reach the US by boat. Elian survived the boat sinking and was rescued by fishermen and turned over to the US Coast Guard. Eventually the courts ordered the boy be returned to his father in Cuba.
8
There is a concept in psychology known as IDENTIFICATION with the aggressor. I think trump,
Through his hostile actions, outrageous lies and intimidating language has managed to cow a very large number of Republicans to go along with him. However, with the morally outrageous and contemptible hostage taking of children, some of the intimidated are loosening their “identification.”
4
Lock Trump up! Lock him up. Lock him up. Lock him up.
And give us back our country.
21
This “zero tolerance” policy is nothing but immoral, and clearly reveals the values of those who started it, and those who support it. “Enforce the laws...” Fine. But find another way. Find a way that doesn’t strip children from their parents. All these self-righteous “America Firsters” proclaiming this to be OK are echos of the rationalizations “good Germans” uttered 80 years ago... find another way.
6
If we give in to Trump on child imprisonment at our borders, we are all criminally complicit.
Let's be clear. Trump is a kidnapper demanding. a $50 billion ransom for infants and children to build his idiotic and ineffectual wall. The wall is a ridiculous boondoggle, but it gets him, he thinks, a political WiN.
Folks, the money for the wall is taxpayer money! Therefore if we capitulate, we are all, by extension, kidnappers. The "ransom" benefits Trump and the MAGA-head alt-right sycophants with their mutual fantasies of a purge of Brown people by terrorizing their children.
Presidential advisor xenophobe Stephen Miller has made it clear that this is a coercive political ploy that he bets will be effective at the polls. His wild fantasy is that 90% of voters actually support this insane criminal activity. AG Jeff Sessions has simpler motives. He is a racist.
Americans should recognize that we are supporting criminal activity by suborning the actions of Trump, Miller, and Sessions. The GOP Congress is complicit. They are equally criminal. We need to purge them from office or this vile behavior will never end. Worst case, it sets a precedent for future administrations.
I for one, don't want to live under the leadership of thugs. blackmailers, kidnappers, and grifters, as we now have with Trump and his cronies. Voters can solve this disastrous situation in November.
14
Never underestimate the stupidity and ignorance of the American public. Blame Democrats? How is it their fault when McConnell and the GOP flat-out said their goal was to make Obama a one-term president (and failed, by the way)? The GOP has been in charge for the better part of the Obama presidency, and even with control of both houses and the Oval Office, they still can't accomplish anything but the destruction of American norms. This is all on them.
8
Trump is getting what he really wants. Nobody's talking about the Mueller and the Russia Investigation.
10
Trump doesn't even have an esteemed pet like most families do. That speaks volumes.
But lucky for the pet who would be neglected, emotionally (if not physically) abused, deprived of "human" or even humane love, nurture, fun, care, companionship, and respect.
His pet would live in daily dread and fear. Like Melania, Ivanka, Donald, Barron, and Eric. (I pray for her sake that Tiffany is far, far away.)
5
Yes, I've often thought about the absent pet and am glad there is none, for the pet's sake. God forbid if it piddled on the floor or jumped up on the furniture, leading, probably, to Trump's bullying of it on Twitter, among other atrocities.
2
The United States elected a monster. No other conclusion is possible.
14
Under what circumstances, in what time frame and how will these children be reunited with their parents? What if the parents have been deported? Will this become another Guantanamo with the kids being warehoused for years because, in the impulse to act for short-term political goals, this craven administration has not given the slightest thought to these issues?
10
This will not end well. An immigrant father has already taken his own life, after his son was taken from him. Toddlers are already showing trauma symptoms, in that they cannot be comforted. Parents are now being frightened to the point that they are sitting in Mexico considering which is more dangerous, returning home or crossing the border.
Mike Pence a professed Christian is employing Lewandowski, who has mocked a Down's Syndrome, 10 year old, immigrant girl. Ivanka Trump is whispering concern for image in her father's ear, but will not speak up for decency towards these fellow human beings.
The travesty of this is stunning. Our only means of stopping this madness is to remove these craven, selfish, dishonest, politicians from office. Tragically, many peoples lives will be ruined by then.
16
Trump brags incessantly and so boldly of his sweeping executive powers...so vast he can even "pardon himself" if needed.
But Trump repeatedly claims that ONLY Congress can halt his "Zero Tolerance" policy which he, himself, just implemented two months ago.
So keep repeating this incredible bald face lie,
Mr Trump.
It's a crushing campaign ad against your heartless GOP candidates running for office.
11
Thank god America is keeping these kids safe from the worst which is the parents.
1
You can't be serious.
6
You remind us that there were women working in those German camps too. They were often the worst.
4
We would be more helpful if instead of millions for a wall (which will not work anyway), millions to help correct problems in the dangerous countries these people are fleeing
We could, if there was enough willingness and common sense,
get together smart knowledgeable people to work on these problems.
We should not fear the Liar in Chief. We need to stand up and call him what he is-a manipulative liar.
8
I suggest we call on our local municipalities to cancel Independence Day celebrations in protest. However much we have to be proud of as Americans, grief and shame—not pride—is the more appropriate emotion at this moment. Wear black on the 4th. Cancel the fireworks.
9
Why don’t the politicians opposing this horror demand that the Pentagon use its predator drones to FIND THE NOW MISSING CHILDREN AT ONCE and make use of their weaponry to save innocent lives rather than take them, dismissing the deaths as “collateral.”
Are these children also to be added to the long ledger of America’s sins in Central America? Are they too collateral?
The people who transported them know where they are. If they are safe to talk, a pretty big “if,” they should. If they aren’t free to talk, that further underscores the genocidal animus behind this policy.
2
Parents were separated from their children under another administration in the past--in Germany in the 1940s. So that the government could keep track of those kids, they tattooed numbers on their arms. Might Attorney General Session suggest that as the solution to reuniting parents and their children? We will have to wait and see.
2
Considering what happened to most of those children with tattoos, the best solution still remains keeping the children with their parents.
Trump's callousness along with whatever horrible ideas are festering among his staff are immoral and un-American, inhumane and disgusting.
Does this administration have no SHAME?
2
I guess this is all happening because Donald’s father always taught me first and if you can’t live by that you’re off to military school.
1
What do we call a person who kidnaps children and holds them as hostages, and demands that in order for them to be returned his demands must be met? Do we call him evil? Do label him a monster? No, we call him Mr. President.
7
First they are kidnapped from their parents, then held hostage...
3
This situation is beyond obscene and evil. Where is the outrage? Even the Nazi hid these atrocities from the world.
9
Trump and his people believe that whatever the polls say, most white Americans support policies that keep brown people out of this country and that that is how they will vote in the privacy of their voting booth.
In 2016, that was apparently a correct assumption. In 2018, we will see whether America thinks that Hispanic refugees are people or merely subhuman brown skin invaders who are infesting our country
8
Trump has finally proved that he is not fit for any community position forget for the US President ship; even a janitorial in any school. He is phony, liar, deceptive, con artist and above all inhumane, who has strong will power like any other dictator and autocrat to use human beings and children as shield to satisfy his ego, goal or crazy idea.
It is also very sad that the Republican leaders are following his madness to make America racist, intolerant and inhumane in the eyes of the whole world.
It is time to stand up and kicked out this moron from the White House and install our prestige and reputation in the world.
7
These are crimes against humanity. The perpetrators should be tried in the World Court. “Just following orders” is not a defense.
11
It would do us all a world of good to educate ourselves on the amount of blame the US of A bears for the conditions south of the border. Analyze what is currently happening in Puerto Rico to get a general idea(hurricane Maria).Think of it as the chickens coming home to roost.
5
Trump is creating a generation of future terrorists focused on hurting the US. If Americans don't stop this immediately, our children will pay the price of his cruelty. I thought I had seen the worse in America in the 50's when I watched citizens being spat on, beaten and bit by dogs during the Civil Rights Movement but this is a new low in our history. I can't believe Trump hasn't been impeached!
9
Look at the picture ------ a four year innocent girl in between two law enforcement officials with guns. Look at the face of the girl, it is full of trauma , fear and stress. This trauma will affect the child for rest of her life. Is it American? Is it human? Shame on us.
10
Nielsen is in over her head but she is part of an obvious pattern.
Trumps under-qualified, inexperienced choices for high ranking government positions is a towering house of cards built on a windless afternoon.
No one seems to know what they’re doing and nothing is stable.
9
You are exactly right. Someone must find the authority to arrest those who conspire to kidnap children and hold them for ransom.
7
I always found the concept of American exceptionalism offensive, as it seems to mean that Americans are somehow better than anyone else in the world. Well, now I understand what American exceptionalism means. It has been building up since the 2016 campaign when Trump opened a Pandora's box of racism, xenophobia and so much more. He gave permission to his followers to express such opinions in public and cheer for them. This is the man who found moral equivalence in both sides in Charlottesville. He lies with impunity. His family breaks every ethics standard and enriches themselves. He fawns over dictators and alienates allies. Now we have children being held hostage to his stupid wall. American exceptionalism indeed.
6
Yes, it is tough to separate children from their parents. This is done every day in every state in America where a parent is charged with a crime and incarcerated. Those children are just as bereft of support as the immigrant children taken from parents who come here illegally and await a due process determination of their fate.
The separation of families that is occurring now represents a change in policy from the procedure which allowed parents and their children to stay in the United States pending a determination on their status. Many of these people simply vanished into the eleven million illegal immigrants living throughout the United States increasing the overall illegal immigrant population.
Now the Federal Government is no longer releasing these parents into the general population. This is done intentionally in order to discourage even more illegal immigrants from coming into this country. We will have to wait & see as to whether this deterrence is effective or not.
The hue & cry from the media & others focuses primarily on the emotional upheaval of children. Very little is made of the statutory requirements and the efforts of the Federal Government to cope with the influx of these immigrants that we are experiencing on our southern border. It must be noted that the illegal immigrant parent makes the choice to come to this country, or not. The question becomes how far are the American people willing to go to enforce the borders of the United States?
1
This is a truly disingenuous comparison. Yes, when an adult with children commits a crime and is incarcerated, children are left behind. However those children are not placed in cages with little or now ability to contact their parent. Furthermore, the parents of these immigrant children may be ‘criminals’ in the mind of this administration. However, in a moral sense they are good parents doing everything they can to keep their children safe and give them a future. Consider this, the trek from Guatemala through Mexico to the US is arduous and dangerous. Why would any family undertake this unless they feared for their lives and safety continuously in their homeland?
7
To Donald Trump, cruelty IS strength. Inflicting emotional pain on someone, without any chance of retribution, is an exercise in pure, naked POWER. Trump gets off on it. It's his way of showing Putin, Xi, and Kim, "See? I can be just as tyrannical as you, and no one can touch me!" Unfortunately, this is exactly what Trump's supporters want. They live vicariously through him. They want Hispanic children to suffer, because it satisfies their deep-down racist appetites. God have mercy on us all.
10
If that CNN poll is correct, then 58% of Republicans have actively embraced evil and endorse child abuse.
Shame.
10
Have you ever heard this: “When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and waving a cross” wise person said.
Literary...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/06/20/donald-trump-hugs-us-flag-st...
12
Mr. Bruni's language is approaching accuracy: The people of the USA are condoning establishment of concentration camps.
Please reverse your gaze. What sort of people use their immense power of choice to vote into power a man who would do this? Furthermore, what sort of people would then stand by wringing their hands or, worse, cheer while this sad, weak excuse for a human being and all of his appointees, acolytes and hangers-on pervert the promise of America by further traumatizing infants and children.
This is not the America I grew up with and in. Shame on all of you - you did this! Now fix it!
13
Actually, what Trump is doing to the so called "tender age" children put in tents over 100 degrees, is called torture of the worst kind. This idiot we now have as a president is going to have the deaths of many of these children on him. If anything like that happens I hope the jelly fish GOP reacts appropriately but don't hold your breath.
13
GOP will send their thoughts and prayers.
6
Of course Trump is "merely" using the children as hostages to get what he wants. What is being missed here is: What does Trump want? He wants an end to migration from Mexico and Central America. He wants to build a border wall to keep out everyone that he doesn't approve of...and that means all people of color. Trump wants to use the child hostages to force Democrats to vote for changes in immigration laws that would prevent anyone from a country that Trump doesn't approve of from entering the US.
The only people that Trump and his base approve of are the wealthy. If you have money and don't need to leave your own country...you would still be welcome here. Everyone else...stay out. Just so you know...that is where Trump and the republicans are going. Refugees are the last people Trump and his base want here. Trump doesn't want to help anyone but himself...and his base totally agrees with that sentiment. And it doesn't just apply to foreigners...it applies to US citizens.
Let's be clear. America First? NO. Trump First.
Make America great again? NO. Make America white again...or maybe..Make Trump great again.
6
Trumpists say that is what you get for breaking the law (entering illegally). But for children of citizens here who break the law, there are child protective services, not cages. This is beyond an outrage...these creeps cannot sink any lower. I can't even think about these children without breaking down. Sigh, sob.
10
We are supposed to believe zero tolerance is necessary to protect us from criminals crossing the border. If there were even ONE criminal caught in this cruel separation of families, we could expect to see him or her paraded in front of us. But no, not even one criminal, from all this pain. Call it what it is. A twisted hostage scheme for a petulant and cruel president, his minions and supporters to keep brown people out.
7
Just read that Sessionss wants DNA testing on the immigrant families to make sure they're related. How about if Sessions and Trump get DNA testing to find out if they're actually human.
16
The secure of kids is a planned skirmish, a small scale battle to test resistance and compliance. Trump, his aides and enablers in Congress and PACs are all in : there is no turning back on their racism. It divided the country once resulting in a civil war. Trump and "my generals" are preparing for another one, and they plan on winning.
Trump sees himself as a transformational figure, and he is deranged. We are beyond a Consititional crisis since the Constitution means nothing to Trump , his aides and enablers in Congress and PACs. This is a fight for democracy.
12
Trump's cruelty has not reached bottom. How can it be, when his mission is to debunk Democracy; to debunk affability, sociability, cultivation. Trump thrives on his adversarial relationship with moral law, with goodness, with justice, with liberty---with truth, beauty, and equality. NYT opinion columnists refrain from naming Trump a Nazi because of differences, for example, Isolationism versus Lebensraum and the approach to class conflict. There ought to be, however, a focus on similarities, because they are there. Isn't the imprisonment of small children and young boys example enough? What will it take to throw Trump in jail and clear America's track from this trainwreck of Presidential leadership?
7
Pity the Nation…Lawrence Ferlinghetti
“Pity the nation whose people are sheep,
and whose shepherds mislead them.
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced,
and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice,
except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero
and aims to rule the world with force and by torture.
Pity the nation that knows no other language but its own
and no other culture but its own.
Pity the nation whose breath is money
and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.
Pity the nation — oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away.
My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.
― Lawrence Ferlinghetti
12
Imagine what a recruitment tool for ms13 and other, now being formed gangs, this evil trump action is.
3
C'mon Frank....why aren't you writing about how this was a Trump/associates plan from the beginning? How did they get all this organised in so short a time? John Kelly spoke about it very early on in the administration when he was head of homeland security....and what about the PROFITS being made from setting up these "camps" ... who got the contracts? How did they get the personnel, the FOOD, the diapers FFS (if indeed they are really changing them) all prepared so fast? Why have the asylum entries been closed?
THERE HAS TO HAVE BEEN A PLAN. What about Betsy Devos' part in all this? Huge amounts of money are being made with this exercise by FOD (friends of Donald)….Yet how strange there appears to be no documentation or process for reuniting these children with their parents...how will they....or anyone find them? These are very serious questions.
I would also just like to remind readers that Donald was a very good friend of Jeffrey Epstein, and certainly was present at "parties" featuring underage girls....ergo...he must like that stuff, and would also be AT THE LEAST on nodding acquaintance with other male participants...and these persons troll beneath the surface of our society....but I bet they will know where the girls and infants are being kept....just saying. Think about it.
6
Frank Bruni is right. These children are being held hostage. And so far I have seen no true accounting to how the hostages are being treated. What are the credentials and qualifications of those in charge of these children? Are there background checks? How many children is one caregiver assigned to? I am pretty sure that few of these children will remember this time in detention as a positive experience. If a parent is not reunited with their child(ren), what becomes of the child. Are we creating the next DACA generation?
4
Parents have been deported without their children.
This separation is all about stealing children and giving the cute ones to well connected church groups and wealthy donors.
It's happened before with native American children and is happening now
6
While this is not the intent, it is a predictable and anticipated collateral benefit in the calculations of a modern royalist class who consider themselves entitled to the love, bodies, and labor of others.
2
As a Christian I agree with trump , these kids traveled threw bad situations I believe America spared them from crime rape murder and other bad situations these parents should be prosecuted to the fullest as a parent I wouldn't had traveled threw dirt animals no
Food no shelter trying to get here so who should be blamed is the parents selfishness of parents at least these kids have shelter, as a parent I would never sacrifice my child to get what I want , I support republicans in this decisions, I say arrest these parents and stop blaming America for your problems, we are not
Your solution, God gave all of us our own given country if your not trusting God than you fail
Anywhere America is not your savior . Go home Mexicans and stop disrupting our country .
Well articulated for a Trump supporter.
3
As a "Christian" Brenda, you should recognize that Jesus said, "Whatsoever you do to the least of my children, that you do unto me." But I guess trump supporting "Christians" don't follow that part of Jesus' teachings.
4
Brenda writes, "...God gave all of us our own given country..."
How do you know God didn't tell these people to come here???
I'm going to stick my neck out just a smidge and guess that you do not of native American ancestry. So your ancestors were immigrants. Why didn't they stay in their country of birth? Hmm?
My ancestors all came over on a ship from Europe. They got off the boat, were checked for their health, proved they had a few dollars in their pockets, answered a few questions, and were allowed in...allowed to become citizens. We still have space in this country for refugees and asylum seekers. We have jobs that citizens don't want or can't do. We need the vitality that immigrant offer. Let them in.
4
While the Trump zero-tolerance “solution” is going on, the US left the UN Human Rights Council, using the flimsy excuse that Israel is being mistreated. What a crock! The Israelis, with hardliner Netanyahu as their leader, do commit human rights crimes against Palestinians, and should be called out. Is the US departure a coincidence or what? I don’t think so. Mr. Putin perhaps is calling in his loans on Trump and influencing his Puppet’s decisions. Trump follows the Putin Plan really well: classic Putin is that there is always a crisis, lie and lie and lie, and never admit a mistake or that you are wrong. Deflect away from truth with blaming something else. There is no policy, there is no future. And I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the US Oligarchs are getting in on the action: after all, getting rich on the backs of others is the name of the game. Let’s see, the Mercers, the Murdochs, the Kochs, to name a few...and as for the Republican Congress: they are part of the problem, too. McConnell no doubt has some deal going with the President. As for Paul Ryan, wimpy. Trump likely pulled out of the UN Human Rights Council so he wouldn’t have to criticize all those despots, such as Putin ad Kim Jong Un, whom he seems to be such pals with.
Separation of families is immoral. We cannot allow these practices to continue. If those who are in power are unable to act, and that would mean Republicans, they should be voted out of office.
8
This person said that he will stop the "carnage"...
No one knew what he was talking about aside from some very angry people...but now we can see and witness the real CARNAGE of our fragile democracy, not the perfect democracy by no means, but at the least something people can fight to improve, move forward trying to correct past mistakes.
Instead we're all watching in disbelief the reality horror show perpetrated on us by the worth reality character.
Thank you Mark Burnett. If you have to do it chose your next subject wisely.
4
There's no need to pass legislation to end this kidnapping of children from their parents. Trump could do it in a day - by executive decree.
But Trump has made it clear he does not want to. He's using these children to get what he wants - regardless of the views of the American people's elected representatives in the legislature.
These children are the canaries in the coal mine of American democracy. Every American adult or young person capable of writing should send a letter to the White House. Now. Let Trump hear from you directly, as he won't listen to your elected representatives. He is acting in your name.
11
OK, so I think I get it. I imagine I am living in some Latin American country where the drug cartels essentially enlist my young son into doing their bidding. I know that this will spiral into a choice of whether he is to live now or if it will ultimately lead to his induction into a world of destruction.
I choose instead to spend all I have as well as risk life and limb to extract him from this environment. It isn't that far removed from some American family who knows that their child is hooked on drugs along with their social mates, and decides it better to remove the social environment that festers them, and place them in some safer school, far away from bad influences.
So we trek for months to the US boarder in hopes that this once great nation will take us in. We are told that it might take up to two years to process our request but essentially, it is suggested that we turn around, after months of difficult travel, to turn around and go home to the same brutality that drove us away in the first place.
My choice now is to stay put which isn't realistic, return home which defeats our reason for leaving in the first place, or go for it. To try and break the boarder in hopes that we make it through. But we are here now, so close that we can almost see the promised land, and waiting indefinitely or going back aren't real options. So we make a run for it thinking that me and my young children couldn't possibly be considered a threat.
Not a great plan but at least a plan
10
God bless you, you have captured some of the feeling of what parents go tbrough to decide to take this chance at reaching safety and refuge .
Now imagine the horror of having your child taken away from you into foster care thousands of miles away... Several New York City child welfare agencies are participating in this horror, mostly faith- based agencies. We must speak up now.
4
Who cares if we’re ‘tough’ about it? Immigrants are not the problem, racist americans are the problem starting with the racist-in-chief and all his little toadies.
4
Some of these babies, kids, toddlers, and teens will NEVER see their mothers or fathers again.
Imagine that beautiful baby girl is your child. You will never see her again. I cry.
Soulless DJT has, HIMSELF, with immigrant wife as witness, stole her from you. Some are already permanently orphaned by your president.
Yes, DJT is responsible. Shame on him for allowing that to happen. I hope there is a hell.
11
Why wait for hell? The sovereign People of this country are perfectly capable of ensuring justice is served.
2
They will be known as The Stolen Children.
2
This is extortion to get his wall. The Dems should declare it a terrorist act and remind everyone that it is the policy of the US government to not negotiate with terrorists. When Trump reverses his policy they'll come to the table.
9
There will be many children who do not survive, mentally or emotionally, being held hostage by Americans. Everyone, every single person, who has enabled Donald Trump to reach and remain in the Oval Office, is complicit in this most egregious crime against humanity.
11
This is EVIL at its best. I have just read of a flight attendant reporting a midnight flight with children unaccompanied by their parents, but probably by a federal employee, from Phoenix to Miami - to what fate? Will they ever be reunited with their parents? This has been corroborated. I repeat - EVIL.
13
The horror of what is happening grows by the minute. This morning I read that several NYC foster care agencies have already accepted into their care children torn from their families at the border. SHAME on them all - ESPECIALLY THE CATHOLIC AGENCIES - for participating in this unspeakable process, for which they are being provided big fat federal bucks. IT IS SO FITTING that the US has right at this time withdrawn from UN human rights program.
