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Trump allowed kids to be separated from their parents. You don’t have to be a liberal to protest this

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Gautam Benegal
Gautam BenegalJun 24, 2018 | 14:26

Trump allowed kids to be separated from their parents. You don’t have to be a liberal to protest this

In the battle for humanity’s soul, you either have a conscience or a smartass argument.

Two iconic scenes from two classic films, Sophie’s Choice and Schindler’s List, were evoked in the last few days by many on social media, the first of a woman breaking down after being forced by Nazis to choose between her two children as to which one should survive, and the second, a little Jewish girl in a red coat being hustled to the gas chamber.

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Mexican children play at a newly built section of the US-Mexico border wall. Photo: Reuters
Mexican children at a newly built section of the US-Mexico border wall. Photo: Reuters

To the liberal “snowflakes”, as they are taunted by Trump’s supporters, these serve as haunting stark reminders of the cyclical nature of evil, playing itself out periodically through different agents possessed of similar psycho- pathology, throughout Man’s long history of oppression and tyranny.

CNN anchor Anderson Cooper described this as a crisis where children are “ripped from their parent’s arms and scattered to all corners of this country”. To others, however, and their number are growing alarmingly, all the worldwide outrage is just liberal propaganda over a pre-existing law made by the democrats, more specifically Bill Clinton.

Nothing more symbolises their contempt and apathy more accurately than the green jacket of First Lady Melania Trump, (ostensibly on a compassionate visit to migrant children at a holding center in Texas) with the words, “I really don’t care, do you?”  When this went viral, The White House hastily clarified that it had nothing to do with the present situation, it was just a jacket she just happened to have grabbed off the rack and that there was no hidden message.

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But then the President promptly came up with the explanation that it was meant to be a statement about the media, which was engaged in a long standing campaign of “fake news” and propaganda against him.

President promptly came up with the explanation that it was meant to be a statement about the media, which was engaged in a long standing campaign of “fake news” and propaganda against him.
Trump said Melania's jacket was meant to be a statement about the media, which was engaged in a campaign of 'fake news' against him. Photo: AP

If that sounds a little thin on the ground, let us remember that ever since the executive order rescinding his policy, which he was compelled to do because of the huge global outcry, Trump has been raving like an enraged megalomaniac forced to eat crow in front of his adoring constituency. As Kajal Basu, investigative journalist and ex editor of Tehelka says, “This is Trump sending a message to his redneck demographic that the Executive Order doesn't mean that the White House has sold out to the Democrats and assorted liberals.”

Charles Krauthammer, the Pulitzer-winning columnist who died yesterday at 68 wrote: “Trump’s hypersensitivity and unedited, untempered Pavlovian responses are, shall we say, unusual in both ferocity and predictability. This is beyond narcissism. I used to think Trump was an 11-year-old, an undeveloped schoolyard bully. I was off by about 10 years. His needs are more primitive, an infantile hunger for approval and praise, a craving that can never be satisfied. He lives in a cocoon of solipsism where the world outside himself has value — indeed exists — only insofar as it sustains and inflates him.”

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The advocacy of such stunning state sanctioned barbarity in the 21st century seems to be that this is all legal and moreover, formulated by the Democrats. In fact last week Trump had tweeted that “the Democrats are forcing the breakup of families at the Border with their horrible and cruel legislative agenda.” 

Let us for a moment stanch the flow of our liberal bleeding hearts and examine this defence.

There are laws and court precedents governing how children are treated at the border, but none that mandates the separation of parents and children. Under a 1997 legal agreement known as the Flores Settlement, there are limits on how long children can be detained and requirements that the government releases them to parents, guardians, or licensed facilities as quickly as possible and houses them in the “least restrictive” setting possible if that cannot happen immediately.

The Homeland Security Act of 2002 also addressed the fate of unaccompanied minors by establishing the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which oversees the care of unaccompanied kids. The Office sticks to standards outlined by the Flores Settlement and anti-trafficking laws that also govern how children in US custody are cared for, including screening to determine which placement facility would be deemed the “least restrictive” depending on any particular needs they might have.

