Robinson: Trauma inflicted on kids to make a political point
As of Monday, 711 children who were effectively kidnapped and held hostage by the Trump administration remain in government custody, supposedly “ineligible” to be reunited with their families. What happens to them now? The government won’t say, apparently doesn’t know and evidently doesn’t care.
U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw, who had ordered that those children and nearly 2,000 others be returned to their loved ones by last week, summed up the administration’s cruel incompetence at a court hearing Friday: “What was lost in the process was the family. The parents didn’t know where the children were, and the children didn’t know where the parents were. And the government didn’t know either.”
That was, of course, the whole point of this sordid and unforgivable exercise. The xenophobic cultural warriors in the administration — President Trump, policy adviser Stephen Miller, Attorney General Jeff Sessions — sent a message to refugees fleeing rampant violence in Central America: If you show up at the border seeking asylum, as is your right, you might have your children taken away and never see them again.
The administration knew that child separations would be the inevitable result of a “zero tolerance” policy in which all undocumented border-crossers — most of them accused of nothing more than a misdemeanor offense — were jailed and put on trial. But officials did not care enough to implement a system for keeping track of parents and their children, some still in diapers.
If you have children, imagine how you would feel seeing them taken away like that. Hug your kids. Imagine not knowing where they are or whether you’ll ever get to hug them again.
Now imagine the terror and despair those 711 “ineligible” children must feel. It is monstrous to gratuitously inflict such pain. It is, in a word, torture.
In 120 cases, according to the government, a parent “waived” reunification with the child. This claim cannot be taken at face value, however, since immigration advocates cite widespread reports of parents being coerced or fooled into signing documents they did not understand.
Human nature binds parents with their children. It shocks and depresses me to have to write this, but I wonder whether Trump and his minions see these Central Americans — brown-skinned, with indigenous features — as fully human.
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/robinson-trauma-inflicted-on-kids-to-make-a-political-point/?utm_source=DAILY+HERALD&utm_campaign=159e238a69-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d81d073bb4-159e238a69-228635337
= new reply since forum marked as read