9
"Hostages" are either returned or they eventually die. The Tump-Session-Miller hostages can't be returned. No one knows exactly where they belong.
2
To any of us who call ourselves Christians: as soon as the first Christmas was over, Mary and Joseph had to take the infant Jesus and flee by night to save his life from King Herod's horrendous policy of slaughtering all Jewish infants under age two. They were asylum seekers, going across the border into Egypt. Matthew Chapter 2 tells the story. Just imagine if instead of reading that the family of Jesus was safe in Egypt until Herod died, Matthew instead told us: "At the Egyptian border, police took Mary and Joseph into custody and put the crying baby Jesus into a pen alone. Mary and Joseph were sent back to their own country, and they never found out what happened to their baby Jesus." Just imagine. Or just look at your TV.
16
I would have to call this State sponsored terrorism. But we know from past experience that we should not negotiate with terrorists, because that only empowers them. We have to find a way to defeat them without negotiating with them.
If this continues much longer the U.S. is going to have an Emigration problem, not an Immigration problem. Many Americans are dual citizens and many first generation Americans are probably defacto citizens of other countries, even thought they may not realize it.
4
I have always wondered how law abiding citizens of a country can be seduced into committing cruel acts. I am getting a history lesson in real-time. Moral corruption large scale.
19
But Sridhar...aren't you supposed to believe that the American people are good, it's just the Government that is bad? That's what "everyone" outside the USA supposedly says about us, "I like the people, but not the leaders."
It sounds like people around the world are waking up to the fact that many Americans are just like Trump.
Good.
2
Most republicans, like their leader are abhorrent people.
6
I have given up trying to make sense of forcibly separating children from parents under any circumstance. As commentators have noted, such was done under prior Administrations. For me regardless of who did so, it was just plain wrong. I cannot recall if others were given the benefit of the doubt, indeed until this recent effort cannot recall this ever being done but I now know it was.
What sets this current scenario apart from others is the person behind it, a morally bankrupt individual with no sense of right or wrong, one who relishes being the bad guy. Apart from this, nobody has mentioned Russia, Mueller, Cohen and the myriad of other things Trumpian offensive. One can only wonder about what evils this Administration is pulling off right under our noses. AG Sessions and EPA Pruitt may have just destroy our civil rights and environment and nobody would know.
Once again DJT dictates the news of the day. Well done Donald.
5
For those that use the excuse that the US justice system frequently puts parents in jail without their children for crimes committed. That might be true but most of those children are living with relatives they know. One third of grandparents in Wisconsin are guardians for grandchildren because the parents are in jail or otherwise unfit. These sad situations are not reasonable justification to cause more children to suffer.
7
As a nurse, I predict there will be dead babies. The camps in which these infants and toddlers are held are ripe for disease outbreaks: respiratory illnesses, diarrheal illness which will easily spread without rigorous infection control. Diarrhea is a leading cause of death worldwide in vulnerable pediatric populations. What about immunizations? Will there be outbreaks of potentially killing diseases such as measles, whooping cough, etc. for which vaccinations are readily available? And what about the babies who are too young to receive vaccines? Who is in charge of medical care in these places? And why are we not hearing from the American Academy of Pediatrics on this looming public health disaster?
11
Frank,
How about on column on America's historical contributions to turning Central American countries into the unlivable places they are today: the CIA-backed overthrow of the democratically elected government of Guatemala in 1954, support of the contras during the Reagan years, the campaign against Nicaragua during the Reagan years, US support of a variety of right-wing dictators. The common thread here is the fear of communism and the loss of the freedom of corporations to make lots and lots of money in these nations while exploiting their laborers.
11
Larry: All of that is completely irrelevant to this discussion. The only relevant fact is that children are being treated inhumanely, without mercy or compassion for political expediency. This is not the time for a history lesson, but this debacle will go down in history as a time of great shame for America.
2
With all due respect, Larry is correct. This is precisely the time for a history lesson, because those who support this evil policy most likely have no clue about U.S. culpability. Which, of course, doesn't excuse their support for deliberate abuse of children.
Ignorance is the common denominator of this President's supporters.
If Democrats cave here, and give the wall to Trump, the party is literally over. Republicans will then use this same tactic over and over to get what they want every time, and their deplorable, base will love it.
It's a terrible situation but Democrats have to let this play out for the good of the future of the nation.
Even Congressional Republicans as inhuman as they are will not let this go on much longer. And if they do Democrats will control both houses of congress after November, they can then have Trump thrown out (and hopefully into prison)
4
Rick,
I think that you’re right. Democrats need to wait this out. The Republicans own it.
1
The politicians have kicked this can down the road forever. Yes are immigration platform is in shambles and now this. It is time to elect people to Washington who will do the job, not protect their job.
Migrations are happening all over the world, we have to deal with it.
6
The Trump Administration policy of separating children from their parents and incarcerating them is than what the worst totalitarian regimes have done. Many of these children will suffer emotional damage for life.
Let's stop sugar coating the descriptions of what the monster in the White House is doing. He is spreading evil across the land. He is destroying the lives of innocents. Those who support Trump are also evil, they are just as guilty as the President.
2
Sorry to say but Frank Bruni never let a week go by without criticizing HRC. So in effect, Frank, you are partly responsible for Trump. Own him.
I just saw a photo of children in a cage sleeping on foil sheets with all the lights on. My four-year-old grandson is autistic. He cannot go to sleep at night without his mother or father, or sometimes both, close to him. As it is, he runs through the house for thirty minutes at a time ("stimming") before lying down. Autistic children are most certainly among the children in the new Trump Hotels. How do they ever get to sleep? How does anyone around them get to sleep?
How does our president sleep now?
9
"Trump traffics in fear."
Indeed, as inspired by people like Steve Miller.
Let's call this what it really is: terrorism.
These children are terrified, do not know who is handling them, what will happen next, and if they will ever see their parents again. Just as the parents are terrified. Not only because they fear they have lost their children, but also because they fear what will happen to them when they are forced to return to their native counties.
And they are being terrified, but our Executive Branch, for political gain.
We have seen this before in history. And if Trump is willing to use infants and children as bargaining chips in his 'deal-making,' what else will he be willing to do? Especially if, at the end of this, he believes he somehow won. Who is next?
So now it comes down to this: To what extent are elected representatives of the American people willing to negotiate with the terrorists in the White House?
10
Well said, the administration of cruelty and hate, plus cowardice of too many republicans. I am embarrassed to be an American since Nov, 2016. Who's he coming for next? Sickly on Medicaid, seniors on Medicare? We need a march of all decent people nationwide to protest this. They've even admitted many will never be reunited! God help us.
4
"Cruz had already denounced what the Trump administration was doing." Should read "...denounced what the Trump administration was doing only days after supporting it."
He's a scoundrel and a known flip flopper whenever and wherever the wind blows.
1
Where does it end? The interactions with Russians to help his campaign, the Access Hollywood tape, mocking Gold Star Families and the disabled, the immigration ban, banning gays from the military, Charlottesville, profiteering off of the office of the presidency, alienating allies, embracing despicable dictators, stealing innocent children from their parents...DO NOT become indifferent and silent people - Donald Trump is banking on that; do something and do it now - today, and every day this evil tyrant is occupying OUR White House. Protest. Call your Reps. Call enablers out. And for God's sake - VOTE OUT the GOP in November to restore balance of power. Four months - FIGHT!
3
And Trumps supporters (and there are lots of them) cheer. That’s why this horror will continue. His base wants it.
2
It's time to stop pussyfooting around and acknowledge that his "base" is irredeemably evil.
2
Get tougher Frank. This is a start. These children are merely hostages in Trump’s game.
https://www.gq.com/story/this-is-why-trump-won
3
why not re-direct the millions of $$$ spent on the Border Patrol to correcting the problems in the countries these immigrants are fleeing? am pretty sure these poor people would love to stay in their own nations if they were safe and had the basic social services there corrupt political leaders selfishly ensure for themselves. Let's have the OAS ask America to intervene militarily in El Salvador et al and bring about substantive lasting change to these countries being raped by corrupt leaders and gangs.
2
Edward, that’s one idea that ought to be discussed. But is anyone in Washington working on policy anymore?
1
Remember, Trump promised that Mexico was going to pay for the border wall. He made this promise multiple times in front of cheering, enthusiastic crowds. Congressional pushback and holding children hostage were never supposed to part of the equation.We need to remember his false assurances and hold this man accountable for his lies, even if those lies were silly or untenable.
1
As you watch the footage and hear the audio of what is going on, do you get a little closer to Mr. De Niro's sentiment? In the face of atrocity, civility becomes the obscene response.
11
Why hasn't the Hague intervened? This is obviously a crime against humanity.
2
Taking kids from their parents (and the psychological harm resulting) seems like the perfect way to foment a cadre of terrorists who will one day commit violence against the country that perpetrated this unnecessary injustice. Well done Trump administration.
3
Thugs like trump are basically cowards, picking on people who can’t fight back. But, who will clean the rooms at mar del lago?
7
A week after Frank Bruni tells us we have to be careful in the way we talk about Trump lest we offend his supporters, he's now decided to act like a journalist instead of an etiquette instructor. If he can undertand the blunt--and correct--description he is using here of the abducted children as "hostages," he may yet see the necessity for the profane rage he previously deemed unseemly.
2
"Shining city on a hill", my eye! My country now is openly practicing fascism, and is a moral and ethical slum. Until we rid ourselves of Trump and his GOP quislings, we deserve nothing from the rest of the world but alarm and contempt.
4
Get out and stay out. Dont come to the US.
Simple messages that everyone needs to heed. We have no use for more "migrants" in a grossly overpopulated world.
1
Cruel. Evil. Heartless. Mean-spirited. Destructive. Heart-rending.Despicable.Horrible. Short-sighted. Immoral. Manipulative. Outrageous. Nasty. Loathsome.Expensive.Degrading.Damaging.Unchristian.Chaotic.Disorganized.Sinful. Inhumane.
Can anyone find a good word for Trump's policy towards these poor families?
5
One thing I have not seen discussed during the abomination going on right now, is the accountability for the countries these people are coming from. The countries the immigrants are coming from have a very small Middle Class, if one exists at all. You are either wealthy or you are poor. Perhaps that should serve as a warning to us as our Middle Class continues to stagnate and shrink.
6
Well said, Frank.
Donald Trump, as a life-long New Yorker, is probably aware that, in the middle of New York Harbor, is a statue sitting on Liberty Island. In which a poem by Emma Lazarus states what for almost two centuries has been the call to the world that the United States is a beacon of hope, a protector of liberty, and a clarion to refugees everywhere.
Now, the "tired and poor yearning to breath free" are Americans being scandalized and horrified every day by the morality-free current occupant of the White House, who has no empathy for those less fortunate than himself.
Our choice seems to be, replace the POTUS (ASAP!!), or tear down Miss Liberty. We can't have it both ways.
3
This is immoral and unethical, and made worse by the arrogance with which he doesn't defend his actions, he boasts about them.
The children ARE being held hostage; this is an evil experiment on human beings that calls to mind Mengele. The claim that they are alright because they are in clean, sterile, environments and get fed - - - also has dreadful echoes.
What kind of people promote the deliberate harming of children?
For the long term problem of a constant flow of people from certain Central American states - including ones where US disruption of domestic affairs - generally arming the anti-democratic side against those who wanted change - goes back into the early 60's.
The problem is in the home countries: why are we not using our political and economic pull to seek change their? By change. I obviously do not mean asking for worse military crackdowns on ordinary people. I don't understand why more sophisticated pundits are not addressing this.
The Ugly American - he's back and in control TW, he never really cared much about his own children either.
3
To all s-called evangelicals who voted for Trump, who are not horrified by his lies, his bullying or un-presidential manner, and are not mortified by his policy of separating children from their parents and holding them in cages, you have now abandoned any claims on morality and Christianity.
16
The evangelicals are all in favor of cruelty to children. That is what “Christianity” has come to mean.
4
What about the many children Trump has separated from their families and futures through ICE roundups, the DACA bait-and-switch, and going after legal residents on long-settled, long-dormant arrests and misdemeanor convictions? We haven’t seen all of them sobbing in makeshift jails by the border but the country is filled with them, too.
May the hounds of justice soon be unleashed on the thuggish mob that has the White House in its control.
5
US has a strange immigration policy. Sure, you get punished if you try to enter illegally, even if it’s something as inhuman as caging children and lying that your hands are tied.
However, the situation isn’t so great for those entering legally either, and Trump’s overarching goal is to really just to end all immigration
8
Imagine taking the funding for the border wall and using it to aid asylum seekers. one would be a humanitarian effort which would have billions left over. while the wall is to satisfy the ego of a diabolical, unfit for office, liar, an embarrassment to the country, shyster.
The scales of Justice would be in opposite directions.
3
What sickens me is that, according to Stephen Miller,Trump and his goons are doing this for political advantage with their Republican base.I recently read about incidents where ICE agents were boarding buses and essentially saying "show me your papers" to many of the riders.I hope that his base can see how this country,under Trump,really is closer to pre WW11 Nazism than it has ever been before.I don't like making statements like this....but the comparison is becoming unavoidable.
15
I agree with the discomfort in making these kinds of comparisons. We see and hear the discomfort daily, but I believe it is denial. The comparisons are now unavoidable. There are too many and they are crystal clear. We can no longer deny this pre-WWII Nazism. It is alive here in our country. We must shine a bright light on it and fight it or we know where it will inevitably lead and how it will end.
3
During his campaign the President supported waterboarding and "worse".I did not expect him to support the torture of children.I was wrong. ...Pay for my wall and I will stop the torture of children.
11
The US is complicit and contributed to the spread of misery in many parts of the world by supporting the worst dictatorships and waging unnecessary wars. We have consistently broken international laws and repeatedly infringed on other countries sovereignty. To use US laws and sovereignty to justify turning away suffering families is unconsciable and only a product of evil selfish white supremacists minds. This country has lost its soul and will end up self destructing at the hand of those wanting to make it great again.
8
Just wondering, where is family-values "senior advisor" Ivanka in all this....oh right...in her mansion taking Instagram photos with her safe and secure children...
To all the Trump supporters out there: the rest of us appreciate your anxiety about jobs, your fears about "illegals" BUT the world is a much more complicated place than Trump believes. His "solutions" are not only obscene, they are (and this SHOULD concern you, even if the plight of children does not) unworkable and ineffective. How about asking Mr. Trump and his daughter why 99% of their products are made in China: don't you think that if they really cared about you, they'd locate their manufacturing facilities here?
So don't kid yourself, that children are being made to suffer to protect your job. Even that excuse does not hold water.
14
The only upside I see in this profane situation is that Trump and his minions are finally being exposed for what they really are: Pure evil!
8
But we already knew that. His base of 1/3 Americans still support him.
1
What is truly frightening are the Trump supporters who are fully on board with this. They have all kinds of excuses.
• If they didn't want this to happen, they shouldn't have broken the law. (Seeking asylum isn't illegal.)
• Democrats want 'illegals' to come here - they want their votes. (Lie.)
• They're all rapists, murderers, and drug dealers. (The children are criminals in training.)
• What ICE is doing is no different than Child Protective Services does. (Except no judges, no oversight, no foster families - just cages.)
• Putting kids in tent cities along the southern border is just like sending them to summer camp. (Actual comparison from FOX news.)
• Bill Clinton locked up children. No difference. (Except they were children, usually teenage boys, who arrived alone. They were put in protective custody, not ripped from their parent's arms.)
• "It's for their own good." (It always is - the flip side of that being "It's what they deserve.")
And on and on. I'm pretty sure those are the same kind of rationalizations the "Good Germans" told themselves in the 30's and 40's. The "Bad Germans" cheered and wanted more.
(George Takei reminds us what we did to Japanese Americans in World War II isn't exactly a bright shining spot on our history either.)
We are ruled by a monster in the Oval Office - and too many among us have discovered their inner monsters and are letting them out with his open encouragement. The GOP has been feeding those monsters for years. Now they're here.
21
Reporters (CNBC) standing in the rain in Texas. This op-ed repeating presidential tweets, Fox news blathering about summer camps for kids. Business leaders, religious leaders condemning this policy. How very....easy. Like me sitting here, having my morning coffee, reading all this, again and again.
What I’d rather see, read about, is hundreds of reporters standing at the gates of those summer camps, demanding to hear the voices of the kids...the detainees. Along with the corporate leaders, the religious leaders. Demand to see what’s going on inside. The cliques forming, the bullies being born, the assaults, the supposed professionals in child welfare overseeing these thousands. And the “lost” children taken to foster homes....how are they being treated, or mistreated. And so many - girls.
. These are government facilities, government approved foster homes. We are paying for them. Denying cameras, interviews, in the hearings, in the facilities, the temp homes....like secret courts, secret prisons. At least authoritarian governments only do this to adults. We now do it to children. And reporters.....give us tweets.
9
Your column is correct as to Trumps motivation tool to use punishing these innocent immigrant children, fully realizing his base has no empathy for “others” anymore, even if they are children. He has stoked their fears and hatred far enough along for them to even dismiss the cries of children with a cold heart.
The solution is not going to be in building a wall but in more lawsuits against this administration. Congress is whimpering to try to solve this. You can not negotiate with a conniving tyrant, but hopefully the United States is still a country where laws and decency matter to most people. I just hope we are not too late as I fear we may already be for these poor kids.
2
Frank:
Your analysis of these children being hostages to Trump's "Art of the Deal" is spot on. In fact, my wife and I used the same analogies in a conversation we were having last night. Trump wants his wall so badly that he is willing to sacrifice the nation's integrity and moral values to do so. Otherwise, he might appear to be "weak" and Donnie just can't have that happen.
My conclusion: Donald Trump is a sick self-loving individual without a moral fiber in his body. We can't rid the country soon enough of this blight called "President Trump" and try to pull the collective values of our citizens out of the gutter he's driven them into.
14
We heard from Laura Bush, Michelle Obama, Roslyn Carter and Hilary Clinton. Former First Ladies who have all advocated for children and families.
So where is Melania Trump? Are her lips so botoxed that she can't open her mouth and join these exemplary former First Ladies?
3
Poor Kirsten! It’s tough to be a good Nazi; just ask Wanda Klaff - "I am very intelligent and very devoted to my work in the camps. I struck at least two prisoners every day."
5
I wonder if she understands that "just following orders" won't be an acceptable defense at her future trial for crimes against humanity.
Every day in this country more Americans are killed by guns than by “criminal immigrants,” MS-13 and gangs, ISIS and terrorists combined. Every day. Immigration-related crime is but a trifle in comparison. So please, spare me the Trumped-up ‘this is about public safety’ argument. If Republicans cared one whit about public safety, they would be laser focused on curbing gun violence. Spare me the Trumped-up arguments about saving taxpayer money, especially from a President who flies to his properties every weekend at great taxpayer expense and who promised Mexico would pay for a symbolic-but-otherwise-questionably effective border wall that we—taxpayers—are now on the hook for to the tune of $25 billion dollars. Borders do need to be secure and illegal immigration does need to be stopped—no one is arguing otherwise—but you do not need to traumatize children or waste billions of dollars on ineffective tactics in order to do so. Holding children hostage as a political tactic (i.e., the means justifying the ends) is immoral, un-Christian and un-American, as is anyone who supports or does not actively condemn such policies.
14
have we become a nation of barbarians-it looks like it
9
He did this to his nephew when he reneged on a promise for health insurance for the nephew's kid.
March 15, 2017
(The time Donald Trump kicked his nephew’s sick baby off the family insurance plan)
by Julia Fleischaker
Trump is a vile person.
9
Rarely if ever do we get a chance to witness evil done so openly and unabashedly, wearing the gauzy veil of "obeying the law." "I was only following orders" and "Arbeit macht Frei" - can they be far behind?
10
The ugly truth is that if these were white people, this would not be an issue and wouldn't be happening. When train wreck donnie sailed down his golden escalators that fateful day, he stirred up the pot of racism to add to the toxic soup of fake birther mess against a black president. Now we have storming jeff and little miller. If this miserable lying phony were so worried about crime, he would do something about gun violence in this country.
6
The Republican Party has become the party of madness. Watching the faces of the crowds at Trump rallies and the Republican National Convention, you could see normal looking people morph into a lynch mob full of hatred.
They are unmoored from any sense of morality, any consciousness of the evil they are supporting. Trump is said to equate this to his attack on black athletes for taking a knee.
Trump and his supporters do not care that thousands of small children, babies, and their families are being grievous harmed every moment this continues.
This is an atrocity. It is a violation of human rights.
Yet no Trump officials resign in protest.
No Republican politicians change their party status to Independents.
None of them care. They will put up with terrible harm to small children.
It is unbelievable. This is the rise of the GOP's Hitler, and they cheer him on while children suffer.
10
"It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones."
Luke 17:2
5
You want more MS-13?
'Cause this is how you create MS-13.
Dang thick skull our leaders have.
Or is this part of the plan?!
8
This is above the pale. What I find so amazing is that these people act like this is there country, I hate to tell them but they unless they are Native Americans are all immigrants! Mostly illegal because they just came when no laws governed it. just because you are 3,4,5 generation you are still from immigrants!!!
5
Trump's tough guy policy is, I think, an effort to cover up the fact that he's still the same coward who wimped out of service in Vietnam. Surprisingly few adults, and almost no younger people, know that he was a draft dodger because he was afraid he'd be hurt. Since he became our (gulp) president, he's been trying to show that he's a real man, but he just doesn't know how to do it. He threatens Iran - which he doesn't seem to know is a big, powerful country -and tries to show that he's protecting our homeland by throwing little children in metal cages. He doesn't seem to realize that child abuse is a serious crime in this country, and some smart legal mind might find a way to put him into a cage with these children.
4
Why are these people eternally on our doorstep? Isn't there an entire continent to the south of them where their own language is spoken and that has similar cultures? GO AWAY! The Boo-Hoo Democrats and cynical Liberals insist that they come in droves illegally so as to provide a lumpen proletariat to drive down the wages of already battered working Americans of all colors; and so they can vote illegally. The actual child abusers are the adults (whether their actual parents or traffickers) who cruelly, illegally and stupidly bring them here to use as a get-out-of-jail-free card. GO AWAY! We don't need them and we don't want them.
We may or may not need "them," but we could certainly do without you.
1
They're also vermin. Trump has said as much by referring to immigrants as an infestation. The only other individual I've heard speak in such a way died, thankfully, in a bunker at the end of World War Two.
4
This is what you get When people like you Frank push for legitimizing the racism of the odious Charles Murray. You augment that by sneering attacks on black people. Then you Fein shock, shock!, at trump and child separation. They are logical extensions of the rest of what you support.
2
Cruel. Heartless. Racist. Soulless.
I was running out of ways to describe this horror, but a new one comes to mind, and fits well:
Sadistic.
