Let me add here first that we are a nation of laws. Whenever you hear a politician say that, he or she is correct. We are also a compassionate nation. The question is do we become so compassionate that our laws do not matter? Do we, then, send a signal to those coming here that our laws amount to nothing more than ink on paper? I do not think so and I do not think we should send that kind of message. Although, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has acerbated the situation in Texas by changing the entering of the U.S. between ports of entry from a misdemeanor, which it was for years, to a major offense.
However, the systematic separating of children from their families is not the right way to go about this. It is flat-out wrong. It is immoral, atrocious, a human rights violation ... and, quite frankly, unlawful. This is allegedly being done according to law and the Democrats put the law into place. Let me be clear: There is no such law in place. This is a Trump administration policy being carried out.
Can you smile at these kids ... because they feel like animals in cages being looked at ...
This detention center and others ... and now, also a tent city for children roughly 800 miles away from the Brownsville center ... are happening on U.S. soil!
Not that this hasn't happened on U.S. soil before. From the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century -- yes, the mid-twentieth century -- Native American children were taken from their families and sent to "boarding schools" in order to "assimilate" them into society. This was not a mutually-agreed upon sharing of cultures. This was not a case of immigrants coming here and learning the culture and willfully assimilating into it, like my father's parents did. This was forced capture. Richard Henry Pratt, a captain in the U.S. cavalry said the following about these boarding schools: "Kill the Indian in him and save the man."
The ripping of children from their families is not new in world history, either. Look to more recent events with Native American children in South Dakota being thrown into foster care, the Stolen Generations (also known as Stolen Children) in Australia for the majority of the twentieth century, First Nations children in Canada also being sent to "boarding schools", and the Nazi concentration camps during World War II, to name a few, and you will see this kind of cruelty is not unheard of. It was seen as the "right thing to do" at the time, while completely ignoring human rights and the importance of the family unit. (What a disgraceful history we are sharing!) We now look back at the these things with anger, horror, and sadness. And yet, these detention centers and the separating of families are going on now on our soil!
If you think this policy of Trump administration, which was enacted a month-and-a-half ago, was concocted recently, think again. This was under consideration from the beginning of the Trump presidency. This video is from the first week of March 2017, roughly a month-and-a-half into the Trump presidency, and it shows General John Kelly (the current White House Chief of Staff) back when he was the Secretary of Homeland Security being interviewed by CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer:
The current Secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, has said there is no policy of separating children from families, and they did not create such a policy. This past Monday, she restated Trump's claim that this is happening by law. Again, there is no such law in place. This is a Trump administration policy being carried out.
The vast majority of Republican lawmakers are suspiciously silent on this. Even the president going to meet with House Republicans to discuss this yesterday was a non-starter. (The strongest expressions were a few boos from the back of the room where he was meeting with them and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus protesting after the meeting.) It is an example of the idiom: Your silence is your consent. They are showing either willful consent (100% agreement) or forced consent (had better do so).
A couple of weeks ago, during one of the cable television political pundit shows, a graphic came up on the bottom of the screen that read: "Republicans Criticize Trump At Their Own Peril". Many of those in the Republican party, if they criticize the president, and happen to be running for re-election, can be guaranteed the president will speak out against them, telling voters to vote for another Republican candidate in the primary instead. Many times, they do lose, so the fear of Trump out there is huge. (However, that fear shows they are more concerned with keeping their jobs, thus serving themselves, than serving the people who voted them in.) This is forced compliance, and the consent given by their silence on this issue -- and even a recently-proposed bill to end the separating of children from their families which will likely go nowhere -- is the kind of thing our founders were getting away from, not what they wanted to duplicate.
President Trump has been quick to sign Executive Orders to address all sorts of issues, but on this issue, he claims a non-existent law is the reason for it happening in the first place, and that the Democrats refusing to negotiate with him is what is keeping this non-existent law in place. In fact, an Executive Order is not even necessary to end the policy; a simple phone call would suffice. The claim of the Democrats not negotiating is Trumpspeak for: if they do not vote in favor of the billions of dollars he wants to build "the wall", these detentions and separations will continue. In other words, they have been reduced to nothing more than bargaining chips. The victims of these human rights violations committed by our own government are being made to suffer for a dictator wannabe's ridiculous, fantastical, hate-and-fear-endorsed construction project. (He must have plans to profit off the building of it.)
The number of children separated from their parents stands right now at nearly 2,400. While we have heard about the boys, roughly ages 10-17, there had been no press coverage, or information passed along, about any of the girls or any of the toddlers. That is until last night, when the Associated Press broke the story about three "tender age shelters" where hundreds of babies and toddlers are being kept. The shelters are located in the Texas towns of Brownsville (where Jacob Soboroff reported from in the MSNBC video above), Combes, and Raymondville. Allow me to highlight one line from the Associated Press story:
"Doctors and lawyers who have visited the shelters said the facilities were fine,
clean and safe, but the kids -- who have no idea where their parents are -- were
hysterical, crying and acting out."
Dr. Colleen Kraft, the current president of the American Society of Pediatrics, toured one of these shelters ... and she said there is even a No Contact policy for workers at these shelters in terms of offering any kind of comfort to these young children. (Changing diapers, as I understand it, is the only contact they can give to these young ones.)
It was also reported on television last night that young children have been placed in front of officials who are in charge at these shelters, with these officials conducting business in front of them, as if they are old enough to fully understand everything going on. Old enough to fully understand? Really?
To add insult to injury, many times, after the children are separated from their families, which results in their becoming legally unaccompanied minors, the adults are deported back to their country of origin without their children ... and there is no plan in place to reunite families! This is kidnapping!
Add to all this yet another hot button topic in this country, religion, and it gets even worse. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions' recent comments, citing the Book of Romans in the New Testament to justify this practice, is disgraceful. It is also a misuse and misrepresentation of the passage's meaning ... and the Trump administration is not the first governing/in-power body to do so (i.e. loyalists of King George III, slave owners here, Spanish Inquisition). Jeff Sessions' theological cred is about as solid as the house built on sand in the Gospel of Matthew.
Some reports about how this all has been happening include babies being taken from their parents to be "given a bath" and then never returned to the parents, and even one report of a child being taken away from its mother while being breastfed. Clearly, far too many of these politicians, when they see these children that are separated from their parents, do not see their own children in them.
Jacob Soboroff, who you saw reporting in the MSNBC video above, has been covering this situation extensively. The video above was from his covering a detention center in Brownsville, Texas. (He mentioned there were no cages there.) Just a few days ago, he began reporting from the largest detention facility in the country, located in McAllen, Texas, in which about 1,500 children are being held. He stated they were not allowed to bring cameras inside, but that the Department of Homeland Security did share pictures of inside the facility they had.
Actress Debra Messing, best known for her work on the comedy series 'Will & Grace', recently posted the picture below on social media. It is a picture of a young child who has been detained ... with a number put on him, as if assigned to him (#47). Jewish children detained in concentration camps in Nazi Germany were assigned numbers, which were tattooed on their forearms. This is the same kind of thing!
And all of this is now in the shadow of the U.S. pulling out yesterday from the United Nations' Human Rights Council.
What the hell have we become?!
Terry
TOMORROW
LYING AND PROFITING FROM THE PRESIDENCY
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