During the Obama administration only unaccompanied children were picked up by immigration authorities at the border. Children who could be returned to their country of origin were immediately returned. Those who could not be returned to their country of origin were placed in the hands of the Dept. of Health and Human Services.  They were then placed with relatives, juvenile detention centers or foster care. That’s a longstanding Homeland Security policy

Before the Trump administration, immigrants entering illegally as families were rarely prosecuted instead; immigrants were held in family detention centers until they were sent to appear before an immigration court or deported.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced on April 6th that the Homeland Security Department would henceforth be referring all illegal border crossings to the Justice Department for prosecution. Facing criminal charges, parents would go to detention centers, leaving their children unaccompanied.

It is the decision to prosecute parents that is causing the separations. And that is entirely on the Trump Administration.

A 2015 court order, based on the Flores settlement, prevents the government from keeping migrant children in detention for more than 20 days. Trump has instructed Attorney General Jeff Sessions to ask the federal court to modify that agreement in order to allow children to be kept in detention without time limit.

According to the Texas Civil Rights Project, members of whom spoke with detained adults, multiple parents reported that they were separated from their children and not given any information about where their children would go. The organization also says that in some cases, the children were taken away under the pretense that they would be getting a bath.

Moreover there is a difference between illegal fence jumpers and asylum seekers. The present administration is erasing that difference. Families that request asylum at ports of entry are meant to be kept together while their claims are processed.

But there is evidence that even families who seek asylum at ports of entry are being separated. One high-profile case involves a Congolese woman who sought asylum and still was separated from her 7-year-old daughter. In February, NPR's Burnett reported on the legal battle of Ms L v ICE Hers is not an isolated case, according to immigrant advocates. Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service have documented 53 incidents of family separation in the last nine months, mostly Central Americans. 

It is the decision to prosecute parents that is causing the separations. And that is entirely on the Trump Administration.
It is the decision to prosecute parents that is causing the separations. And that is entirely on the Trump Administration. Photo: Reuters

Here is a message from President Barack Obama on World Refugee Day:

“Today is World Refugee Day.

If you've been fortunate enough to have been born in America, imagine for a moment if circumstance had placed you somewhere else. Imagine if you'd been born in a country where you grew up fearing for your life, and eventually the lives of your children. A place where you finally found yourself so desperate to flee persecution, violence, and suffering that you'd be willing to travel thousands of miles under cover of darkness, enduring dangerous conditions, propelled forward by that very human impulse to create for our kids a better life.

That's the reality for so many of the families whose plights we see and heart-rending cries we hear. And to watch those families broken apart in real time puts to us a very simple question: are we a nation that accepts the cruelty of ripping children from their parents’ arms, or are we a nation that values families, and works to keep them together? Do we look away, or do we choose to see something of ourselves and our children?

Our ability to imagine ourselves in the shoes of others, to say “there but for the grace of God go I,” is part of what makes us human. And to find a way to welcome the refugee and the immigrant – to be big enough and wise enough to uphold our laws and honor our values at the same time – is part of what makes us American. After all, almost all of us were strangers once, too.”

“Whether our families crossed the Atlantic, the Pacific, or the Rio Grande, we’re only here because this country welcomed them in, and taught them that to be an American is about something more than what we look like, how our last names sound, or the way we worship. To be an American is to have a shared commitment to an ideal – that all of us are created equal, and all of us deserve the chance to become something better.

That’s the legacy our parents and grandparents and generations before created for us, and it’s something we have to protect for the generations to come. But we have to do more than say “this isn’t who we are.” We have to prove it – through our policies, our laws, our actions, and our votes."

In the battle for humanity's soul, there is only good and bad, black and white, there are no shades of grey, no room for prevarication, no shyster lawyers, no devil's advocates, and no fence sitters.

You either have a conscience or a smartass argument.

Last updated: June 27, 2018 | 13:24
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