9
Trump wants to turn ICE into his own SS. He hires them to confront and oppress a particular group he has labeled an infestation and singled out for abuse. Brown people are to Trump what Jews were to Hitler. Warm the special police up on the helpless. When the press reacts with outrage, call them fake news (Hitler liked "Lugen Presse", lying press). The unleash the propaganda organs that feed the crucial lies to Real Americans (Read: Good Germans). Fascists are adept at getting their followers, whether civilian or police, to attack anyone they attack, for any reason or no reason at all. One third of Americans now have a negative view of Canada, and for completely fictitious reasons. Once a fascist cult leader has made followers complicit in his evil, they make up rationalizations. Then when the fascist cult leader ratchets up the piggery, they are in for a nickel, in for a dime. Not only can it happen here, it is happening and it must be stopped. Those whose job it is to stop this malignant madman are as culpable as Trump if they do nothing. History clearly tells us that the lives of millions may hang in the balance.
9
Thank you Frank Bruni, for not mincing words, for calling like it is.
What else could we realistically expect from a narcissistic manchild bully who doesn't deserve the respect to be called Mr. President? Trump is adept at playing the blame game, he is insulting, crass, racist, using the highest office of our nation to deal in blackmail and bullying to get what he wants - the wall! Yes, Mr. Bruni is correct, the immigrant children are his hostages, those in Trump's administration who choose to be silent or those that agree with him are also holding these innocent immigrant children hostage. The children are Sessions hostages, the House and Senate Republicans afraid to take the high road, confront the bully in the Oval Office and pass legislation to end this despicable policy that could free the children and reunite them with their parents, are guilty, as well. The governors who sent Nat'l Guards to the border and aren't recalling them back are also complicit in this un-American immoral and inhumane 'zero tolerance' policy, a policy that has dis-graced our democracy in the eyes of the world, and shamed us as a nation collectively. How different is rounding up immigrant parents, snatching their children and caging them to what Hitler did to Jews? What's next? Shaving their heads, starving and beating them, shoving them into cattle cars? Reportedly thousands of children have all ready disappeared. Will we as a nation,be silent as many were then?
4
If these were little blonde babies they would not be taking them from their parents.
7
Little blond children were massacred in their classrooms and Republicans didn’t care.
3
Such a cruel evil man this Trump is.
Followed by his adulating minions.
It is like something out of Dickens come to life.
7
Although I have often disagreed with American policies and sometimes even been ashamed of the way we have behaved on the world stage as a country, I have never compared American policies to those of Hitler. Until now. Imprisoning innocent children, who did not make the decision on their own to enter our borders and relegating them to a lifetime of trust and attachment issues at a minimum, is simply evil. This immigration policy must stop now.
10
If these were white children from Norway or Ireland or Italy, would this be happening? This is not about immigration laws being broken but it is more about a racist WH .
4
I was a child when Hitler was doing some of the same things...taking children from parents, sending people to their deaths in concentration camps (these days to their deaths by violence in the country they came from)...He, too, sowed division and hatred...of Jews, of communists, of intellectuals, etc. (these days it's Latinos , Blacks, Muslims Hitler was not elected by a majority (nor was Donald Trump).; He burned books (now the free press is being condemned). Too many similarities not to feel history is repeating itself.
7
So....How long into Hitler's regime did it take the populace to become aware something was very, very wrong?
10
For some people Hitler seems to have been like Trump in that they refused to believe it was Hitler who was responsible for the evil in the regime. They blamed others. I have heard Germans from the era say, "Hitler didn't know what was going on." They pretended that they didn't either. Trump's boast about shooting somebody on 5th Ave it too true. We can't let things get that far.
1
They are not Trump's hostages. They are not enslaved nor involuntary servants. They are not Americans. They are not in a ghetto nor on a reservation nor in internment camps
They are illegal immigrants aka undocumented alien foreigners who are being immorally mistreated. They are America's uninvited and unwelcome "guests".
The 2.3 million Americans in prison are enslaved involuntary servants. They are 5% of the world's prisoners with 5 % of humans. And 40% are black even though only 13% of Americans are black. Because blacks are persecuted for acting like they are white people. They are hostages.
America's allies Saudi Arabia and Israel are killing Houthi kids in Yemen and Palestinian kids in Gaza. They are also holding them as hostages.
See "This is America " by Childish Gambino
3
The atrocities against the people of Central America and their families, motherhood and disrupted childhood attachment are the equivalent of Nazi Germany's crimes against Jews and other minorities. " Donald's Choice" rivals the Nazi guard in Sophie's Choice when he forced her to decide which of her children goes to the gas chamber. As American's we must put a stop to this heinous criminal violation of human rights and dignity. I request that the International criminal Court name Donald Trump, Jeff Sessions, and Kirstjen Nielsen as perpetrators of crimes against humanity. I request their immediate prosecution in the Hague. Trump, Sessions, and Neilsen and all of his Neo Nazi collaborators should be named as co-conspirators. We cannot stand by silently and watch this damage to the sacred bond of humanity: Parent Child Attachment. This sub human beast wants to use these people as political leverage to force Democrats to underwrite his wall between the US and Mexico. He needs to be in prison in the under the Statutes of the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands .I look forward to seeing his despicable face behind bars in direct response to the more than 2000 family's children he has placed behind bars.
Robert J Neborsky MD
Clinical Professor of Psychiatry UCSD and UCLA
Distinguished Life Fellow American Psychiatric Assn
LCDR MC USN Ret
13
I agree with you , Dr. Neborsky, that this is exactly what the Nazis did when the non-Arians arrived at concentration camps. Women were separated from children and men and each group went to their respective deaths. Hitler did not start out in January 1933 with full power to carry out his heinous agenda but gradually chipped away at human rights little by little. It wasn't until 1939 after he had subjugated all his opponents that he invaded Poland and started WWII and began to deal with the "Jewish" question, which of course meant wiping out the race.
Trump (and I refuse to use the title 'President') must be stopped by our voting in November to change the makeup of Congress and put some restrictions on this monster we call Commander-in-Chief. The German people supported Hitler until they realized he was destroying their homeland, but it was too late. Please vote in November for anyone other than a Republican! They are spineless idiots!!
4
Thank you. Your analogy is entirely accurate. those of us who don't learn from history are destined to repeat it.
1
Talk is cheap, Frank.
How many of these poor children can you and your husband take into your own home? The children are crying!
What could be worse than turning young children away at the border? Using them as pawns and bringing them in, and their parents, as underpaid workers with no citizenship rights, to be exploited for our own needs...
Bring 'em in! The heirless Boomers will need someone to help them as they age... you're losing your sight, Frank. HOw many children can you provide for, and how many can you take in today?
We can't have open borders if you're going to continue with a luxurious childfree lifestyle.... If not you, who? If not now, when? Put down your pen and open up your heart, Mr. Bruni. Otherwise, you're just a hypocrite, sir.
The children are crying!! Where are youuuuuuuuuuu?
3
Mr. Bruni is doing his job as a journalist to bring this disgusting policy into the open for discussion and reflection which might lead to appropriate political action. It is then the job of the elected officials to write and pass sensible and humane laws that will both protect borders and families. Perhaps it might the job of some of the relatives of these asylum seekers to sponsor them for entry into the US if the quota system and a lottery give them the opportunity.
Mr. Bruni is doing his job and doing it well. You are also doing your job as a mocking bully very well and you should be proud.
1
We are trying to save the children that you so easily rip from their mothers arms and throw in cages. These families are seeking a better life for their children and you don’t know. You don’t know! What horrors they are trying to escape.
This is the richest nation the world has ever known. We can afford to treat children humanely.
I’m confused. I thought we were talking about taking children away from parents who are willing to take care of them? So much so they bring them here for a better life. Those kids are lucky to have parents who care about them that much.
Up until this point I have gone after the politicians but given the followers a pass. I figured they were suckered into believing what they believed by the massive GOP propaganda machine. No more. If you are still a MAGA head after watching this abomination unfold you are a cruel, heartless, sadistic, fascist just like Trump. If you are enjoying watching the misery at the border play out you need to resign your membership in the human race because you are no longer one of us.
2
One sure sign of a deeply flawed personality is the habit of attacking people weaker than oneself. In elementary schools, that is appropriately labeled bullying and it is scorned, not encouraged no matter how many "bystanders" as they are called in anti-bullying literature cheer them on.
Our current president fits neatly into the definition of a bully. He preys on the most vulnerable and even the most vulnerable aspects of anyone who crosses him.
Up to date, the bystanders have been not just his hapless or hostile fans, but members of the party he attached himself to like a pernicious parasite sucking any residual conscience or character or generosity out of the right wing caucus.
Trump's entirely solipsistic and frankly sadistic personality is bad enough in itself, but the silence of his enablers is if possible worse. One is a freak of nature and the others are consciously allowing policies and behaviors that will have grave repercussions for many years to come.
5
Democrats, having been exposed as corrupt by their boomeranging Russian collusion nonsense investigation, have decided whining about Trump being mean to illegal aliens is a sure road to electoral success.
Hitting the bottom of the barrel.
Declaring others Nazis because you think illegal aliens have every right to be here is almost as good a political strategy as choosing Hillary as your candidate.
Let’s see how you spin your election defeat as some racist Russian plot to destabilize Central America or other nonsense.
2
Yeah let’s “whine” about inflicting lasting harm on children. Hey, cruelty to children is the bottom of the barrel. So says the entire civilized world.
2
Thanks for the chuckle, Ken
3
This is what 63% of white men and 53% of white women voted for, Donald Trump. Let's not bury this fact. Donald Trump is an idiot, he is what he is: an immoral, mentally ill, hate monger, racist, misogynist, liar, white supremacist, and this is what excited these voters. Here we are, with evil being done, in our name. Separating children from their families, is unambiguous evil cruelty. But these people who support Trump not only are in favor with this evil, but they love it. Don't kid yourselves.
9
Trump is a coward who won't even admit that he is totally responsible for this policy.
9
For once in his life, Bruni decided to speak the truth.
Republicans are hostage takers.
2
Looking forward to what strong arm tactics Trump applies against American citizens in the name of getting tough on <fill in the blank>. When a man only has one tool in his tool belt, he's going to use it to "fix" everything.
5
Do nothing Congress and Senate. The law separating the Children is there for a stupid reason are leaders are to dumb. Immigration reform now. 20 trillion in debt and really counting
1
Apparently "leaders" aren't the only ones who are "dumb."
Linda from Oklahoma...you nailed it.
3
Trump is what evil looks like, smells like, and feels like. And his sycophants, most likely paid off in cash or promise of future gain, take on a dose of his stench. This is called selling your soul to the devil. Political labels, such as liberal or conservative have no place in the conversation as to what is transpiring at the border. If you defend or support the practice of separating children from their parents, then you are an evil person.
4
Immoral, inhuman and a pathological liar he is not any different from Hitler or any other despot in history
12
I copy this from your piece last week:
"Enough with Hitler, too. Has Trump shown fascistic tendencies? Yes. Is he the second coming of the Third Reich? No. Nor are the spineless Republicans who have enabled him Nazi collaborators, not on the evidence of what has and hasn’t happened so far."
You are wrong about this. Trump and his gang are moving us quickly to a Fascist state...more so than Germany moved there in the 1930's...And, you see, he will not have to burn down the capital building, (Reichstag), as he already owns it—and he's working hard and successfully on the courts.
Fascism is a creeper, and we are creeping and picking up speed. The scary part is that the movement has so much support from Americans and other states in the "Free-World" and, there is momentum.
Remember Neville Chamberlain! He was a leader of the British Conservative Party and Hitler's biggest appeaser.
5
Gita Sereny, Into the Darkness, shows the process by which a good Catholic and loving father starts out as a paper pusher in the Euthanasia Program and ends up as the manager of an extermination camp. That first program was a test for later atrocities which developed over time. In the event that some of these men, and women too, were just not sadists, the gradual progress of the horrors allowed the participants to pretend at least that what they were doing was necessary for security, law and order.
1
We need to work with the countries that the immigrants are running from. If we sit by while these other countries dissolve we leave their people little choice but to run to save themselves.
2
How about zero tolearnce for cruelty to infants, children and parents? McCarthy's career was ended when he was asked, 'In the end, Sir, have you no decency? No decency at all?'
Trump and his minions, asked this same question, stare back with blank incomprehension and indifference. There's almost theological discussion of whether Trump is a 'Fascist' or not. What there's no doubt about is that he's monstrously and capriciously cruel, terminally self-obsessed, and utterly unfit to lead a nation. To sacrifice infants for votes is about the clearest definition of 'evil' I can think of. That mouthpiece of a woman who quoted the bible as justification obviously didn't get Jesus' words when he said that anyone who harmed 'one of these' (children) would be better off with a millstone round his neck, and Disposed of Properly. Where are the Legions of the Christly when it comes to that quote? Egging on the end Times. Indiferent to suffering. Serving their master - Trump, or to some, that Other Guy Below.
5
But I suppose we should all be nice to Trump and his supporters, right Frank? That's what you suggested a column ago.
2
"We can be tough, yes. But cruel? That’s not in our interests, not if we care to maintain the global sway that we have. Not if we want to hold on to who we are or mean to be: people of generosity and mercy." Wow, Frank, do you really think that's who we are? After 18 years of bombs, bullets and hellfire missiles causing "collateral damage" (the killing of innocents, including children), after the torture and "indefinite" incareceration of our enemies, after decades of supporting vicious dictators throughout the world--if you still cling to the belief that we are really people of generosity and mercy, you just don't want to face reality.
Americans are frightened people, easy to scare into attacking others with overstatements of danger. Time after time--in Vietnam, in Iraq, in immigration matters, in drug policy-- Americans have supported cruel and inhumane behavior by their government. Time after time Americans have been drawn into immoral and aggressive behavior by easy-to-see-through lies.
You generally tell it like it is, Frank, but in this column you seem to be engaging in some serious self-delusion.
2
Today’s Republicans would rather have Tony Soprano than Ronald Reagan.
3
it's kidnapping plain and simple.
8
"We can be tough, yes. But cruel? That’s not in our interests, not if we care to maintain the global sway that we have. Not if we want to hold on to who we are or mean to be: people of generosity and mercy. Not if we’re invested in that “shining city on a hill” that Ronald Reagan so poetically evoked."
Why do you want to be tough? Who are you pandering to. How in the world can you be tough but not cruel.
Was Ronald Reagan tough not cruel? His policies were very cruel. But maybe that is your example of enlightened cruelty.
1
I think the exercise of having Trumps White House staff and congress should work an eight hour night shift at a boarder crossing and work ALL the shifts at a “holding facility” for the children. I believe this would be a fabulous reality check for these grossly sheltered and privileged shallow humans.
Our “leaders of America”, if they personally
did the work to process first hand, arresting, confiscating all personal property, including jewelry like wedding bands, (sounds so German prison-like) hair elastics, shoelaces, all to be tossed in a bag, in a pile with all the other bags of confiscated personal belongings, most likely gone for good. Sounds like steeling.
My husband inherited my father’s wedding band and is now husbands.
Have our leaders physically separate children from their parents, only for one night, let them hear the screams and see the fear of the Mom’s, Dad’s and children.
Maybe our leaders need to personally witnessed experienced abuse and torture that they created.
3
The level of inhumanity in Trump's sick and misguided policy makes me embarrassed to be an American. I never thought I would feel this way throughout all the other crises that this country has endured during my lifetime. One would hope we would have learned something from them. Instead, many of the same players who caused those crises have made this one worse. (See today's article on the Heritage Foundation for their names and playbook.)
2
Imagine that President Obama had a third wife who was African-born, had possibly worked in this country illegally, obtained her visa under questionable circumstances and then brought over her black family members using chain migration.
Then imagine some sort of civil upheaval in Canada which caused the massive arrival of white families to our northern border seeking shelter and asylum.
Then imagine Obama denigrating these people, ordering the separation of families, and locking white children in cages while his black staff members went on television to mock their plight.
Imagine, just imagine, what all these God-fearing, family values, self-proclaimed morally superior Republicans would have done!
2
Bad as Trump is that is too much imagining. Why don't we just leave Clinton and Obama out of this and examine what this administration is doing. If there is some relevant and honest action or policy of Obama or some other President that has something to do with the current evil of caging children it is fair to mention it.
When Republicans don't like a policy they blame Obama. When Dems are outraged they go for "what if Obama/Clinton did ...". It's boring, useless and maybe even harmful as Republicans can't read and think you are describing something that was actually done.
Frank, I got some news for you. We are all hostages. Hostages to Trump and the Trumpkins in Congress. Yeah, the rest of us are not being held in cages...yet. But not to worry, our time is coming if Trump and his minions have their way.
The current immigration situation is a window on the future. The current immigration situation is a window on the soul of Trump and his base. The current immigration situation is a window for the world to see what the USA has become.
So, here's my question. How many people in this country, and around the world, believe this is all Trump? How many people give the Trump base a pass? How many people around the world are still saying they don't like the US government, but the people are good? How many have come to the realization that the American people aren't so nice?
2
Mr Trump is despicable. But Mr Sessions is worse: he truly believes that his god approves of his cruelty.
3
Beauregard probably had slavers for ancestors so separating families is in his DNA.
2
Not directly related to this column, but maybe somebody has an insight?
Why is the NY Times not covering the Sessions story about how the Methodist Church is calling him put for, eg, child abuse and related breaches of church teaching because of his “unChristian” actions against immigrant children?
1
Funny, it was in his last column that Mr. Bruni was claiming that the Democrats need to play nicer, and not say nasty things about Trump and his sycophantic, grifting enablers. While Ingraham and Coulter babble hatred.
2
Lock him up, lock him up. Impeach Trump before he starts to lock up dissenters like the other dictatorships!
3
This is “The Art of the Deal”: To get what you want, attack at the point of greatest vulnerability. What is more vulnerable than innocent children? As we hit yet another new low (who would have thought we could?) in this administration’s assault on our nation’s values, our democratic principles are at ever greater risk. Vote!
3
I'll go you one better Mr. Bruni. Trump is a kidnapper. Trump & all who support him in this.
We execute kidnappers.
FYI Ronald Reagan's "Shining city on a hill" wasn't his poetry but the words of Puritan John Winthrop, from the Bible, a concept that would be used then and after to justify colonial conquest, dispossession, and genocide.
2
Excellent, Frank. Last night, news broke of "tender age shelters" for babies taken from their parents. It's a term that no responsible media outlet should use. These are baby prisons, period. We decried the warehousing of babies in Russia and Romania, a decade or so ago, and now we're doing it, too. Shameful. Indefensible. Pity the immigrants who foolishly still believe that America stands for something good.
3
Trump's policy, which he lies about even in his dreams, is meant to horrify everyone so that he gets what he wants. The welfare and suffering of brown children and their parents is absolutely meaningless to him or anyone else remaining in his administration, which now includes the worst and the most evil; Nielson's reaction to being harassed is the response of a battered wife (either that, or he's bribed her with millions for her legal defense). I've read comments inferring that comparisons to Nazis and other horrors are not apt, but we don't know what he'll do next, so we need to be on guard. He might have migrants decimated (a Roman military exercise, decimation cleared the ranks of one of every ten soldiers). Maybe he'll decide to open a new business, Trump Oriental Carpets, because those tiny hands can tie such tiny knots...if they think that by doing so, they will see their parents again.
If you voted for Trump, or support him, please seek counseling, and don't make any important decisions before you do. The life you save may be your own.
1
Trump never even cared about his own children when they were small. Why should anyone believe that he cares one whit about the children who are being separated from their parents by his intentionally cruel and thoughtless "policy." Anyone who agrees with, supports him in this heartlessness or remains silent is complicit in his evil-doing. We will NOT forget.
2
Being in a cage is way better than being gunned down by a gang in South America. These children’s lives were doomed from the day they were born. Disaster of a situation. At least Trump is addressing immigration. No democrats will touch it because it’s too risky to their political careers and it’s much easier to stand on the sidelines shouting “human rights violation” than executing an actual plan.
1
The Democrats do have an immigration policy. To suggest otherwise is demonstrating a lack of understanding in the workings of our government. Republican-controlled House and Senate leaders will not bring any bill to the floor for discussion and vote that Democrats offer. Period.
2
Obama was very hard on illegal immigrants. Deported a lot of them. I am aware of a couple myself. They had names for Obama that weren't very nice. You are repeating another phony Republican talking point, aka a lie.
The guy never fails to live down to the lowest possible expectations. If anybody - down to every last one of the people who voted for him - doesn't see that he's a monster, they are likely as deranged as he is. That's important information for the rest of the world to consider.
7
I wonder when they will begin to tattoo these parents and children in order to keep track of them.
4
So this is how Trump shows strength...terrorizing children and parents.
6
Finally (hopefully, not too late) the NYT publishes an opinion piece acknowledging the blunt truth: the president is actually taking children hostages in an effort to wall up America's southern border.
Let that sink in.
Remember the nightmare moment you believed your own child has somehow become lost. Remember the absolute panic.
2
Bravo Frank. You must now feel at least a little silly devoting an entire column to angry public words made by an actor. If we aren’t all that angry, we aren’t paying attention. Keep your eye on the ball.
2
Looks like Trump got something from Kim Jung Un after all: tips on authoritarian family values.
6
I could have done without the gratuitous reference to Ronald Reagan, but otherwise Mr. Bruni has it right. If President Liar Trump wants some leverage, no one is too small to be crushed.
1
Trump and his ilk are pushing "we the people" to the point of protest so that some protests will become violent and so they have an excuse to declare martial law and become "president for life". He has praised China, Russia, Un, he wants it all. Welcome to Trumptopia: where children, the poor and the non-white live in fear. "We the people" live in fear.
1
This is apparent. Trump and his supporters want an all-out war. They've been so completely brainwashed by the FOX and their friends, no amount of talking, debating, reasoning with the will solve anything.
Like the Germans mesmerized in the 30's, there is no hope for Trump's disciples, no salvation. The only alternative available to we who hate them and Trump is to oppose their kind until their numbers die off, which they are, at a rapid pace.
The end of White Americans dominance is nigh. Considering the average age of White Americans, it's coming sooner than most of these deplorable poorly educated bumpkins can contemplate. And that is the only answer left, the only possibility for this once great nation. Not until White American rule ends, and Trump and his followers become the object of our wrath will this madness end.
It won't come tomorrow or the day after. But it is coming, and, God forbid, I wouldn't want to be one of those White folks left when they become a minority in this country. They won't know what hit them.
DD
Manhattan
2
I'm white and I am disgusted by the actions of those with whom I share nothing more than skin colour. You are correct, as a group, we are due for a reckoning.
1
I have signed petitions, sent money to support lawyers and human rights groups and contacted my representatives in Congress via phone and their websites. I also have tried contacting the White House via phone and via website. It is impossible to leave a message regarding any issue with the White House. The phone line beeps off and there is no comment line to reach the president to inform him and his staff of how odious this policy is. How much more execrably and malevolently can this administration behave? If we contact the WH, all we see are bragging lies detailing his accomplishments. This is very disturbing and scary- more Putinesque than ever. How different the Obama administration behaved in regards to citizen comment on important public issues. I know Trump receives responses on his stupid twitter feed, but are we reduced to that level of moronic discourse? What is happening to this country?
4
The only way party figures into this is whether you're party to this malicious inhuman cruelty or you recognize it for the travesty it is and oppose it as vigorously as possible. If you think this is a Republican vs Democrat issue you are blind to the damage this is doing to all of us.
2
Trump feels so giddy, high in his lofty white tower, master of all that happens and subservient to no one. Lord of all.
As each day goes by, he thrusts his chin out a bit further, a bit higher, as he consolidates all power through his devious strategies to gain more love from his base.
I hope his downfall at the polls is hard and sobering.
1
As a Lucía Carmen Flores Sánchez (an El Salvadoran migrant) stated in another NYT's article, "“I had thought that if a mother like me had gone to the border with a child, I’d be allowed to leave detention.”
These parents are using their children as shields from our laws! Shame on them and who really is the monster that is putting their children in harms way?
For all the criticism of the 'zero tolerance' policy this past week, those same critics have failed to make a suggestion on how to deter the illegal migration in the U.S.
If you do not like the policy, and yes it is harsh, provide a solution to the problem. (FYI, amnesty ain't it.)
1
Good Kids
Good kids they are but a border too far -
Bump, bump against Trump’s immigrant bar;
No entry, muchachos, both parent and child -
No reservations, no papers were filed;
No port of entry for kids like poor Pablo
And siblings (too many) from El Diablo
Come for the high life to cut Gringos lawns,
Make Yankee dollars, get treated like pawns;
Good deal, ay caramba,, but we’ll lock you down
Interned by the Trumpster, you’re homeward bound.
My thoughts turn to other US atrocities marked by the combination of intimate violence and racist dehumanization, many directed against children and families (as in napalm bombings of Vietnamese villagers). Once again, terrorized children have become the defining image of an accursed era.
1
Don’t come to the USA without a visa.
There — solved the problem for you Mr. Bruni.
We have no more moral sway.
1
everything Nikki Haley gave as a reason for leaving the Human Rights Commission of UN applies to us! (except for lack of support of Israel). What a vile, vile administration we have! Thank you, Frank Bruni, for this powerful column.
1
The world is appalled at our behavior separating children from their parents. A trauma which will never leave these children who may not ever even see their parents again. We put Japanese Americans in camps during WW 2 (I know one family whose quarters for the duration of the war was a horse stall in which the 4 of them lived..along with many others in the barn..at least they let them have their kids!). Is this who we are as a people? God help us! Trump is a danger to the world. Where are the good Republicans who won't speak up? Our democracy is dying before our eyes. Each day brings a new nightmare. Please, NYT, start stating the truth...Trump lies. Period. Don't put lipstick on this pig.
3
If 58% of Republicans are OK with this immoral treatment of our fellow human beings, then we have a sickness in this country, perhaps an incurable cancer that has overtaken our White House, and is spreading to Capitol Hill.
2
Shame on you Mr. Trump. And shame on all who are participants in this cruel undertaking. It makes me feel as if we are suddenly in Germany in 1939 or the early 1940's
2
Some actions have unpleasant consequences. Hiring a human traffickers to bring you and your children to the US border and then filing a largely fictitious amnesty claim in the hope you will be allowed to enter the US does not always work out.
2
If I lived in a country of despair and had a chance for children to grow up with an education future and safety, it would drive a mother and father to do it. Although under Trump it’s not much a country to look forward to come to.
3
To: Maureen:
Dystopia, indeed!
Only problem for you is this: We're in America----no Martians here!
3
You are talking immigration not amnesty. Immigrate legally or better yet, fix what is wrong in your country.
Maintain global sway...? It's too late for that. sorry
2
"58 percent of Republicans in a CNN poll said that they supported his current “zero tolerance” treatment of migrant families."
Hillary Clinton was wrong. Trump supporters are not deplorable. They are despicable. Dictionary.com says deplorable means essentially that something or someone is regrettable or wretched. Trump supporters of this kind of behavior are not just regrettable. They are hateful monsters.
Republican women fight endlessly to prevent others from being able to get abortions, claiming that human life is sacred, and that "all lives matter". Somehow little brown lives don't matter to them. (Never mind that we regularly hear of Republicans seeking abortions when it would get in the way of their political ambitions, another form of their hypocrisy.)
It's time we call these people out--they can't be allowed to cause this type of damage on vulnerable children and families and then just walk away with their sanctimonious false "Christianity" wrapped around them like a halo.
2
I understand you are opposed to separating children from their families, but you failed to offer a solution.
What would Bruni do?
This is probably unfair to say, but Stephen Miller has the dead eyes look of a shark. A chill goes through me when I watch him talking. He gives me the creeps. Would you want this kid Miller living next door to you?
5
Want to end the Border Problem? Stop exporting guns to thugs in Central America, reduce demand for drugs in the USA and assist Central American governments to build stronger societies.
These little kids are hostages. Do something about it.
1
Come on, these guys are of the same ilk as those who were fine with the separation of mothers and children two-hundred years ago!! Imagine the Old Slave Mart in Charleston, SC and the similar anguish upon separation as neither sets of young children can believe that they might see their mothers again.
They're picking on women and kids now- definition of a bully and unspeakably beyond. Trump really shows us something and its evil.
1
Finally a president upholding the law and demanding immigration be a congressional priority. Increases have shown how easy it is (with approving/enabling socialist democrats) to twist/change the story. The theatrics may be real but are staged very cleverly by the leftists to promote their hateful agenda of U.S. citizens/taxpayers. A false media helps them.
Remember your three Rs
Repeal and Replace all Republicans
Dave
6
Trump administration, our government, is creating new “tender age” detention centers, essentially jails, for hundreds of babies and toddlers.
Listen to the tape of children desperately crying for their mothers and fathers. Of a six year old girl desperately asking for someone to call her aunt’s number that she has memorized, so her aunt can get her and so she can be reunited with her mother.
Our government is terrorizing children, toddlers, babies - the damage will be permanent. Some of these babies, toddlers, children will never see their parents again.
70 new babies, toddlers, children are added to the terrorized list every day.
This is pure evil.
Trump confident Corey Lewandowski “Womp, womp” mocks a ten year old girl with Down’s syndrome being separated from her family. Ann Coulter says these are all child actors. Laura Ingraham cracks a joke. Tucker Carlson says liberal elites care more about illegal immigrants than Americans.
58% of Republicans support this pure evil. But Frank Bruni says that we should be happy that it’s not Trump’s usual 90% Republican support for their dear leader.
Bruni was wringing his hands for De Niro’s vulgarity about Trump and Samantha Bee’s vulgarity about Ivanka Trump. Because we are all supposed to take the high road while Trump carries out his pure evil.
De Niro and Bee had it exactly right.
6
Extortion, pure and simple.
"I'm gonna keep hurting these kids until I get my wall. You Dems can't let me do that, right?"
2
Let’s bake them a cake ... forgive them — for they know not what they do. (...or do they?)
The only thing for which I am grateful is that our country’s racism now stands in bold relief. Our racist president cannot credibly deny his repugnant beliefs, but the rest of us can no longer hide behind some ideological policy position.
This immigration stance is a purely racist, anti humanitarian abomination that no moral human being can support! It amply shows who we are as a nation! Trump’s supporters to a man and to a woman, if they remain supporters, are themselves racists!
3
Anyone who can rationalize this is sick.
1
This reminds me of the scene in Sophie's Choice when Meryl Streep is asked to choose only one of her two children to go with her in the Nazi death camp. Trump is giving us a choice: Either give me what I want to appease my base or I will incarcerate and traumatize children. He has to start building the Wall before midterm elections and he is using the despotic tactics he so admires in Putin and Kim Jong-Un. He is determined to be the winner in this battle and he will use any means to justify the ends.
The world will condemn this inhumanity. The Statue of Liberty should be covered in black and Emma Lazarus' poem should be replaced with: Go Home Losers.
One day this reign of terror will end, but the damage done to these children and their parents will remain as will our collective shame.
7
Trump is shameless and thinks he can use the separation of children from their parents as a way to get Congress to build his ridiculous wall. His methods are tiresome; his language fulsome; his policies crude and cruel. Yet 58 percent of Republicans support him?
I think there should be a critical report exploring this
fact to try to determine why and how this voting block can be reached so that they may be open to change and hopefully abandon their support of this pathetic administration. The Republican Party must be resoundingly defeated so that it will re-examine their policies and their political conduct. They need much more moderation, pragmatism, and integrity and new policies. Fox News needs to be boycotted so that they seek truth not propaganda. Otherwise they should lose their license as a news organization.
2
Why can't we deport this whole criminal administration along with lawless, immoral grifter- in- chief and send them all to Russia, Turkey, Saudi, China, NK and other countries like these, so they can continue to live in their natural habitat where labor camps are business as usual, where killing journalists, justice activist and civil rights fighters is all business as usual, where state propaganda is all they can watch, where you can be executed by the decision of state appointed court and so many other violations against humanity...too many to list.
Also, if we can do this let's check GOP/trump's party where so many can sleep quietly at night when the real moral crisis is happening one again in our country.
Never in my wildest nightmares could I see this happening...I left USSR in 1980.
2
Sadistic: deriving pleasure from inflicting pain, suffering, or humiliation on others.
synonyms: cruel, barbarous, vicious, brutal, callous, fiendish, cold-blooded, inhuman, ruthless, heartless; perverted
This fits the policy and its creator to a T.
1
Girls and boys in custody....Orange is the new pink and blue.
2
Up until this point I have gone after the politicians but given the followers a pass. I figured they were suckered into believing what they believed by the massive GOP propaganda machine. No more. If you are still a MAGA head after watching this abomination unfold and you are a cruel, heartless, sadistic, fascist just like Trump. If you still support Trump you have abandoned every principle America stands for and had ever stood for. In my mind you are destroying the country of my birth and should yourself be deported just as you are doing to these poor defenseless migrants. As far as I'm concerned you are no longer Americans. As Trump told the athletes who dared to take a knee: "You shouldn't be here. Maybe you shouldn't be in the country."
1
Trump picks on two year olds because he is such a cowardly despicable evil man as is Sessions and Miller, people blinded by hatred.
1
Blackmail—innocent hostages are being taken and the thug is demanding a wall worth billions to set them free. Are there judges out there who can stop this evil? Where is the force of goodness?
6
A little over a week ago Mr. Bruin was imploring is to speak in gentle tones about Mr.Trump and his band of cruel racist thugs. Now he decries the policies of Mr. Trump and his band of racist thugs.
I, for one, will never speak kindly of this monster who occupies the Oval Office, nor of the thugs he surrounds himself with. They deserve our scorn, they deserve our abuse, and they deserve all of the foul invective that can be throw at them.
Doubt that? Ask the kids in cages.....
4
Thank God for Frank Bruni.
2
Poncho Gonzales, for those who remember him, was a child immigrant of undocumented economic refugees. It is worth a passing thought to imagine what Trump is discarding and alienating with his disgraceful, inhuman immigration policies. Here is Gonzales' NYT obit.
Why did Chuck Schumer just reject a Republican bill that would fix this? Because he's using the children as hostages. It makes good anti-Trump TV. i await Frank Bruni's next column.
Typographical Viagra! The Phrase that STAYS!!!
Bravo, Frank.
Ghost anyone, ANYONE you know who is still a Republican.
1
Most chilling of all these developments is the furtive, hurried audio and video of the children, smuggled out and released to the media. Compare that to the slick, professional video of the back of children’s heads eating in cafeterias, shots of children’s legs playing and exercising.
It isn’t a leap to be reminded of the Nazi propaganda films of happy Jews and Gypsies is their new “homes.” And the grainy film taken from upstairs windows of trucks in the street, and the Jews lined up for transport.
3
Horrific and absolutely too reminiscent of Nazis in particular which lends this entire scenario a shudder through the nervous system, the heart, and yes, the brain. This is simply over the top and unjust, but immoral. But if you can get away with it and collect responses like the reader below who said American taxpayers have had enough. How about the tax reform bill for immoral action? So somewhere in SEattle and elsewhere apparently this action by our nation at the border to take children away is ok. I shudder at this.
1
He’s really using children to distract us from Mueller. The world can’t believe Americans aren’t in the streets protesting by the millions. There is a sick man in the WH.
2
All this as the US pulls out of the UNHRC, the United Nations Human Rights Council, accusing other members of hypocrisy and bias against Israel.
1
Yes Trump is using children as political hostages and rounding up and separating families just like Hitler did in Nazi Germany and the countries the Nazis occupied.
First you need to understand Trump. He will do absolutely anything, and I mean anything, to win or get what he wants. He has no morals, ethics, or love for America. Everything Trump does is about Trump.
Trump is heading into the 2018 mid-term elections with not much to show or accomplished other than undoing regulations enacted by President Obama. Trump’s signature initiative, tax reform, is a big snooze with the voters since anything they earned from the tax cuts has been spent on higher gas, utility and commodity price increases. Trump’s other big initiative, healthcare reform, is another dismal failure leaving more people uninsured, underinsured or paying much more for quality health insurance.
So what can Trump do to throw red meat to his Republican supporters...Trump wants his wall! Trump escalates the undocumented immigrant issue, treats the immigrants and their children as criminals, and starts aggressive over reaching enforcement with his two henchmen Sessions and Hicks. Trump starts caging innocent children as a negotiating tactic to get his wall so that Trump and his Republican clones can point to the wall in this November’s election. The wall, immigration and border security is the red meat issue that Trump is counting on to deliver Republicans votes in November.
This is Trump.
3
When did the U.S. jails turn into day care centers??
When someone BREAKS the LAW, they go to JAIL. The unfortunate kiddies that the law breakers have put in harms way, go to a safe place, which is NOT in a JAIL.
Obama slapped these kiddies into cages, and now they're being taken care of in places where there are actually beds and indoor plumbing.
There's a price to pay for breaking the law . . . the kids ---- PAWNS 'n PROPS of those law breakers---end up paying the highest price because mommy 'n daddy CHOSE this disastrous course of action.
Trump wants his wall along the southern border. What's the difference between THAT wall and the one that separated Berlin?
Trump is using kids as a bargaining chip. What's the difference between this tactic and how ISIS used kids as human shields?
Trump loves tough words while nodding and winking his approvals at dictators.
What is the difference between how Nazi Germany rose to power and what Trump is doing to this country?
He seems to get it. Sadly his party does not nor his base or the other crazies still supporting his racism and xenophobia.
3
This is how enslaved people were treated, this is what happened under apartheid, the racists in the White House and Justice Department would never do this to white families... It's an outrage, and it's terrifying, and we are all called to act to make it stop. But every discussion of this crisis devolves into how it plays between the Republicans and the Democrats, how the immigration vote will be used to leverage the midterms... Congress is ineffectual, and our government is unstable, because Our Great Democratic Nation doesn't even have a national consensus that racism is a bad thing... 2342 children....
2
Merely the next step in reinforcing the Cult of Personality.
2
These latest events with the Trump Administration remind me of the famous poem by Martin Niemoller "First they came for...and I did not speak out...then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me" the entire text describes the cowardice that allowed the Nazi's to wipe out so many by groups, ultimately getting to the Jews and those who were afraid to speak out. This may very well be the moment in the United States of America where if we allow this psychological warfare on immigrant children to continue, and we demand an end to talk of border walls and fear that is masquerading as national pride - historians may note that this was the beginning of the end of our way of life. But we didn't just get here overnight. First, Trump picked on Hillary Clinton, but we did not speak up, then he came for the Muslims, and we let it go...on and on and on - now here we are and if this policy is allowed to stand - what's next? Suffocating a free press? What will it take for the the Democrats to stand up and speak out...loudly...with colorful language and directly attacking Trump & Co? Dems, Independents and moderate GOP members must come together to stop the madness and start solving problems - and #1 should be putting a leash on the mouth in the WH. Fair-minded people need to take back the reigns of power and stop this un-American assault on children, families and the core values this great country was founded on. If not now, when?
1
I have zero tolerance for Trump's zero tolerance policy and I'm not alone. Only bullies like Trump, Sessions, Kelley, Miller, Nielsen et al, have to make children, indeed babies, victims of their obsession with culling our country of "brown" people. They and everything they stand for are evil!
2
“What the president is trying to do is find a long term fix.” Translation: This administration’s variation of “the final solution.”
1
The republicans are clearly showing us who they are. Believe them. Their viciousness is clear. Their arrogance in their self proclamation as the party of values is shown in all its disgusting pretentiousness vileness. They have no moral base. This is their bottom line. This is who they are. Believe them when they tell you who and what they are and act accordingly. They have morphed into a cancer in the body and soul of America. Vote them out of office and then deal with their illegal and immoral actions through the legal system.
1
Call Trump for what he is...Evil.
2
It was pathetic to see Osama hide behind children for protection. Mr President it is pathetic to see the USA do the same.
2
Trump is a pied piper that is leading our country over a cliff. He is a film flam man, con artist. All of his past ventures ended in a bad way. Do the research on him and his business. After 4 years we will have a depression high federal debt and taxes will have to be reformed. Serious errors.
Remember biblical Job and how Lucifer tries to show God how unworthy a human can be. This same attempt has happened throughout human history, gathering teeth and rings from dead or about to die people in Nazi death camps come easiest to mind. Every so often, we humans are forced to reenact this obnoxious stage play.
Currently, we are meant to debase ourselves and our country by separating babies and young children from their parents. Once again Lucifer is saying to God “See, Those humans that you love so much are not worthy of your love.” Like Job we have a choice. What will we choose today and at the voting booths?
To those whose job it is to remove and care for those children, your choice is extra hard, so I repeat Hannah Arnendt’s quote, “Evil is banal.”
1
Takes a small mind to imprison small people.
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 Sates 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.
4
Clearly Miller, Sessions, Bannon, Kelly (of course, trump has no clue what his own thinking is) want a wall to keep our brown people. And no protesting the shooting of black people by police to demonstrate animus toward them. The wall and the NFL are proof to the "base" that they are racists.
Fox Nooz people like Ann Coulter, Ingram, and Carlsen "agreeing" is laughable. That is, if child abuse, pedophilia, terrorism is a laughing matter.
Trump is practicing terrorism against small children. This policy must be stopped now.
Congress should unite to remove him forom office because he has become mentally unbalanced.
1
Trump said that he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and no one would do anything. He's now bent on proving that he can in fact destroy thousands of families and children with impunity. If we let this happen we are all lost. March on June 30, donate money to the non-profits representing immigrants and refugees (See the Slate article naming these organizations, with helpful links), relentlessly nag your Republican representatives, and vote.
Frank - I love your writing, and I think you're generally spot on with this column. But it troubles me that you keep referring to these people as having crossed the border "illegally." Many of them are crossing to request asylum. There are, and should be, different international standards for that kind of border crossing. When we ignore the fact that these brave people are here as escapees of violent drug wars and government corruption, we are neglecting to engage in a broader conversation about the need for asylum and the diplomatic failure to address the violence in Central America.
3
Democrats are the masters of complaining without offering solutions.
Congress is responsible for our laws.
All of these Congressman and women complaining that they themselves refuse to do their own jobs is classic politician.
It is interesting that just as we start to learn the truth about the corrupt Democrats, the misdirection starts.
Oh, the children.
1
Only one point of disagreement with this analysis: do not imagine for a moment that the payment of ransom will mean the hostages will be released. That’s not how blackmailers, terrorists and criminals operate. If Mr. Trump gets full funding for his wall, you are going to see the price of that wall double, and then triple. Mr. Trump has correctly deduced the importance of his bargaining chip, and the only thing left is to establish the price.
2
Mr. Bruni, as always, your points are vital, articulate, and timely. However, as a faithful reader beyond the border, I must take issue with one glaring error - as the rest of the world sees it: the US no longer has a fine reputation to maintain, and the light in the beacon (or in the Statue of Liberty's torch) has been effectively extinguished by a giant belch from the mouth of 45.
3
To call these children hostages is absolutely false and ridiculous. Are true hostages fed well, clothed and educated in the same manner that these children are experiencing? They even are allowed play time outdoors like all children do. They are being treated humanely and decently in the utmost of normal conditions. They would love to have this same treatment in their home countries. Real hostages should be so lucky.
These children are pawns being used by their parents hoping to gain illegal entry into our country. They were hoping to flaunt our laws by sneaking across our borders and remaining here indefinitely. We cannot accept these illegals or else we will be flooded with constant illegal immigrants and there will be a point of no return. They will see America as chumps and not being serious about fixing this problem which has manifested itself over the years. This illegal behavior must stop. They must return home and apply for residency the legal way.
Those breaking our laws are not setting a good example for their children. They will think that laws do not apply to them but everyone else. This is not the way to raise children. This is just plain wrong.
The children appear to be happy and well adjusted. Hopefully others who are thinking of coming here without the proper papers will think twice before making the long journey. If they see that others will not be admitted, this should act as a deterrent to those who want to break our laws.
The Border Children Hostage Crisis.
Thank you, Mr. Bruni. Let's start calling it what it is.
3
Plenty of stable, Spanish-speaking, culturally similar nations between the USA and South America.
The only difference is we give out the most goodies.
Forgive me, please, for repeating a point I have made in previous comments on the subject of Trump and his --HIS-- policy of family disruption.
Over the weekend a video of Trump, as he is confronted with serial questions by multiple reporters about the goings on at the border, saying, "I hate the children being taken away..." That is an exact quote. Not "[that] I hate..." or "the children [are] being...," (though this phrase can be taken to mean it that way), but "I hate the children being taken away."
What, really, did Trump mean when he blurted that passage? There is more than one way to interpret that sentence, and I am not convinced he meant it as a caring statement of concern for the consequences of his hostage taking. Is it not possible that his base heard it as a straightforward declaration? Trump "hate[s]" these children, as any good racist xenophobe should? Was his imprecise wording intentional?
A final comment. Actions speak louder than words.
2
A narcissist cares about and has empathy for nobody else, even small children. Period. I couldn't believe it when I heard Diane Feinstein say the other day that she was surprised Trump would go this far. She lost my future vote with her lack of clarity about Trump. It is obvious that Trump is a full-fledged narcissist, and anybody who is surprised by his current actions either doesn't understand Trump or doesn't understand what a narcissist is.
5
If I am not mistaken even America's shameful Japanese internment policy in World War II did not separate children from their parents. So what term for moral degradation, worse than shameful, do we have for this?
I used to think of Donald Trump as our very own Berlusconi, but it seems more and more he's our very own Benito.
Pure evil policy from an evil administration. If given any chance by the courts they will be coming for all of us soon.
2
In Trump's America, we are lectured by the Mexican President for our human rights abuses on the same day we withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council.
These are sad, sad days in this country.
2
To Trump, trading small children for a Wall, seem like a mighty fine idea. He turns off his "hearing aid" so as not to disturbed eating his burger in bed. Unfortunately, for the rest of us, he has more problems than time in his life to correct or straighten out. Given the fact he is such a poor student of life, don't hold your breath.
The gross immorality of president Trump and his totally unfit Director of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, holding little children hostage at our southern border is not being resisted by the American people beyond protesting and showing videos of this real "American Carnage" on TV. This is a hostage crisis. How long will it last? Our brave and yes, exceptional, country was built by immigrants and slaves from Africa over the centuries. How can it be that we now have a totalitarian-loving ex-tv star and carny-barker and ignorant man as our elected president? We the American people have zero tolerance for our 45th president. How long will he last? It is too late now for joy to come to the little children separated from their parents and traumatized by DHS and ICE along our southern border. We cannot. will not. must not build the wall Trump wants in exchange for the littlest pawns we've seen in America since the shameful and immoral days of separations of families forever during Slavery.
4
The C4 laden suicide vest on this 4 year old invader is obvious. She poses an immediate threat to the security of the United States. That her mom is packing a conspicuous handgun under jeans on her ankle, but that is OK since it is for self protection once she gets on the USA side of the border.
Heartless Republican party and Trump supporters posit that there would be no family separations if there were no families seeking asylum and crossing the border in the first place. That is warped logic, but accurate. So by extension, there would be no gun violence in the USA if there were no guns!
Logical. So let's get rid of the guns guys.
1
The horror that has become America continues to plumb new depths of depravity. At an absolute minimum is there no shame somewhere down the great chain of being?
2
The Trump Children's Gulag. They are taken from their parents, then the parents are quickly deported. Meanwhile the children remain "somewhere" in a vast federal gulag that cannot keep track of the them or return them to their parents. How many years will America be running the Trump Children's Gulag?
2
As Mr. Bruni says, Trump indeed has more practice at lying, but that doesn't make him a better liar than others.
After 466 in office, he lied a whopping 3000 times, an average of over 6 times per day.
He justified his in-humane and outright evil policy of "zero tolerance" by comparing the problem with Germany supposedly has with asylum seekers and refugees fleeing war torn countries, saying that crime has risen exponentially in Germany.
The fact is that crime in Germany is at a 30 year low, despite having opened its borders to around one million of refugees trying to survive.
Germany has learned their lesson of the 1930s and 40s the very hard way, namely how easily fascism became acceptable by telling them lie after lie after lie, promising to Make it Great Again after the defeat of WWI.
Now the US - a country that liberated Germans from fascism, including my family, from its most brutal racist regime in modern times - starts using the very same tactics that ruined the 'Land of the Poets and Thinkers'.
This administration even has its own Ministry of Propaganda a la Goebbels in the form Fox News.
10
Eventually, the problem of the separated children will be resolved and Republicans and Democrats will go back to ignoring the millions of other refugees attempting to escape horrors at home.
That “shining city on a hill?" Look closer. It's surrounded by a high wall; one built on the blood and bodies of children.
John~
American Net'Zen
This is what MAGA looks like, what the rabid supporters at the 2016 GOP convention cheered: unflinching cruelty towards the Other. Instead of punishing the weakest among us, enforce federal employment law: fine employers who deliberately and knowingly hire undocumented workers. Make America great again by paying living wages to those who perform menial labor. That will attract unskilled citizens to fill positions currently held by "illegals."
4
I believe history will not see us as Democrats and Republicans, but rather the resistance and the collaborators.
Well, that's all the small, stubby fingers can handle. In case you failed to notice, Mr. Bruni, those fingers did not do so well against the North Korean less than half of Trump's years.
1
Have we yet reached a tipping point? Or is this new horror just taking up space until the next horror? Shall we continue to gasp and shake our heads at the immoral behavior of our leaders?
We can debate what should be done about illegal immagration forever but this is not the way to fix it. Frank is right, these children are hostages and we are letting it happen.
When are “We the People” going to hold our leaders responsible?Oh wait, we aren’t “We”anymore. It’s Us and Them. Where are the leaders who can bring is together again and find consensus? I look around and see no one. The eagle needs a right wing and a left wing to fly. Our eagle is about to crash land because the wings stopped working together a long time ago.
If you really care, call your reps now!
1
Why should we be surprised? Trump used his very ill toddler nephew as a bargaining chip because of a family fight over the division of the estate left by their father. He took away the health insurance that had been covering that nephew's coverage. I have no idea what the resolution was because the settlement was secret. This is who our President is, cruel
3
I used to think that America had become the laughing stock of the world.
I am laughing no longer.
7
Docile Frank,
Why no talk about removing Trump from office? Even with this most egregious policy of government-sanctioned child abuse?
2
Donald trump desperately wants his wall. If doing this to children and their parents might give him a negotiating tool, he will do it. And worse.
2
"...58 percent of Republicans in a CNN poll said that they supported his current “zero tolerance” treatment of migrant families." America, the immoral. I bet these Republican voters see themselves as Christian as well. Trump can blame Democrats all the wants, but the blame is clearly evident in the above statistic.
1
Breaking up families and putting little kids in cages is evil, period.
Congress needs to be immediately brought into session this very hour to:
1) pass a law banning this evil
2) launch an impeachment
Neilsen needs to resign immediately. Miller needs to be fired immediately. Enforcement need to go on strike or resign immediately. This evil simply CANNOT stand. This (my) opinion is not open for debate.
3
What about the children with special needs?
5
Does America not get it or do they simply not care. I suggest the latter. Listen to Nielsen, Lewandowski (Womp, Womp) and Trump himself. Racism at the core of the entire administration. Does anyone believe that we would be doing this if the thousands sneaking across the border were from Norway, Sweden, etc.?
5
Random capitalization of words isn't virility, it's Trump's German heritage & need for world domination coming to the forefront. Think of all those German nouns that are capitalized & look again at 45's tweets.
One phrase in this terrific column shot out to me:
"interment of its soul." That's it! HOW could the US of A
come to this? Cages for children under age 3, removing mothers from babes-in-arms. Asking those with so very little
to remove their shoelaces! Where to begin??
The Statue of Liberty is truly in tears. As President
Trimp would tweet: SAD!!
As the smell of fascism wafted
Thick and strong o'er the fruited plains,
Some of the People looked askance
At their promising elected leaders:
Well! Do something, they cried.
The silent response was deafening.
We are looking into it. Be patient.
A fix will appear shortly.
But, hey, how 'bout them economic numbers?
Just go shopping and fret not thyself.
Thou needst not worry.
For this is the Promised Land.
Bank on, shop on, party on,
Eat, drink, and be merry
For the Saviour is in charge.
Only He can fix this.
3
Hostages, exactly. That also was my initial reaction and it is truly disgusting that he would be so heartless and stoop so low.
Surely looks like Fascism is on its merry way to take over our life, liberty and whatever happiness we can muster. Its tentacles are intruding further and further into our democracy until it will no longer exist. Is that the country we want?
2
If Trump is forced into stopping this tragic separation, how do you suppose he will save face? Blame others and deceit are his tools. Can America and more to the point, our Congress manage it?
2
A better solution for this (at least less immoral) would be placing the whole families in buses and sending them back to Mexico on the same day. If you have problems with Mexico, you could refurbish Guantanamo and adapt it for immigrants.
Frank before putting pen to paper did you read the Flores v Reno settlement? Evidently you didn’t. The beauty of an opinion piece is that the author can selectively exclude facts as is the case here.
Judge Valesco: what is our government doing? Protecting our borders! Illegal immigration has to stop. In 2017, 273,000 illegal aliens were arrested...and hopefully deported. During that same period, there were 332,000 requests for asylum....the size of a small American city. This is insanity.
1
No more talking. We’ve vented enough. Time to protest in the streets. Get out and march. Occupy the halls of Congress. March around the White House. March around your state capitol buildings. But stop talking and March.
9
The Cult 45’ers have been issued their "talking points":
1. These kids never had it so good. Good food, good coloring books...
2. These parents should have known (probably from all those iPhones they were carrying to check out current events...) that our policy had changed. Their fault.
3. Those mothers obviously are M-13 members in disguise.
4. They're all coming here trying to "game" the asylum system by claiming falsely they face serious violence at home.
5. The parents are all "irresponsible criminals" for taking their children with them on the journey to the U.S. (Never mind that they are fleeing horrific, rampant gang violence and death threats in their home countries).
6. They're just coming here for all the "freebies."
1
The sick thing is Donald a Trump only cares about his name showing up in the headlines everyday, he could care less about the reality. Maybe we should separate Melanie and son, Ivanka and children and see what different outcome that would occur.
I can tell you the Republican Party is shameful, and our country is the laughing stock of the world right now.
1
People are dismissing my use of the word 'terrorist' to describe Trump and his use of children to get his wall. But that's what terrorists do - hold people hostage in ransom for money. America usually doesn't negotiate with terrorists, yet that's exactly what congress, the dems, and repubs are doing - negotiating with trump, the terrorist.
2
mr. trump has withdrawn the u.s. from the united nations human rights along with n. korea, and iran, this is consistent with his policys on migrants, particuarly children, as the world community
watches this president undermines, and circumvents american values, human values, and affront our constitution, we have a big time crisis, with a gutless , corrupt government officials.
2
They are NOT "small hostages"........they are children whose parents chose to enter the country ILLEGALLY. If we are going to have borders for our country, then let us do so........else,do away with them and let any and all who wish to come and settle here do so. Unfortunately, the children have become the pawns of the adult lawbreakers and are being used to open all US borders. What will it be, America? Laws and borders or wide open iillegal immigration? Time to choose. Laws or lawless................
Easy. Laws along with compassion. Especially for asylum seekers, as most of these people are.
I would say open immigration. As it was when the grandparents and great grandparents of many Americans arrived here. And if borders are open there will be no “illegal” immigration.
Those claiming asylum at ports of entry are turned away. Then, at great peril, they try to come in illegally. They are then charged with a misdemeanor, not a felony. Their children are taken away and placed into internment camps, simply because trump ordered it. He wants us taxpayers to fund a 25 billion dollar wall, since his insistence that Mexico would pay for the wall, was soundly rejected, in the strongest terms, by Mexico. Trump is determined to fulfill this promise to his base, but they don’t realize that they will now have to pay for it. The Democrats and some Republicans in Congress are resisting this level of extortion from trump. He is helping the majority of us to march to the polls in November, to take down this cruel, power hungry madman. I have no doubt that we will succeed.
Mr. Bruni,
While I share all your remarks about this latest Trump atrocity, I have yet to see you acknowledge your complicity in getting this ogre elected. In article after article you castigated Hillary Clinton for her supposed shortcomings, creating the false equivalency that gave the go-ahead for otherwise decent voters to opt for her opponent. I don't really know or care about the origin of your animus against her; and perhaps you felt, along with others, that her election was a foregone conclusion and wanted to demonstrate to your readers that you held a balanced viewpoint. But it is time for you to hang your head in shame and issue an apology to Mrs. Clinton, to your readers and, above all to the nation.
James Tocco
Cincinnati
2
Trump has said he reads the Christian Bible. His daughter is Jewish by choice. Somehow, and I'm not sure how, they missed the important parts of the grand Abrahamic religions demanding honor of the family and doing onto others as you would have them do onto you. Suddenly, I am reminded about my US Army basic training time where a drill sergeant jokingly commented that the Golden Rule was "Do unto others before they do unto you!" It's a shame, but there are indeed people who think like that. The US has placed its hand over Central and South America for 200+ years and made the fervent claim that it is our region of influence but, alas, we have not done our job (duty) to ensure that the nations and peoples to our south have a decent life. We have failed in our guardianship to the highest degree! It is true, we don't want all these people entering the US permanently and quite frankly they don't really want to leave their homes to come to the US either, but sometimes they are forced to do it. Maybe we should step up to the plate and start helping some nations to the south so their people don't need to leave instead of playing this game that they are law breakers and rapists, which is clearly a scare tactic made my incompetent fools. You go down there and you find lots of families that would give you their last piece of bread, just like here. What a demonic show our present Orwellian government is putting on here.
3
Memo
To :All legal immigrants and political asylum seekers.
From: The United States
Subj : Temporary Halt to legal immigration
Date : 20 June, 2018
We are saddened to say this, but, the endless influx of illegal of illegal immigrants, at our southern border, has taxed our immigration system to the breaking point. All applications for entry into the US will be put on hold for 90 days.
All available ICE and CBP agents will be sent to the southern US border to process the families with children. At the 60 day point, this action will be reviewed. If there is a reduction in the number of illegal crossings, ICE and CBP will begin a return to normal operations.
This action is being taken, to ensure your eventual goal of living in a country that is governed by laws, will be realized.
Your patience and co-operation is greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
for the President of The United States,
Mike
Concentration camps for kids! What has the United States come to? Where is that shining city on the hill?
I just don't understand such cruelty. And in a broader sense I don't understand what Americans want from immigration policy. They need immigrants -the native born aren't reproducing themselves. They used to attract the best and brightest immigrants, and in any case they have been getting people who outperform the native-born by most every social measure. So why such passion, let alone cruelty.
The saddest oart: the Administration will very soon have a considerable number of concentration camp prisoners who can't be repatriated to their parents because the Administration has lost track of the parents. Guantanamo will be a minor issue in comparison.
“Trump traffics in fear.” The question is, why do people who call themselves Christians, buy into it?
9
I believe this situation with the children may be the turning point. I had similar feelings when John McCain was made fun of by the man who avoided 'Nam, who mocked the parents of an American Army Captain killed in Iraq, who could not distinguish good from evil in Charlottesville and who belittled our friends and military allies in Canada.....but something tells me this time is different.
1
My deepest fear is that the parents will be deported and their children will stay here and they will never, ever find each other. As most other parents do, I think about my own daughter and what would happen if she were lost to me, if she were suddenly gone, never to be found again, in a country I can't penetrate.
I try not to think about it because just the very thought is overwhelming and painful. The pain and sorrow I feel for these strong mothers, fleeing violence, wanting their children safe, making such a long journey on foot to a place that promises a future and then having uncomprehending children - toddlers! - taken from them, screaming, "Papi, Mommy" .....There are no words.
This is who we are now? We have to allow a man who, like you say, Frank, uses capitalization as viagra and misspells simple words like 'border' do this despicable thing because he made a promise to his despicable base who thinks this is great? Our country is being stolen by evil. Pure evil. We keep taking steps on the road to fascism. This is definitely a huge, gigantic step. Where will it end? Some new version of the gas chambers? If Trump can do this, Trump can do that. And who will stop him? And all of his lies?
Evil. Evil lives in America and his name if Trump.
5
I think too many people have forgotten our past authoritarian policies in Central America. We cast out leaders who the people voted for and put in their place right-wing dictators. As a result we are seeing the shambles that those countries are in now. We owe these people for destroying the places that they call home. We should be taking them in and allowing them to raise their families in peace. These are not illegal immigrants looking for jobs; they are human beings who are escaping what has become untenable violence. Are people too ignorant to understand the difference between garden variety illegals and people seeking asylum? I wish the ignoramuses would stay home on election days and quit foisting their ignorance on the rest of us.
3
Thanks for stating what this action by Trump and Sessions represents. Old White Men flexing their power, stroking a white supremacist base of morally challenged voters in an attempt to reclaim lost virility.
Most border detainees are no more ethically lacking than the GOP. They probably resemble the waves of barely literate early Italian, Irish, English, others who washed up on our shores. Fleeing aggression and poverty in other countries. Their looking for work, safety, opportunities for their children.
They are less likely to fleece us or peddle drugs or rape our daughters than men like Trump et al. We need to clean house in the fall. Get rid of the money launderers and thieves who rode in with Donald. Spend the billions of dollars the GOP would spend on for-profit internment camps & prisons for low level offenders to instead fund education and jobs. We can take care of the new immigrants just fine.
7
I reconnected with a friend who was passing through town yesterday and we met for lunch. He is extremely wealthy and very conservative. Discussion turned to politics. He applauded Trump’s policy of separating children from their parents stating that the parents are “using” their children as leverage to get into the country and that “15% of the kids aren’t even related to the adults that bring them into the country”. For him, these people are all law-breakers and deserve whatever is dealt out to them. By the way, my friend is a devout Roman Catholic. So how does one even begin to reason with someone who sees the world in only binary ways?
10
And, he's still your friend?
Your friend sounds like an "un-named insider, with knowledge of what is going on".
Maybe it’s time to decide if this is a friendship worth having. It sounds like you don’t have the same values.
What Trump has done is not only immoral, but it shines a necessary light on just how horrible the people who surround Trump really are. What kind of people are these who can in good conscience defend Trump's actions? This is my take, Kelly Neilsen, Conway, Miller, Sanders, Coulter, Carlson and Coulter have proven themselves not to have a humane bone in their collective bodies. The fact that many of them have children and think and behave this way makes me wonder how they treat these children of theirs. Would they honestly stand by if this was happening to their families.
All of these people mirror how far this country has fallen in the last 500+ days.
Trump has now proven, without a doubt, he should be removed from office, under the 25th Amendment. He has proven himself mentally ill and incapacitated to fulfill his duties as President
We, as a Country, can not have an unstable President running what is left of our Democracy. Even if it means Pence is the fill in.
The sad thing is, based on performance so far, Trump is only going to get worse. He needs to be removed, Immigration Reform not withstanding.
4
The Trump administration loves the publicity, the outrage and the hullabaloo. But what they don't like is legal challenges. They have lost so many. What we need is every lawyer in America ( and we have so many don't we - one in every 200 citizens currently has a law degree) to get involved in the challenges to this policy. And we need Americans who have been here for generations to share their stories of the immigrant who came and enabled the good life of their families. In my case that was a fifteen year old girl who came from Ireland alone. This will help us say as a nation that we are not the people that Donald Trump thinks we are. Ruthann O'Donnell Miller
2
The phrase "base instinct" came to my mind. Here is the apt definition I found from Free Dictionary when googled:
Base Instinct
A subconscious urge, behavior, or intuition directed by primeval, animalistic, self-serving, and/or ignoble motivations. Greed and selfishness are unfortunately two of the base instincts
ingrained in the human psyche.
2
Trump, played by Liam Neeson
"Give me the money to build my wall and no harm will come to the children".
3
It is so easy for the base to ignore what these children are enduring so America becomes great again, in their view. And every time you face another issue like ethics violations,, mistreatment of our allies, embracing ruthless dictators, ignoring the plight of the suffering, enabling racism and misogyny, and on and on, you just add to the picture that emerges. But it is so easy to just look at the individual partial frames that are developed with each issue and say "No big deal". But ultimately you have a full portrait that begins to emerge by putting all those partials together. The face of a monster. It's like watching a time lapse of a face going from a caring person to a cruel ogre. The base may think they are the same face they have always been, but maybe it's getting to be time to look in the mirror and see what they have become. Denial does make a credible mask, though.
3
The images of immigrant children crying and being separated from their parents are heartbreaking.
But labeling such children as "hostages" is misleading at best, deliberately ignorant at worst. Such rhetoric fans the flames of outrage but does nothing to facilitate a reasonable solution.
Let's stick to the facts:
* By adopting a zero tolerance policy, the Trump administration has chosen to enforce the law to its fullest extent, i.e. detaining and prosecuting anyone who attempts to enter the United States illegally, without exception.
* A troubling outcome of this choice is that children are separated from parents who are detained and prosecuted for illegal border crossing, as mandated by law.
Those are the basic facts, plainly stated. You can argue that the zero tolerance policy is cruel and unwarranted. But it's not illegal. Plus, you can argue as the Trump administration has, that anything less than zero tolerance implicitly encourages illegal border crossings. Anyone who wishes to immigrate should do so by legal means. You may disagree with that argument, but it's not without merit.
Bottom line, the law disallowing parents and children to be detained together is flawed and needs to be amended by Congress so that we can do everything in our power to discourage illegal immigration without having to separate children from their parents. Using inflammatory language won't get us any closer to that outcome.
3
So, if what Trump et.al. want us to believe is that this surreal practice is absolutely required under the laws enacted by Democrats, why does that change if he gets the billions he wants for his politically motivated Wall?
Does the absolute requirement that families be separated disappear when the check clears?
The Administration has also stated that they are doing this as a "deterrent" to immigrants from trying to cross into the US with intact families.
If that's true, and the deterrent factor is important enough to sacrifice the sense of security and mental health of the even the youngest of children of potential immigrants - if the ends justify any means - why not just go all the way and start shooting?
A few days ago I watched old films of people being shot at the Berlin Wall as they desperately tried to reach safety and freedom. Why not make our own entry into infamy by following suit?
By taking this heinous course, we are, in essence, telling potential immigrants - and the world - that we are more to be feared than the cartels and gangs these people are fleeing.
I need a shower.
4
This article is pathetically correct. These parents are hoping for a better place for their children. We would do the same. In seeing these pictures and hearing the sounds of children crying for their parents on podcasts like the Daily, I can't help but think about the Sci-Fi television series "Falling Skies." Americans in that series did what they had to do to protect their children and at the same time fight for their return to freedom. That is what made the series appealing. America has 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 of the problem, like poverty in Honduras and gangs in El Salvador, 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.
3
Mr. Bruni, Calling these children hostages is not provocative. It's deadly accurate. Here's something else that's accurate: People who take hostages are terrorists. The president of the United States is a terrorist. By requiring that Democrats cave-in to his demands, he is asking them to submit to terrorism. It's not about compromise. It's not about working across the aisle. It's not about give and take. It's about a terrorist president who has kidnapped children and will not release them until he receives the ransom he demands.
4
Senator Ted Cruz is up for election this November and Cruz had already denounced what the Trump administration was doing.
Which is well and good, but we all know well within moments he could change his stance, that Mr. Cruz has done before.
BUT, separating the children from their mothers could have severe consequences, one thing is worrisome among so many that there are sexual predators all over, these children could be pawns in their hands and permanently damaged.
Who is to carry those consequences ?
But Mr. ample Dumpty may not get his wall, which is final.
2
Simply put, we have stooped to the level our World War II enemies. Trump & Co.'s malignant lies have rendered the poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty moot; she might as well drop her torch and flip the world the bird. "Liberty" is now GOP doublespeak.
Will the center hold, and elections work, or have we been overcome by our petty demons, illusions, and not-so-petty psychoses?
2
We just learned about the so-called "tender age" centers. Does the Trump administration use a Kindertransport to move these children?
4
One question I haven't heard addressed yet is, let's suppose that Trump in his infinite wisdom (yes, sarcasm) decides to free these hostages, as you rightly call them, from their detainment centers. Given that their families have been scattered throughout Central America, how are these children going to be reunited with their families? Who will care for them in the interim?
2
"Other presidents trafficked in inspiration. Trump traffics in fear."
He is remaking us in his own image, and he is finally the god he has always seen himself as -- playing with children's lives like a puppet master, threatening to obliterate the planet with nuclear weapons or climate destruction. As a malignant narcissist and sociopath, Trump's has probably never been happier in his life. Others' suffering is delivering that happiness.
It didn't used to be this way, but I guess now when you are a president, they let you do it.
2
A Case of Child Abuse, Period:
I agree that these children are hostages. This is the pattern we have seen from Trump all along. The Republicans appear to be complicit in this game of political "gotcha". A wall for your children! That's what he wants. This is a clear case of child abuse. It's criminal behavior by our government, ordered by our executive and supported by various cabinet members.Is this not grounds for impeachment?
Charles Kantor, Ph.D.
Child Psychologist
1
The little mention of the suddenly desperate Ted Cruz is interesting. Here's hoping Texas Dems pounce on this - there are miles of videotape of Cruz anti-immigrant comments and pro-Trump rhetoric available. Don't be fooled by Cruz' sudden false compassion - you have a strong candidate in O'Rourke and with this kind of volatility it can happen.
3
I think "pawns" is a better characterization..."hostage" is a little dramatic... but I don't disagree with Mr. Bruni's thesis. DJT is forcing the issue and using children as leverage. All true.
That said...I hope he sticks with it. Treat the children well...over the top if necessary. But bring the grotesqueness of the border situation into the open. Almost every media account I've seen that seeks to defend immigrant parents' decision for illegally crossing the border...and willfully putting their children at risk of separation...makes them out to be "fearing for their lives." Why? Because they live in Guatemala. Sorry...no. I don't disparage anyone for wanting a better life...and America my be that better life for many...but you gotta come thru the front door.
1
Mike, part of Mr. Trump’s ransom demands is that the number of immigrants allowed into the country be severely limited, that immigrants not be allowed to be accompanied by family (including spouses and children), thus further discouraging legal immigration, so how are people to come in through the “front door”? Also, those people requesting asylum are being turned away at the border, pushing them to cross illegally—which then enables ICE to deport them and make them ineligible for asylum. Thank heavens my own dirt poor peasant Hungarian grandparents made it here (fleeing poverty and war) before there really were any immigration laws. Where did your ancestors come from and why did they come?
It's hard to keep up. This outrage will be supplanted by even greater ones. Not just symptoms, we must cure the cause.
8
While Mr. Sessions is cracking down on illegal entry (some of which is forced by blocking entrances to asylum seekers) is there no legislative activity on the real problem, paying living wages? Immigrants are not taking our jobs; employers are not paying enough and are not censured and closed down for hiring undocumented workers. Agriculture needs itinerant workers for harvest.
5
This tragedy will continue to play out for the young children unable to understand what happened and what they did to deserve being removed from their parents. Despair will haunt them for years to come and the effect on their lives will not be easily overcome. One can hope that many of these children are resilient and strong enough to recover and become more - much more - then the cruel leaders of the our government that brought this punishment upon them.
8
Apparently some in the liberal media think that reports of the separated children and tough response to immigration are bad politics for Trump. People are lost again. This will improve Trump's approval rating and GOP's midterm prospects. I've heard enough from his supporters to know that. Basically Clinton spoke the truth but there is no prize for that.
3
As long as we're calling a spade a spade here, let's not call the places where these children are being held "shelters." A shelter is a place someone goes to that they can freely exit. A shelter is something the city of Houston offered residents of Louisiana after Katrina hit. A shelter is a place the Salvation Army offers the homeless. These are jails; prisons. We are imprisoning innocent, immature human beings who are not yet mentally or physically capable of defending themselves.
8
The White House has it all wrong. History teaches us, America is a great country and not some dystopian dark hole in the northern hemisphere. We are an open nation that welcomes those from war ravaged and oppressed countries. We don’t fear them. We accept, as a blessing, that all races and religions have chosen to gather together peacefully within our shores. We treat others with civility and respect. We don’t make threats and make fun of others because of disagreements. We promote diverse points of view so we remain informed, not ignorant. We put out a hand, not a fist. We are a positive people who look back with affection, and forward with hope and promise. We are not perfect, but we’ll keep trying to do what is right in the face of being told we are all wrong.
3
These actions of the Trump Administration may well achieve the aim of discouraging illegal crossings and forcing action on immigration laws as many commentators point out here, encouraging the President to stay tough.
The point missed is that regardless of the validity of the goals or the efficacy of the methods, abuse of innocents in service of grand goals is not an acceptable bargain. Be smarter; find another way. Abusing children is in no way ‘tough’
4
Migrants, hearing about the separation policy, are re-thinking plans to try to come to the U.S. The separation policy, as cruel as it sounds, is working. It's having its intended effect.
1
It's an effective policy if the goal is to create more enemies of the United States.
2
I can't sleep at night worrying about whether people from Honduras or Guatemala, whose intention is to sneak into our country and take jobs from Americans, hate us and become our enemies.
On Feb. 13, 2012, David Brooks wrote:
"... recent research details how disruption breeds disruption. This research includes the thousands of studies on attachment theory, which show that children who can’t form secure attachments by 18 months face a much worse set of chances for the rest of their lives because they find it harder to build stable relationships."
Independent of one's' political persuasion, what Trump is doing is beyond the pail of civilized society. It is a return to the atrocities of the Dark Ages. This singular action disqualifies him for any level of leadership or function connected to the well being of the community-at-large.
If you, the reader, fail or refuse to condemn this man, across the board, you become, in effect, complicit with this and every illegal, reprehensible act he commits, both now and going forward. Look in the mirror today and tell yourself who and what you are.
16
I looked in that mirror. For the first time in 74 years I saw someone utterly despising a person who is the president of the country where I am a citizen, a veteran, a human being and a humanitarian.
I have come to the conclusion that the current president is a Terrestrial Horror.
5
I’m getting tired of moral outrage that amounts to nothing more than billions of bits in the cyberspace echo chamber. While this column makes valid points, there is not one call to action.
It wasn’t till the US govt shot and killed student protestors in Ohio that the country said enough of Nixon’s lies. Thanks to tech and social media, we can all express our outrage using our thumps in the comfort and security of our own homes with no risk, like me pecking out this missive at 5 am from LA.
What will be our Kent State moment? Pictures of a dead “hostage,” which Mr Bruni correctly labels these children? Or will someone have to shoot Beaumont Sessions to silence his evil like MLK was killed for his greatness?
We’ve crossed the line, America, when the pawns of politics are not pork barrels or benefits for the disabled, but live children who are, as Mr. Bruni correctly says, real hostages.
18
How much of a coincidence is it that the US withdraws from the UN Human Rights Council while Trump takes children away from their families?
16
My thought exactly.
1
We are trying to deter people from coming from dangerous countries by becoming a dangerous country ourselves? We are inflicting pain and cruelty on those fleeing pain and cruelty. Don't speak the "shining city" lie anymore, America has gone to the dark side.
2
The US is completely disingenuous about the delays and red tape of its legal entry processes, two year waiting periods for vetting, and deciding the murky issue of what sort of injustice one has been enduring to gain legitimacy as a refugee.
1
Just wait a few days until illness starts to run rampant through the centers where children are housed. Are they vaccinated or what? When no one knows the background or origin of their lives, this government is putting them at more risk than they can imagine!!! In the name of
Humanity how is this possible?
5
Have to ask who he is going to lock up and disappear next, because that's the clear course he is on unless stopped. There is nothing, nothing, he won't stop at to exercise or remain in power.
11
We travel down the path toward an unjust society when we do not act against the heinous policies that violate our principles of humanity. There is no hope for educating Trump, Stephen Miller, John Kelly or Jeff Sessions, because they are beyond redemption. But we must call out the Trump supporters who also support kidnapping children for political gain as immoral and complicit. I am a true believer in the wisdom of democracy, but this requires that we teach Trump's base. The Republicans who support this policy must hear why they are cruel and certainly not Christian in their support of this crime against children.
3
Filter everything Trump does through his trolling for his base. If he enrages his opposition, his base loves it. Trump is polling higher every week. Gallup now has him at 45%. Nothing Trump does is about substance. For him, it is about winning. And winning $25 billion for his border wall will make his base giddy and put him on top in 2020. Trump is running for re-election and nothing is off limits. We must stop him.
5
Reports are that some of the asylum seekers are turning back as news of the separation is becoming more known by the travelers.
Donald Trump's unspeakable "policy" may have it's desired outcome for him and his followers.
This is a human rights issue that transcends all else especially politics and the whims of a disordered personality, a less than honorable man as the President.
There are 65, 000,000 refugees word wide looking for shelter. and safety. Many will die in the process as will their children.
We must do what we can for them without dehumanization of being called "infest" by the cruel and ignorant.
Godspeed to those who must return. I wish we could take you all, but I know we cannot.
1
When I was a child along the Texas border and my dad died in the 1960's, I had to get an attorney to declared me an adult in the eyes of the court. I had no say otherwise. Yet an infant is now a criminal and supposed to maneuver the court and legal system?
Not one person supporting this abuse has a moral fiber in their being.
7
LOS NUEVOS DESAPARECIDOS.
A few thoughts:
1) How will families EVER be reunited when it appears no effective tracking system is in place?
2) How are the littlest ones to be identified? Will they even remember who their parents are after trauma and time take their toll?
3) And what of parents who might make the horrific decision to abandon their children to the system in the hope that they might "make it" to foster care and, eventually, asylum?
21
And keep them safe from the violence they are fleeing at home.
The sad part of all of this is that Trump supporters do not understand (and don’t want to) the realities of these migrant families. They see them as taking advantage of the US but do not stop to think: who want to leave their home country, everything behind, to risk their lives on a long trip? These families take this journey as a last resort, when they’ve exhausted all possibilities to make a better life where they belong , but only receive violence, neglect and abuse. When there is no other choice, that is why they travel on these circumstances, risking their children for the promise of a better life. But, of course, all these nuances are lost under a policy that is taking most of these migrants by surprise, as they’ve been traveling for months. Is a terror technique that will impact in the short term, because the circumstances that surround these migrants will not change.
4
And let's not forget that there is no procedure in place for returning these kids to the parents. I am 71 and remember the history of Europe in the 30s, Rwanda and other African nations were children were conscripted into military service, wandering tribes starving. My ability to remain sane was that we, America, was a shining beacon of compassion....foreign aid, private donations, support for NGOs. And I never thought we would, after efforts to exonerate our own ghosts of slavery, would wind up being one of those countries where human life and suffering would be meaningless. Shame on our government. And shame on those, who even when confronted with this abominable action of Trump and the toothless GOP still would support them. If THIS, along with our children dying from guns, doesn't move us to clean up our act, nothing will.
4
Isn't extortion still a crime? Perhaps I didn't get the memo.
12
It is inevitable that small children with underdeveloped immune systems coming from different regions and backgrounds will carry contagious diseases. Confine them in cramped cages or tents, and this situation is made to order for the rapid spread of illnesses for which there are no medical facilities.
There will be illness and, probably, fatalities. If so, it will be on the Trump administration which is using young lives and our outrage as bargaining chips.
Can he drag down our nation any further?
7
These are little future democrat voters, being used by Schumer , Pelosi and the media to engender sympathy for the mid term elections. This is democrat policy, ie border chaos. Trump is handling correctly. He will not fall into democrat trap. Need reform.
4
The basic problem we are living with at the moment is that Trump, Sessions, and millions of other white men, and the women who follow them, do in fact have what they consider to be morals and values. They value their own self-centered way of life, so they can defend to themselves any action that furthers their own self-centered way of life. Some of us see babies ripped from their parents as a horrific sign of how low they will go; in their minds, both the babies' wailing and our own is all just the irrelevant noise around the edges, to be ignored as they go about the necessary and moral act of defending their self-centered way of life. Same with guns ("but we need them!"), wedding cakes ("the baker doesn't have to!"), and all the rest.
3
I would think even Laura Ingram and Tucker Carlson (not sure of Ann Coulter) would shiver at the thought of Stephen Miller running things. While Jeff Sessions's end game might be a shoot on sight policy at the border, Miller would insist on catch and torture first.
We really are at a moment of truth as a nation.
5
The part that really makes me sad and ashamed to be American was the fact that as he rambled on at the small business meeting yesterday all I heard was cheers and applause from those small business people, the same ones that love to hire illegal immigrants off the books at very low wages to line their pockets. Guess I'll stick to big box stores.
5
Spot on. What Trump wants is a border wall. He must know that such a wall would be grossly expensive and only of marginal value in controlling illegal immigration. What he really wants is a lasting memorial to his wonderful self. He has signaled that he will forego further child abuse if the Democrats agree to the wall. The last thing we need is a permanent memorial to Trump defacing our southern border. The sooner Trump goes away, the better.
7
It is galling and the height of hypocrisy that the Republican Party presents itself as the party of "family values." For his part, Trump has cheated and walked out on at least two, and more likely three wives. Some family guy, and no surprise that a guy who doesn't care about his own family should care about the families of others. Why are we surprised?
It should not be lost on anyone that Donald Trump is also the same president who declared that there are "very fine people on both sides" in Charlottesville. How tragic that there are no "very fine people" in the Trump administration.
When Trump's term is up, we should expect to have one huge, national case of PTSD...Post-Trump Stress Disorder...from which the nation and its reputation may never recover. It will take a very long time for the consequences of our long, national Trump nightmare to be over.
4
Trump tried a similar but less offensive move against the DACA people, but was rebuffed by the courts. Now the bully-in-chief has found a more vulnerable group to hold hostage for his wall funding. He may blame everyone else, but most people realize that it's Trump who has taken the children as hostages. The GOP should be burned to the ground in the mid-terms. Vote!
4
Something that everyone seems to avoid saying, but which seems obvious to me, is that for Trump the cruelty is an added feature. He has repeatedly demonstrated his sadistic streak, which first became obvious to the general public in how he fired Comey, followed by his treatment of Sessions, the firing of McCabe, and so on. The fact that families, especially children, are suffering, and the public reaction of outrage that anyone can be so callous, is only more incentive for him to continue this policy. He's saying, give me what I want or I will be more vicious than you dare imagine.
7
The lies coming from Trump, Fox News, Stephen Miller, Ann Coulters, Jeff Sessions and all the other cowards are overwhelming us. In the beginning we counted the lies on a per day basis, now we can't keep up with them on an hourly basis.
We should be worried that the November elections may be too late to stop the madness, the damage may be irreversible. We're all hostages now.
3
I'm curious. When a person uses and abuses children like this administration does and when people support this policy either actively or passively, I want to touch their chest and ask, "How cold is it inside of there?"
3
Chaos and divisiveness is overwhelming our once great country. A country divided will fall. We are now ruled by the great deceiver and his minions. How long must we endure this outrage without relief? Pity the children and us.
3
In my opinion, those who support this policy have sold their souls to the god of political power. Trump, Miller, Conway, Hannity, Carlson -- those who would treat families in this way should be confronted by good people everywhere. This is not what America stands for.
6
Trump and his enablers in the Republican Party have an enormous capacity for cruelty.
They have worked tirelessly to with hold affordable health care from people. That was bad.
Now they separate parents from their children. Is there a greater sin on this planet?
This is the policy of the “pro life”
“family values” party supported by evangelical “Christians”.
9
The Shining City on the Hill is in fact a dumpster fire. Good luck finding a nation on this planet where the US still has an approval or trust rating above 50%. And with the current crop of inappropriately political ambassadors (cf the one to Germany) or complete lack of one, yesterday's withdrawal from the UN Council on Human Rights (WHAT?!) and the constant attacks on every international compact or agreement, on former friends and partners, I don't see how anyone expects that to be fixed anytime soon, if at all.
6
If we are steadfast, we can rid ourselves of the fatal infection called Trump.
The pictures, the cages, the dog kennels, the ICE abuse, the lies of this monster politician told over and over and over so they might masquerade as facts, will not save him.
We must remember this moment. That he did this. That he has such cruel and vicious anger toward small children. That his morality is a dark place of fits and starts of rage. That he hates everything and everyone.
We must not forget. We must not be lead into confusion over his tactics designed to deflect, deflect, deflect.
The military in space. Right.
Let's put this monster in space and send him to the rings of Saturn.
When we walk into the voting booth, we must remember the cries and the horror and the torturing of victims under the age of two.
People scream this obscenity is not America.
Hold onto that thought. Fight back by the power of your vote. It is the one prerogative you still have.
He's not going to leave the White House willingly. He will have another avalanche of lies constructed to persuade Americans how much they need him to protect them, love them, and blaze positive new paths for the future of the culture.
But for him to deal with threats he says are real, children must be punished, and he must remain in the White House for as long as he lives because he and only he can help us navigate through a criminal labyrinth that he himself fabricated and devised.
It's Trump who needs to be punished.
4
Focus on the big picture. What’s equally cruel is that Trumnp is using this as a diversion to make us forget about the Russia probe and all the other troubles of he authoritarian administration. The Mueller probe is closing in, Manafort is in jail and Cohen expects to be. Trump is trying to change the subject.
5
It's a protection racket, plain and simple.
"That's a nice family you have there, mother. It would be a shame if something happened to it."
"Just give us money each time we come around (for a wall) and we won't bother you anymore."
Fred Trump was prescient when he named his young son Don.
3
Glad to hear someone finally using the appropriate term for what these children have become. To trump and his ilk they are simply pawns to be used to achieve his personal political goals. When I see what's going on in Europe, it's very disturbing to witness the rise of fascism once again in western democratic nations. Right now we can protest in the streets, but ultimately our power is in the voting booth. Everyone who opposes trump and all he stands for, who wants to protect our Democracy, must VOTE this year in primaries and general elections everywhere.
3
Mr. Bruni finds it comforting that "only" 58 % of Republicans support Donald Trump's immigration policies, less than for other "policies", presumably arming teachers, abandoning environmental protection, alienating the closest allies, and giving North Korea what they want.
I find it frightening that 58% of voters for one of the two political parties in the US are OK with this despicable, contemptuous "policy".
America is becoming small and ugly in the eyes of the rest of the World, but its a great show for the 58% of Republicans.
7
58% of repubs approve of this policy? I would like to know, who that walks among us is OK with what 45 and his collaborators have done to these children! They should wear a scarlet letter, so we can know what we are dealing with.
I do not understand how a parent can "smuggle" their child. And I worry about the children (and parents!) who may never be reunited. Just like the Flint kids who drank lead, these kids will grow up, and if they commit crimes, the US government will be complicit. We are a shameful nation.
12
I wonder how many of these children, some of whom are most certainly scarred for life with PTSD, will grow up here seeking revenge on the government that destroyed their families and their childhood.
8
Today our local newspaper had a cartoon that better than Sessions’ reflected in Bible quote the crushing sin of inhumanity of Trump's edict that is subjecting small children to abuse: "Jesus wept."
6
I don't like the kids being separated either. But - hostages? Human collateral? How is such inflammatory rhetoric helpful? It is really easy to lob Molotov cocktails like this when you have no responsibility for dealing with this problem. It's easy to lob missives like this from behind a computer screen somewhere in NYC.
What is Mr. Bruni's proposed solution? We have a porous southern border where immigrants cross illegally every day. Should we ignore our laws? If we can ignore immigration laws, which other laws can we just choose to ignore? Maybe Mr. Bruni should ignore paying his income taxes - let us know how that works out.
We heard at Secretary Nielsen's presser that over 80% of children are shipped here by their parents with smugglers and other non-family members. We know that detainment and separations like this have happened for years under current law. Why is it a crisis now?
Here's a suggestion. How about Congress do what it should have done long ago. Update our immigration laws and then back their sensible enforcement.
2
Lets be clear: the GOP is holding all of hostage also. If we know it is immoral to cleave these families, we will pay 26 billion to build a wall for Trump’s own aggrandisement; even tho experts say the wall will not work. We protest about our worsening healthcare, yet this also is held hostage in numerous unrelated bills. And so on.
We are no longer a nation of laws (just ask Pruitt or Any of the Trumps/Kushners visibly profiting by Trumps Office) but of bullying power.
5
Frank,
Beautiful, as always.
De Tocqueville feared the tyranny of the majority.
The tyranny of the minority, which is exactly what we have, was probably wholly inconceivable to him.
God help us all, but vote, vote, vote; demonstrate,
demonstrate, demonstrate!
6
We are involved in a self induced Crisis of Character: the resolution of which will determine if America deserves it's reputation as "the shining light upon the hill". At risk is the entire ethos upon which our Republic is based. When partisan tribalism so deflects our moral compass that we can't (or won't) make fundamental decisions about good or evil, we are lost. It's that simple my friends. If we fail, America is lost.
2
The Statue of Liberty should be partly disassembled. and tours to it stopped.
But that won't happen because it's run buy a division of the government that is beholden to and under the thumb of Trump.
Maybe the ferry operators who support the tourism will go on strike and stop tours.
1
What responsibility do we citizens have in this matter? What have you done tp protect the least of us? I have only called my Republican Congressman and senator and sent some emails , as well as commented about this horrid policy. I see that some have done much more to bring this to light and protest it. What have you done? Let us know.
4
So what is the solution? This administration is going to get re-elected if there aren't any alternative ideas. From the CEO's of the most powerful companies in the world to the entire democratic caucus everyone is abhorred but no one is proposing alternatives to anything the Trump administration is doing on immigration, trade, foreign policy, nothing!
All of these issues are complicated. I do not profess to have the answers. But I voted for people that I hoped did or would work as a team to find them. If the democrats don't start becoming the party of ideas and ideals we are in for another sweep. McConnell may block anything you come up with, fine. So play it out in public opinion and make it a platform to take back the house. Hurry up, November is fast approaching.
8
Per a Gallup poll, as of May 1-10, 26% of Americans identify as Republican. So the 58% of Republicans who approve of the current family separation policy equals about 15% of the population as a whole.
So our government is pursuing a policy that 85% of us do not support and we appear powerless to do anything to change it. If this is so, the dystopia truly has arrived, as another of today's columnists notes.
17
Thanks to a Progressive/leftist judge, we can either detain the children while incarcerating the parents for illegally entering the US, or we can release the "family" intact into US society on the promise they will return for a court date. Apparently, 60 percent-ish don't return for court dates. What the Trump administration/ICE is doing is the lesser of two unfortunate situations. Contrary to the wishes of Democrats, we are a nation of laws -- not emotions.
2
Exactly so, however illegal entry into the US is a misdemeanor. For a US citizen this would be the equivalent of being jailed for a traffic ticket and then having your children taken away.
3
You clearly use a curious scale to measure what is “lesser.”
1
So throwing two year olds in
cages is your idea of being a nation of laws?
1
This is a human rights crisis. I doubt that Kirstjen Nielsen has ever read Dr. King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," but it's not too late for her to save her troubled soul with an introduction into the basics of universal law. She'll sleep better. For Fox News propagandist Ingraham, calling this "summer camp" represents a new low even for her network. For Americans who want these innocent children rescued, pray that investigative journalists, ministers, professional organizations and even members of Congress will through whatever means possible gain entry to the female units. Reports by news outlets that all access to these have been denied, that they are managed by for-profit corporations and staffed by people with less that a week of training is alarming. Our basic humanity demands that all these children be rescued before they suffer more irreparable harm.
19
If DeNiro's words have more power to lose the mid-terms than the horror of this policy to win them, I'm afraid it's because the media isn't doing it's job, and the culture of our country has completely degraded.
What's interesting is you're suggesting to take the kid gloves off with language but you argue for it in the most timid way. If there's one thing that empowers 45 and his merry band of pied pipers is their boldness in policy and language.
9
Don't give Republicans a pass by blaming Donald Trump for taking children hostage. Put the blame squarely where it belongs -- on the Republican Party.
Donald Trump may have conceived the evil strategy of separating children from their parents. Trump, alone, cannot carry out the strategy, but must rely on the efforts of others. The separation of children from their parents is being carried out by Republicans. It is supported by 60% of Republicans, including Ryan and McConnell, the House and the Senate and almost no one else. This outrage would have been curtailed yesterday if it was a Trump strategy. It continues because it is a Republican strategy.
Let the Republicans own it. They can run on their record.
25
Trump & Co seem to forget that immigrants impact the economy in positive ways as well as negative (if those really exist as certainly the claims that they take jobs from "real Americans" have been shown bogus). We have an aging population and a very low birth rate. Immigrants tend to be younger and to have more children than the native-born population. I suppose to xenophobes, the idea of more dark-skinned babies is upsetting; I suppose they assume that they will change or ruin "our" culture (whatever that is). However, most immigrants integrated into population and culture fairly well in a generation or two. Do they change things? Sure, but that is life - the culture has been changing as every culture does year in and year out. WE are the losers when we shut the door to immigration.
21
In my role as grandfather, I look after my three-year-old granddaughter a few times a week. And even though I provide one-on-one care, and respond to all her needs, and answer her why-questions in terms she understands, and sneak her some extra goodies and TV time, never letting her watch by herself...despite my conscientious care, from time to time, her eyes glaze over, she looks sadly at me, and asks "Where's Mommy?"... So I can only imagine the despondency and fear those kids on the border are experiencing after they are forcibly and completley separated from their parents by strangers. It's just unnatural.
35
For those of you who think Trump and his Republican Congressional co-conspirators will buckle, what happened after the public outrage following the shootings at Parkland?
They are counting on their will being stronger than your will.
Will they be right this time?
16
They are all counting on the fact that nobody can affect them except registered voters in the districts they purport to represent. Also, two thirds of the senators don't even have to run this year, and two thirds of those who do are Democrats.
12
No, they won`t budge.
Not as long Donald J. trump is the President .
We have more than two years to go all I am hoping in 2020 trump will be kicked out from the Presidency.
BUT, I am not holding my breath !
http://api.theweek.com/sites/default/files/20%20Luckovich_0.jpg
1
We have a bipartisan history of doing these sorts of awful things. Does anyone here want to put the past behind us and work together to help these kids regardless of the politics?
Just reply with "I'm in" if your down with it. If you don't have anything nice to say be like Thumper.
5
If you want to have a serious discussion, you can stop pretending that this never occurred before Trump was president. Yes, it's bad that families are separated, but how about actually changing the laws?
As Lincoln said - "the surest way of getting rid of a bad law is to insist on it's strict enforcement".
4
Sure this has happened before. But that doesn't make it right today. Have we learned nothing from history? This is kidnapping and hostage taking to the worst degree. It's so hard to believe that our government is even deporting some parents back to their home countries without their kids. This is unconscionable.
2
Wrong is wrong. There's no justification for it. Stop the separation, then make legislative fixes. If you were being punched in the face, you wouldn't be satisfied that help was coming eventually.
1
If Sessions really wants to inspire poor refuges not to flee to the USA with their minor children, why stop at separating children from their parents? Why not douse some of the kids with gasoline and burn them alive in front of their parents? He won't have to kill more than half a dozen children to convey the official cruelty policy of the USA, under Donald Trump and AG Sessions. That'd be much more efficient and much cheaper.
Moreover, there will be no negative consequences for Republicans. Trump will pardon Sessions and the low level ICE employees who pour on the gasoline and light the match. The "Freedom Caucus" will call for a Resolution of the House to HONOR Sessions for his innovative way of reducing ALL immigration, legal and illegal, extremely fast.
12
Hostage is the right word. Thank you, Frank Bruni for using it. It is exactly what our government is doing: holding children as hostages.
20
Needless cruelty was what Trump ran on. That’s how he won. That’s what he’s done in office and Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell have supported it every step of the way. These policies encapsulate republican policy at its purist. They are completely unencumbered, in control of the House, Senate, and Executive Branch (and effectively the Supreme Court).
Separately families for misdemeanors offenses (same as public intoxication) is what republican leadership supports what the republican base supports. Trump is not a deviation or an anomaly; Paul Ryan and Trump support all the same policies. No there is no daylight between them. Paul Ryan is Trump without twitter and improvisation. Pence, Ryan, McConnell, Trump support all the same policies along with the Republican base. ICE should be abolished; it was created during the Bush administration. ICE agents are not our best or our brightest. It is a job for cruel people to carry a firearm and inflict misery on others.
27
2nd and subsequent illegal crossings are felonies.
This isn't ancient China - a wall will be welcomed by drone-expert drug dealers and tunnel-expert smugglers.
It's a symbol of racism, sure - but we already have the biggest symbol of racism our country could have-a racist president sitting in the Oval Office.
I protest the wall because it's fiscally irresponsible to spend tens of billions of dollars with no positive outcome other then Trump appeasing his restless base to keep them on the hook until November elections.
It cannot be said enough, in the middle of the emotional upset from caring people and the trite comments from the trolls: Illegal immigrants have been positive for our economy - and that's been proven over and over again by economists who study numbers and not color. They do the jobs citizens won't do and keep produce companies and meat companies thriving, 20% of them start businesses that employ people, they pay $7 billion more in taxes than they take back because they can't collect Social Security - they pay sales tax, property tax and a lot of times, payroll tax using taxpayer identification numbers.
We are arguing with a man who worships dictators about taking children away from their parents. He has already proven that he does not care. We need to keep repeating the same two things to keep it simple for him - it's the only way to get through lies this thick: the wall is laughable in this day and age, and immigrants are good for our economy.
17
There was an immigrant in Philly who had applied for asylum in the US. While he was waiting for a decision on his case he had opened two successful restaurants and employed a number of people. He was in the process of opening his third restaurants, bigger and needing even more cooks and waiters when ICE showed up at his business one morning, put him in handcuffs and took him off to an immigration prison before deporting him.
2
This is America? Children being separated from their parents over a misdemeanor?
Is this really the country that the GOP wants?
This is beyond shameful. They need to jointly grow a spine, and do whatever they can to neutralize the Trump Administration.
We are already sliding down the slippery slope.
Who else are they going to put in camps?
29
"Who else are they going to put in camps?"
Well, when they cut Soc. Sec. and Medicare, I'd say the old and infirm.
10,000 boomers retire everyday. Many without savings.
And now with the largest retiree group, rather than raise the cap to fix, they cut taxes and cut benefits.
This is America.
9
This is the life we have the right to, according to them.
To LauraNJ:
I fear this administration are going to put into camps those whom they wish.
1
I studied the art of negotiation with people from the Harvard Negotiations Project, using practices taught in the book Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In.
NOWHERE in that bible (nor in the Christian bible, Mr. Sessions) does it say that stakeholders should take babies hostage and imprison them in cages if they lose their negotiation, even in the kind of humiliating defeat Trump suffered when he could not bully Mexico into paying for his embarrassment of a wall.
NOWHERE.
30
I haven't read that book. What page does it talk about negotiating with a party that has broken the law, to get to the negotiating table?
1
Matthew 5:38-40 New International Version.
Leviticus 19:33-34
Matthew 25:35
Hebrews 13:2
Exodus 23:9
Malachi 3:5
Thank you, Dobby's sock. I can see from your examples why churches are condemning Trump's actions.
Exodus 23:9 - Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt.
Matthew 25:35 - For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.
Count on words to unmask those speaking them. Trump calls his cynical and calculated policy of ripping families apart "leverage." It's a term of art for financiers, MBAs, investors, accountants, real estate moguls, etc., that means borrowing money to buy something that may increase in value and result in greater profit without using your own money.
The "leverage" Trump means is its conventional denotive meaning of advantage or in physical terms a fulcrum point to move something too heavy to lift directly.
Trump's "leverage" means ripping kids from moms and blaming the Democrats and pressuring them to support Trump's racist immigration policies and his monumental wall.
Trump's "asset" is 1500+ kids way away from home alone, who he threatens to permanently traumatize and psychologically scar unless he gets his toys. It's a variant of the National Lampoon subscription ad of a gun pointing at a dog with the caption, "Subscribe or we'll shoot this dog."
Trump thinks he's smart using suffering kids as leverage. The rest of the world sees vulnerable children treated horrifically to score political points.
Trump abuses women and gets away with it, even got elected. So why not helpless kids?
This is Trump's Modest Proposal without a shred of modesty. He likes them well-done and smothered in ketch-up.
26
If (when?) even one of these children is subject to sexual or physical abuse, on top of their existing emotional and mental trauma, either in present custody or when they're moved on to another placement, it will be the responsibility of all who did not speak out against this torture. America - the world is watching and will not forget.
15
"...one of these children is subject to sexual or physical abuse,..."
.
And, everything before the border crossing? Is that our responsibility, too? You seem to think these people were on a grand holiday, right up to the US border.
There is no goal on this earth that makes this abuse of children, and even infants, OK. If this is an acceptable act to DJT, then there is no telling how much lower he can go.
32
To: CEE
Ever see Donald J Trump laugh?
Neither have I.
Tell you something?!
We have had almost a year and a half of Trump so far, and one thing is quite evident. Trump only pays attention to the rich, the famous, authoritarians, and those who are useful to him at the moment. And they can all be quickly dismissed when their usefulness is finished. Is it any wonder that he has no problem ripping babies from their mothers and jailing infants and toddlers? He really could care less about any of them or what will happen to them. There apparently isn't even much of an effort to ensure that the families are reunited again. All he cares about is getting his way, and if several thousand children are collateral damage, well too bad, so sad.
Think about Puerto Rico. He didn't care about them either, and now the only question is how many of them died due to government neglect. Trump also routinely abused and shorted his contractors and the workers who built all his "beautiful" buildings. He didn't care about them either.
This is the man who has been elected our president. Those of you who think he cares about you, think again. He's just getting started.
33
And don’t forget about all his references to “the beautiful little babies — the beautiful babies” when the subject is abortion. Just look at what he’s doing to all the beautiful babies now. They are helpless hostages, indeed, and he is an evil, heartless man aided and abetted by an evil, heartless cabinet and an evil, heartless Republican Congress. I’m praying that they all get the heartless punishment they deserve.
1
We can sum it up even more succinctly: "Do what I say, or I'll hurt the kids."
Despicable beyond belief.
27
More like "Do as I say if you want me to stop hurting the kids" (and if you refuse, all the kids' suffering is your fault for not giving in to my demands)
1
It is hard to comprehend what is happening at the US border. Are the people who work at the US border being compelled to separate children from their parents?
The president is not acting on his own. Is it time to start paying more attention to those who are 'just following orders'?
These are scary times.
16
I think "hostage" is not too strong a word. And as Mr. Bruni points out, it is a word used to describe a political "negotiating" tactic. Usually of a disembodied sort.
And that's the problem. There are many small and vulnerable bodies at stake here.
The more accurate term therefore to describe them is "human shields." That's how low the Republicans have sunk-- to the tactics of terrorists.
19
58% of Republicans supporting his policy is more than disquieting. And it is time that so called moderate Republican who are appalled by this President and the Republican leadership who supports him to leave the party.
15
This ghastly policy, dreamed up by Trump, Sessions et al, also has no plan for how to give these innocent children (or hostages) back to their parents. Who is in charge of doing this? The governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, said today that some of the children are being sent here to New York and that he is prevented from helping them unless and until the Federal Government approves such help. This could take weeks or months during which time these children are truly on their own without their lifelines.
14
Jail trump, not kids.
Tomorrow is World Refugee Day. My thoughts and prayers are with the kids. But action is what we need at this moment. I will be on the capital steps of Colorado tomorrow at 11:30 to raise my voice in protest with the rest of the decent folks who are sickened by the Republican party and trump.
For the children. For ALL children.
26
Let's focus on the big problem.
According HHS, over 80% of the immigrant children recently put into U.S. government care were NOT separated from their families.
Their own parents sent these 10,000 innocent children on a long, dangerous journey with human smugglers. They forced their own small children to face the risk of violence and exploitation by themselves.
This is just sick.
So, no, these children aren't hostages. They are better described as victims and pawns of their own parents.
The U.S. must take all necessary measures to end this cruel human trafficking. All Americans, right and left, should rally to this cause. These children simply deserve better.
7
Trump's so-called zero tolerance policy means that all families who do not cross at designated crossings will be separated from their children. All of them. That includes toddlers and babies as young as eight months (that we know of). Our tax dollars are paying for three "tender-age" detention centers in southern Texas to accommodate hundreds of toddlers and infants. These children were not sent across the border on their own. They're hostages to Trump's reelection bid and his efforts to blackmail Congress into accepting his hardline immigration policies. This is about child abuse paid for with our tax dollars. Between 11,000 and 20,000 children have been separated from their asylum seeking parents over the last six months. You're misrepresenting what's happening.
4
Have you met a teenager in your life? If you have, you may have noticed that teenagers have free will and are quite capable of making their own decisions. Leaving a country where they believe they have no future, and where many are already experiencing hunger and/or violence, isn't the craziest decision I've ever known a teenager to make. Ten thousand minors leaving for the U.S. does not equal ten thousand small, unwilling children smuggled by their parents.
2
SandraH:
80% or so of the immigrant children who entered U.S. custody in the past couple of months were NOT separated from their families. They were unaccompanied minors traveling with human smugglers.
HHS has confirmed this.
Facts matter.
3
And if a child dies as a result of this brutal treatment, who will be held responsible? Will the term 'collateral damage' apply here as well?
15
Putting children and their parents through this kind of pain is nothing short of terrorism. Aren't we supposed to be fighting terrorists, not imitating them? Or are our Republican politicians hoping to raise a new generation of Hispanic terrorists who grow up hating and fearing America and plotting to get their revenge for childhood traumas?
17
None of this would be happening if the borders were closed.
I want the borders closed.
All the rest is a distraction.
Mr. Bruni and his political friends are confused because these kinds of distractions used to work.
Not any more.
12
The borders where these people are being apprehended are clearly not open. And many of them are actually presenting themselves to authorities, seeking asylum. Would-be immigrants seeking asylum are not “illegal.” You are willfully conflating one thing with another. Open borders are not the issue here.
3
hail, even if there was a wall, these mom's and kids would have the right to request asylum. The border is more secure than it has been in decades thanks to billions spent from 2007-10. You demonstrate complete ignorance of th he situation at the southern border and how these Central American families -about 20,000 people - have already taken a huge risk travelling thru Mexico to get here.
I don't want to live in the same country anymore with the people who elected this man.
69
I voted for him.
Happy to help you move.
@JLR: I, also, do not wish to live here anymore. I'll be 67 in October. If this country does not vote out Republicans and stymie Trump at every turn in November, I will leave. Leaving for a new life somewhere else alone is not what I want to do. But I will not live and die in Trumplandia.
2
Remember, he lost the election by 2.9M votes. I understand the sentiment but most Americans understood he was an ignorant, lying, stupid fascist.
1
This man is incapable of empathy . When he bombed Syria people bought into the narrative that he was outraged by the pictures showing the suffering of small children dying and suffering due to the effects of poison gas . He bombed Syria to show that he was strong and decisive unlike Obama . His image and his need of approval is all he cares about . As a retired pediatrician I am disturbed but not surprised .
27
I abhor this zero tolerance policy as much as I loathe Trump but remain befuddled by the larger problem: securing our borders. It doesn't seem to me that America can simply welcome anyone who manages to enter the country without first getting through passport control, as I have to whenever I return from abroad. And this begs larger questions: Is our embrace of refugees infinite? How about people simply seeking better economic conditions? Do we exercise control over immigration or do we simply put out a welcome mat to all and sundry? Needless to say, in the current climate, a deliberative debate about these questions ain't gonna happen. And that truly is "sad."
9
Do you even know how many refugees and asylees the U.S. admits in a year? What proportion of the population is 100,000, more or less? Hint: not large.
You mean that the picture of the adorable wide eyed little girl surrounded by mean and probably very nasty security guards with their weapons and polished belts and boots didn't just move you utter outrage!!
Tsk,tsk.
Christian, the border is secure. These families are stopping at the border and engaged by border agents.
Mexico won't pay for the wall, so I guess a couple thousand child hostages might change their mind.
This is something that used to only happen in 3rd world dictatorships. Is that what America is coming to?
20
Yup, it is.
Do not kid yourselves here. The Republicans would be cheering just as loud if it were liberals children.
19
I don't see the relevance of whether this is legally required or legally permissible; abusing children is a wrong that warrants the correct penalties for the responsible perpetrators.
This was well understood after WWII when the Nuremberg Principle rejected law as a valid defense. Nor is the defense of following orders, or "just doing my job," any better.
To put the cruel separation in perspective, over millennia, government exterminated hundreds of millions of innocent people, enslaved millions, etc, often using its laws.
Law worship is morally indefensible. The question we face is how to immediately protect the children, and to ethically apply the correct penalties for the rulers.
22
This is just another Trump test to see how far his base will support his cruelty. He will continue doing these inhumane tests until he is stopped at the ballot box. Just look back at the past year. His offenses keep getting more disturbing but the base keeps standing by him. True Americans should support cruelty free testing from their President.
14
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.
18
Bruni is exactly right. This is not the first time Trump has taken children as hostages, either. Last year, it was sick American kids relying upon CHIP funding for their medical care. This administration let funding for CHIP lapse, and then tried to use it as a bargaining chip to push through their tax cuts and immigration agenda.
Last month, Trump announced that he wants to cut $7 billion dollars from CHIP. Today, his hostages are immigrant children. Tomorrow, it will be sick American kids.
33
Let's also remember that Trump used his critically ill grandnephew as a hostage to force his niece and nephew to give up their share of their inheritance. Trump, as executor of his father's will, withheld Trump Corporation funded health insurance from the infant, who was born with a seizure disorder that would have been fatal without treatment, until his niece and nephew agreed not to contest being cut out of the will. He lacks the capacity for empathy even for his own family.
13
*Amnesty International* issued a statement this morning that the separation of children from their parents is considered a form of torture under international law.
To my mind, this is an act of gratuitous cruelty against innocent children. People who justify or support this action on political grounds have given up their membership in the human race.
35
When I was five years old, a burglar came into our house when my parents were out for the evening, and it was a diversion to have this kind stranger pay a visit and give me a dollar. My older sibling was less enchanted and the police soon arrived. They were looking for a gun. A small potato story of 'Children have memories'.
Now. For half the country, this separation of children from parents may seem to be all about politics once again and perhaps it is, but whether the president of the U.S. is Donald Duck, Barton Wakefield, or the sitting one, he should fire his representative with the 'zero tolerance' policy, while understanding that his own presidency is tarnished beyond any border.
Whether the Liberals and the Republicans wish to continue to use this as a pretext for their own gain is one matter, but in America, we have no tolerance for child abuse.
9
@Miss Ley
I watch with a wry smile as republicans (especially Senator Cruz of Texas) suddenly jump to attention and want to do something, (highly debatable that it will help any) as the press suddenly do their job in kind. (descending on the border)
I would submit it is an abuse to our senses to have all of these hypocritical actions now and using the children as hostages for political gain. I remind people that it is against international law to do so.
The reasons why all of these people are fleeing from where they came from still remains, regardless of what might transpire on this side of the border. That is the sad thing.
Sigh ...
9
Miss LEY:Remember RUNNYMEADE, the MAGNA CARTA, and the Constitution which the president is determined to defend at all costs. Admin. realizes that the commotion at the border is really an assault on our culture, and an obvious effort to tarnish the presidency, make the c-in-c look illegitimate in the eyes of the electorate,but the more he is attacked, the more solid becomes his support. Trump is winning this battle, and has the support of the vast majority of right thinking American citizens in his zero tolerance policy for those attempting to break the law!
Trump has found a policy on immigration that is both unbearably cruel and counter to our own self interest. How will these traumatized kids and their families view the U.S. in the future? It looks to me as if we are carefully cultivating recruits for whatever terrorist groups campaign are fighting against this country 10-15 years from now.
20
All these cruelty, brutality because Donald trump wants his wall.
Who cares about these children, without any parents to hold them , feed them , rock them to sleep .
Instead these children have no facilities for their needs, to give them something edible, no bathing, no cleaning. No changing soiled clothes.
Why ?
Donald wants his wall or else.
14
And exactly which of Trump's For Profit Prison companies are raking in the big bucks to provide "a hot and a cot" for these kids??? How did they gear up so quickly ... unless it has been on the drawing board for a long time?? Corporate Kidnapping!! Look into it New York Times. Cost per kid??
Trump is trying to hijack our democracy. This is just the beginning. If he want to take small hostages he should arrest both Sessions and Miller, then self deport. The madness of King Donald has caused an uproar. We the people will not tolerate it. Off with their heads.
14
The illegal immigration issue is tearing America apart. Now this. Trump is once again his own worst enemy. I hope the Democrats don't use this issue to bully us into a solution that causes America harm. Central American cultures are corrupt and violent. We must be careful. If there is not popular support for immigration amnesty then stop right there. You have to achieve a consensus! You have to get permission from the American people! Permiso! Permiso!
3
The FBI defines domestic terrorism as "Perpetrated by individuals and/or groups inspired by or associated with primarily U.S.-based movements that espouse extremist ideologies of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature."
https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/terrorism
We appear to have domestic terrorists running the country.
19
Yes, these poor children are hostages, and they were deliberately kidnapped and it is a crime. The bigger picture here, and what terrifies me in my every waking moment, is the deeply evil intent of this administration and its will to do whatever horrible thing comes to mind, regardless of who it hurts. It is migrant children today, but who is next on its agenda-who will they go after next? We are living in a time very much like Germany in the 30s when an evil man came to power and nearly destroyed the world. Trump must be impeached.
22
And please - let us not forget that this heartbreaking mess is diverting us from the Mueller investigation, Cohen shenanigans and the revocation of Paul Manafort's bail.
12
Don't worry -- this mess may be diverting average Americans, but the Mueller team is still hard at work.
3
There is something wrong with Trump. He shows no humanity, he cannot understand mercy or humility or kindness.He likes simple theories, anything complex makes him annoyed as his eyes glaze over. He thinks Mexican children crying their hearts out over losing their parents is a new found bargaining chip with democrats, extortion will serve his purpose nicely. He is not hard hearted, he has no heart. He loves dictators and raw shows of power. Bluffing is his game plan.
This man would make a mafia boss if he were clever enough but as the President of the US he is a colossal catastrophe.
He will turn the US into a two bit third world dictatorship overnight if he is allowed his way. Please wake up before it is too late.
28
Trump stands on the shoulders of small children to get what he wants, whatever that is. Donald Trump is a monster as are those that make excuses for him and allow him to carry on - yea you congress.
17
KIDNAPPING is a felony crime.
Who will pay for the PTSD of the kids and their parents?
17
These are the actions of a fascist government.
24
Hey Frank - remember how a week or so ago you wrote a column lamenting that people were using mean language when referring to Trump?
This is why. We've got our very own Hitler-in-the-making. The time for civility has passed.
13
I'm afraid that photograph says more than 100 stories.
6
Donald Trump's Small Hostages Held for Ransom to Extort the Wall...
12
I would ask Trump to pick on someone his own size, but alas he has. PATHETIC & COWARDLY.
6
This is a new unconscionable low even for the Donald and his band of criminal thugs. Anyone who votes for anyone who supports this travesty is the Devil’s handmaiden if not evil themselves.
21
Trump pre-recorded message as played through 390 loudspeakers on the southern border:
"I've got your children. Do as you are told and you might get them back ... maybe ... but if they keep crying who knows what will happen? Some very bad people in masks might get them first! You KNOW what will happen then ... too horrible, too horrible to mention, believe me. Above all, remember it's the Democrats and liberal media who did this, not me, not ME."
"Oh ... and NO COLLUSION!!! SIN COLUSIÓN !!!
12
By the way - all this nonsense from Trump about immigration - he really wants those children working on his golf course.
http://www.newsweek.com/trump-gets-visas-70-foreign-workers-mar-lago-des...
4
"They’re hostages."
I'm always angered when I hear of terrorists using women and children as human hostages to protect themselves in a gun battle. It is the ultimate in disregard for humanity, human life, and is utterly cowardly.
So now it is the reprehensible Donald (I can no longer refer to him as "our" president) who has taken up the ploy of using human hostages to achieve what he obviously cannot do using the usual negotiation and political channels.
He rules as King in a government run by his own party, which will not provide him with a solution to his immigrant demands, so he blames Democrats for being unwilling to do what Republicans will not.
This is disgusting and gut wrenching!
10
These children have been kidnapped are being held as hostages by the US government. I think the federal government is committing a crime. Some of these children are infants and toddlers. Who's there to protect them from physical and sexual abuse by the very people that are overseeing their care? That's the role of a parent. These children are completely helpless. Defenseless. Also shocking is no infrastructure to reunite the children and their parents. That's criminal. They will end up being wards of the state, shoved into the foster care system and sitting out their childhoods in federally run orphanages. Like I said up front, its kidnapping and they're hostages.
17
What happens when some of these children, frightened and angry at the separation from their parents, and just plain bored begin to act out, fight and generally misbehave? How are their jailers, cagers or whatever you want to call them, going to prevent it and deal with when it occurs.
4
I don't know if you're asking me or speaking rhetorically. Either way, the senario you describe will be painful for all involved. And it could be prevented as we speak.
When the world thinks of Americans they will think of kids in cages.
19
Yes, the federal government is kidnapping children and using them to extort Americans to pay for a border wall. Gross.
And today Trump says we are being "infested" with immigrants.
They are human, not vermin! He is sick and so are the rest of his racist followers....
13
SICKENING!
Had enough?!
Vote November 6th!!!
15
Nov 6 is too far away. Something has to happen before then.
1
Matthew 19:14 King James Version (KJV)
14 "But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven."
6
Trump's children should and will be put in cages for crimes far, far worse than seeking asylum. This cruel, grifting family will reap what they have sown.
Will no one rid us of this plague? Will Mueller? Cohen? Daniels? Putin?
Anyone will do.
13
Forgive me but I'm getting a bit dizzy here. Last week you warned us that speech like this was unhelpful and counterproductive. It would only serve to irritate our fellow citizens who are kind of hair trigger types and who knows what they'd do. It would only serve to inflame an already terribly volatile situation and send the nation into an even more dire tailspin than the one it's in now, if such a thing can be imagined. They're not to be criticized, they don't like it. Those tempers. Thing is, so which one is it: is it mums the word or scream like hell. Cause we're getting vertigo over here, with all the to and fro. Steady as she goes would be an improvement.
6
Mr. Bruni says that we can be tough but not cruel "if we want to hold on to who we are or mean to be: people of generosity and mercy." But that ship has sailed. People around the globe are appalled by Trump's and Sessions' actions, and we'll have to do much more than stop implementing their orders now. The damage has been done, to the small, weeping children detained at the border, to their parents trying to escape from free roaming criminals in Honduras, Ecuador and Guatemala, and to our border guards.
Typically, Trump keeps on hammering away at our credibility on the world stage, by refusing to 1.) acknowledge his culpability, and 2.) take steps to rescind the noxious law. As so many have commented in the MSM, it would only take a word from him to halt the immoral seizure of children--true hostages.
6
I have consistently made 3 points about the children in government internment camps.
1. It's a living genocide 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 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 intimidation to establish a regime and return to white supremacy. The exaggerated claims of the aura of M-13 (none trotted up for a perp walks or pictures), the concerted efforts in creating a Pavlovian fear of an imagined threat by suspending due process, civil liberties, and human rights for immigrants, while also denying these actions, are all part of the effort.
12
At this point, there have been as many bleeding heart essays in the media as there are separated children. I'd like to give you all an assignment so you don't trip over each other:
-what are the ages of the separated kids?
-how long are the separations expected to last
-identify all the facilities where they are being kept and the condition of those facilities -- please be specific regarding age, size, and condition of the facilities, any overcrowding, the nature of the staff, any classes being taught, access to TV's, music, and phones, and where the kid sleep
I'm sure others have similar questions. For me, the answers would be much more informative than knowing that you and all your colleagues have bleeding hearts.
1
What not do a little of your own homework assignment? If you had, you'd realize that the administration has imposed a blackout on all information about these child detention centers. Reporters aren't allowed into these facilities, unless the visit is scripted by the administration (sound like the old Soviet Union?) Personnel at the facilities aren't allowed to have cell phones. We do know that infants under the age of one are held. We also know that the government has opened three detention camps for "tender age" children in Texas. ("Tender age" means toddler or infant.) We obviously don't know how long the separations will last, but we do know that the government has set up no plan to reunite these children, and that it is up to parents to locate their children in this jumbled bureaucracy. If you have no place for compassion, what about common sense?
Thanks Frank for a great analysis. Yes this state sponsored child abuse is a grotesque hostage situation. Trump and the GOP have taken our country to a very dark and evil place. If you want to see how dark and evil read the Twitter responses to Laura Bush's condemnation of Trump's zero tolerance policy. These are heartless people who have lost their moral compass. McConnell, Ryan and the rest of the GOP are their enablers, Trump is their god.
3
When is Trump going to announce that GE will build the wall using materials from the Statue of Liberty, which he will order torn down?
2
Trump will be remembered for many things—none of them good—but these interments will top that ignoble list for generations to come. I don’t think this will be the event that breaks the fever of madness that grips his cultists, impervious to information as they are (too many events have already occurred, to no avail). But it might be the point when the broader populace realizes that Trump’s “manly” form of brinksmanship reached its apotheosis in the form of unconscionable cruelty. When even loyal water-carriers like Ted Cruz are forced to feign a conscience, we have entered truly uncharted waters.
1
People who take hostages, kidnap children, are nothing more or less than terrorists. That is what this administration is now, in no uncertain terms. Every day of the Trump presidency has brought new lows. We may now be at the nadir of our reputation as a people of conscience. It has already been admitted by a former ICE official that some of these children will, in fact, never be reunited with their parents, simply because there is no practical system in place to make that happen. What have we become?
5
We will look back upon this period of history and ask ourselves how did we allow this evil man to get away with so much?
6
America today under Trump is more like the early 30s Germany than America at any time in the recent past. We know what happened moving forward in Germany. The conditions are ripe for the same to repeat here -- identify, intern, separate, dispose the unwanted -- all in the name of the Motherland.
2
Ironically, the "good news" to come out of this might be people no longer wanting to come to America, simply because this is no longer the land of freedom and opportunity, no longer a democracy. People, in horror, keep saying "This is not America. These are not American values." In fact, this IS America, Trump's America, supported by many, many like-minded Republicans. Who will want to come to a country led by so many mean, cruel, and corrupt people? We're not like a third-world country, complete with leaders at the top who are openly corrupt, with Trump and his family making a fortune at the expense of taxpayers, . . . Trump along with Pruitt, Carlson, the whole bunch of grifters. And nobody, least of all the cowardly Republicans, are doing anything about the corruption and sheer meanness of the people at the top.
2
Yes, the children are hostages. And yes, the hardline advisors in the Trump Administration are making the speculation that they are not human, but Cyborgs (or Vogons) seem rational.
Justice is blind, not heartless. But we are in war of ideas in which heartlessness is considered strength, and the worst of the righteous zealots have the President's ear. And I bet, I just bet, that enough agree that we will see this kind of horror well past 2020.
3
These children are pawns in the game between Trump and their parents . On one hand the parents intent to come here illegally at any cost imperiling their children , on the other Trump's determination to stop them at any cost . I sympathize with the Central Americans wanting a better and safer life for themselves and their progeny , however they fail to understand there are laws and a proper way to immigrate . It is nauseating to see this tug of war . I blame both sides and no matter the outcry and outrage , they will lose and we will lose too . And what of the children , how damaged will they be as a result? We reap what we sow .
1
Sm, I don't think you understand that these parents are trying to comply with our laws and apply for asylum. They don't intend to break our laws. Border patrol is no longer allowing asylum seekers to cross the border at ports of entry--hundreds of asylum seekers camp out on the bridge between El Paso and Juarez because they're terrified of returning to Juarez, where the cartels rule. These parents do exactly what you would do--they try to scale the fence in El Paso with their children, then present themselves to Border Patrol for asylum. They're not trying to evade ICE.
The only game being played is by the Trump administration. We need to stop blaming the victims.
1
This man, who would be king, has become a cruel tyrant. History will not absolve him for this. This episode will be retold and reprinted in every summary of his tenure from now until he leaves office. And in every history book. From now until the end of his life. How's that for a legacy?
2
Frank, I wonder if the percentage of Republicans supporting this, and every other abhorrent and malicious Trump policy, is because fewer people call themselves Republicans? Is there any research on that issue?
5
i immigrated to America from Scotland age 7 when my Dad sent for us a year after he came here to work. JfK
Airportwas the biggest, most frightening place I'd ever seen. I was overwrought and exhausted from a transatlantic flight. I was a legal immigrant and I spoke English with a Glasgow accent.
It as hard to assimilate into American life. I cannot imagine how these children will ever pick up the pieces after such brutal treatment and I cannot comprehend how a President whose mother was a Scottish immigrant has repeatedly lashed out at non Americans.
7
He lashed out because they are not white. If they were from Glasgow there would be no problem. I am aware of a number of illegal immigrants in Philly who have been here for years. They are from Eastern Europe. Nobody is paying any attention to them or kidnapping their children and putting them in cages. They are too busy going after the ones with brown skin.
The USA with a pathological lying, conman as president; the USA with a 'zero tolerance' policy separating the children from parents of immigrants fleeing violence in their home countries; the USA with a president who threatens the free press by incessantly spreading 'Fake News'; the USA with a dangerously divided citizenry, fueled by the president; the USA with a nonfunctioning Congress...what more? 'Unwelcome' billboards, banners, websites, podcasts and broadcasts on its borders, online and from sea to shining sea.
3
This is not the worst we will endure before Trump is erased. He cannot but perptrate cruelty and a lot of theft to wash it down.
And, notice, he has moved his Russian treason off the tube. A "win" by his measure.
1
Treating families who only want a better life won't do a thing to stop gang violence and likely plays right into their hands. A young child ripped from its mother might lose trust in the system making it more likely he or she will go off the rails into violence as the only option open to them.
Whereas compassion and the ability to live, be educated and work free of threats in a country of immigrants means they are far more likely to will grow up to be productive citizens and our neighbors. Is that what the Trump supporters fear most? That they will assimilate?
It's true, we can't absorb all who need us and that's sad. But we can work to help other countries become stronger and fight off gang violence, which thrives in poverty and thuggish governments. But we have a photo-op-in-chief that has no interest in doing the right thing, unless he benefits. Poor countries can't buy into his over-priced brand.
His supporters brag about the North Korea summit as a success, ignoring frightening children, but really, wasn't that video just about gaining rights to beachfront Real Estate?
3
I suggest that Ivanka's children be placed in a retention center to ensure that conditions are humane.
9
Mr. Bruni, You are exactly right. This administration has effectively kidnapped these children from their parents in an attempt to extort the Democrats into submitting to funding his border wall (which everyone knows that Mexico will never pay for.)
If you are I or any other American citizen took a child without their parents' permission in order to extort money from them, I'm quite sure we'd be looking at serious jail time. It's not the immigrant children who should be behind bars, it's Trump and all of those sycophants of his who encourage and support this inhumane policy.
Lock Them Up!
3
Mexico must pay for the wall, as promised by Trump.
There cannot be a compromise.
3
A great opinion for the history books should America survive long enough to see a future history book written.
1
Well said. Cruelty aplenty, all 'gratis', as it could easily have been averted with one phone call from brutish, and despicable, Trump. On the other hand, why should we expect edible fruit from a poisonous tree? Honesty from a crook? Truth (and it's beauty) from a dedicated liar? In brief, if you expect decency from an unscrupulous man, you'll be sorely disappointed.
2
Trump is no better than the villain in a movie that holds a gun to a child's head demanding a helicopter. He is evil reincarnate. The saddest part is the amount of GOP voters who support him. Who would give into his demands?
President Trump states that people who beak the law must pay the price. I hope he is prepared for a long stay in Leavenworth
8
Trump thinks he’s so smart: harass, humiliate and lock up undocumented people because they can’t vote and they were never going to stay in one of his hotels anyway. The children? They’re too young to vote and don’t have the money to buy any of his cheesy merchandise, so lock ‘em up, too.
This will all backfire once Congress remembers their oath of office and where they misplaced their spines. And Trump has forgotten that the US never negotiates with terrorists who are holding hostages, which is exactly what he is and what he is doing.
Call your representatives now and demand an end to this travesty followed by the start of impeachment hearings!
1
Maybe we France would take back Lady Liberty! She doesn’t appear to be needed here anymore.
2
Where are the girls? Where are the toddlers?
Virtually every image we've seen has been provided by the administration. They own this and what it represents - cruelty, child abuse, vindictiveness and inhumanity. Not to mention all Trump's LIES! All because he never backs down or admits to making a mistake. He and his wretched minions will inflict untold horrors and long-term damage on the psyches and well-being of children rather than backing down. Think about that the next time you hold or comfort a child in your life. NO empathy and morally bankrupt. The best that Fox news can do is to use euphemisms and gin up anti-immigrant hysteria. Ann Coulter called the kids "child actors"(!) who are being instructed to cry. Shades of Sandy Hook.
Imagine if the roles were reversed. The alt-right manufactured a fake narrative about a child sex-ring in Comet Pizza run by Hillary Clinton and John Podesta. Michael Flynn and his son tweeted it and helped spread this vicious lie. And so many Trump supporters believed it including one lunatic who went in armed to "self- investigate." Luckily, no one was injured or killed.
Here we have hundreds and possibly thousands of actual girls and toddlers unaccounted for. One could logically ask - are they trapped in a child sex ring?
Perhaps, we should "self-investigate" too....
1
so in Frank Bruni's opinion "the Beacon" is flashing the message:
"migrate here illegally and we won't do anything about it"
Then when someone does enforce the law (after decades of neglect) he is outraged.
In none of the articles in the NYT today is the word "ILLEGAL" used enough. The kids, in most cases, are too young to be guilty. But their parents are 100% breaking the law.
2
How is it "pono" to lock up small children? You raise the usual straw man argument: that anyone opposed to Trump's inhumanity is for open borders. That previous administrations failed to enforce immigration law (false). This isn't about enforcing immigration law; it's about child abuse. Any administration that engages in official child abuse is violating our Constitution.
Because he can't build it, this horrific situation is his wall and his blatant show of affection for Ann Coulter.
He is the love child of:
Coulter
Miller
Sessions
Hannity
O'Reilly
Huckabee Sanders
Limbaugh
Beck
Jones
Ingraham
Bannon
McConnell
Conway
Flynn
Manafort
Kushner
Ivanka
Kudlow
etc.
Where is Kim Kardashian now?
1
The Trump administration is not holding children hostage. It is complying with federal court orders to transfer migrant children apprehended to the border to the Department of Health and Human Services' Officer of Refugee Resettlement centers. The ORR releases them to relatives or sponsors. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2016 that migrant children apprehended at the border cannot be prosecuted are incarcerated. The ruling is online at https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2016/07/06/15-56434.pdf
2
William, HHS (and Kirstjen Nielsen) ARE part of the Trump administration. No court has ordered the administration to hold these children in detention camps. The ruling you link to (Flores v Lynch) requires the government to proceed expeditiously to reuniting all minors with family members, and to releasing an accompanying parent when releasing a child unless that parent poses a safety risk or a significant flight risk. The administration is not complying with that ruling.
If you have proof that these children are being released to relatives or sponsors and that their parent(s) are being released, please provide it.
1
Please don’t waste your time with facts and the law. Facts don’t matter when the left wing has the chance to cynically use children dumped on our country to the liberals’ benefit.
President Trump’s compliance with federal law must be ignored - it just doesn’t support the liberals’ false narrative.
Let's not get so worked up about immigrant child detention. There hasn't been any child abuse. No death. No physical or psychological damage. Yet.
And you would know that how?
Remember the story of Trump punching his piano teacher? He was such a handful that his parents sent him to military school, hoping that would straighten him out. I'm sure he didn't receive a lot of care, understanding, or nurturing there. Fast forward, and, surprise surprise, this damaged narcissist had very little to do with his own progeny. They held no interest for him until they were old enough to start learning the family business. He had his various wives do the nurturing and child care, so he knows less than nothing about how fragile little children are. Of course, since he's the smartest person on the planet, if faced by a panel of experts he'd say that he knows more about child rearing and childhood developmental stages than anyone else in the world. Now, it's payback time. The loser bully has all the power now and can practice his sadism and cruelty on people who can't fight back. And the bonus for Trump is that they're black and brown - the people he's most contemptuous of. Take narcissism and sadism and a man who feels empty and loveless at his core, and you have the man who leads our country today. He's still the mean little boy who hit someone trying to teach him to play the piano. Even then, he couldn't take criticism! The criticism and blow-back he's receiving now is causing him to dig in his little bone-spurred heels. What have we done, America. And, how long will it take for us to right ourselves?
1
Just heard it on MSNBC...Trump is using babies and children as a “bargaining chip” to get the wall built. Does it get any worse than this?
8
As a business man, Donald Trump went bankrupt many times, ruining his credit in this country so that he could only borrow money from shady overseas sources.
As the president, Donald Trump has morally bankrupted this country, caging children to use as hostages in a repulsive game of chicken, ruining our credibility and reputation with our longtime allies while aligning himself with shady overseas dictators.
Having accomplished this the next step for Donald Trump will be to financially bankrupt this country with his escalating trade wars.
This seems to be Trump's talent, along with being a master con artist. Some "Art of the Deal".
10
I would imagine a steadily declining stock market would finally get Trump impeached. Once he is of.no more use to his puppet managers the strings will be cut pretty fast. He has given Congress more than enough reason to impeach him and in the end the invertebrates in Congress will want to look like some kind of patriots for the history books.
1
Please Mr. Mueller, tell us this nightmare is going to end soon!! The rule of law is the only guardrail left to hold this vile Trump train from destroying our democracy.
After promising his grown nephew Fred Trump III that he'd cover medical bills and insurance for Fred's infant son, who had been born with cerebral palsy, Donald Trump later
withdrew all health insurance and financial aid for the family.
Trump later explained it was because he got mad after Fred sued over a matter stemming from the Will of Trump's father, Fred Trump II.
Donald Trump deliberately caused his disabled and chronically ill great-nephew to be cut off from medical care to get even with the nephew.
Look it up -- it's easily researchable and was all out there --
that anecdote and so much more disgusting stuff -- during this evil's man's presidential campaign.
Holding frightened children hostage at our borders to serve himself should not surprise anyone.
1
Now - maybe time to boycott NFIB members too!
1
A picture speaks a thousand words and when the world thinks of America they will think of kids in cages. Americans have Donald Trump and his accomplices to thank for this. You cannot excuse the inexcusable.
8
Once separated, how are the parents of the children supposed to locate the “camp” that their children are confined to?
12
I would put the blame on Trump’s handlers. They have to know that their puppet is much worse than Pinocchio.
1
According to a story in The Daily Beast today, Kelly seems to have given up on Trump
“I alone can fix it”
3
Mr.Trump has sued and paid his way out of other illegal behavior.He thinks he could shoot someone on Fifth avenue and not be indicted.Let's let him know that this time he has miscalculated.Americans do not accept child abuse!!He is using the children's trauma as a bargaining chip-he can yell falsehoods about it until he is blue in the face- these children are hostages.Criminal does not even describe this behavior.-it is sadistic!
3
Dear America,
Tired of all the winning yet? As Trump manufactures and piles on crisis after crisis, building to a stench that is now affecting the rest of us outside the US, I know as Canadians if we ever found ourselves governed by the likes of the immoral Trumpublicans we would "throw the bums out" next time out at the polls.
4
Dennis BENOIT: "Sortez les sortants?"Pres. TRUMP is extremely popular here because he defends the Constitution and our way of life. Don't be fooled, hoodwinked by the liberal media.The more he is attacked, the more solid his support becomes. Ever heard of Pierre Poujade, populist hero who headed the UDCA, L'Union pour la Defense des Commecants et Agriculteurs in France in the early 1950's, and 2 Poujadist deputies who served in the National Assembly, JM LE PEN, et Demarque? They were extremely popular! popular You cannot hope to understand America unless you live here!.
Let us hope Congress has a plan in place before the United Nations impose sanctions on us for torturing children at the border.
2
Trump is disgusting. Everyone in the universe knows this. However, the word about his barbaric practice of separating young. vulnerable children from their parents must have spread. So I wonder about the adults currently bringing children to the USA illegally from Central America. Aren't they 'using' their children politically?
De Niro was 100 Percent correct. Admit it.
6
Many NYT Picks' opinions support what Trump is doing. I hope those writers do not have children. What happens to young children affects them for their entire life. No, they can't talk about it. That's why they cry. Many of these parents arrived at ports of entry seeking asylum. Those parents did not cross the border illegally. If this is where so many hearts and minds are, it truly is very reminiscent of Germany during World War II. Did we finally forget?
1
Everyone blames Trump for this. It's not his fault. He's doing what his base wants him to do. Check out the comments here. There are people cheering him on, because the ends justify the means in their minds. Just like how they wanted to "shake things up" by electing a puerile, anti-intellectual, casually racist, xenophobe. It's not Trump's fault if he knows well what plays to his base. It's the base that deserves the vitriol.