“NO TOLERANCE POLICY” STANDS ALONE

Of all the unconscionable directives that have spewed relentlessly from this administration; the decision to separate children from their families stands alone.

There are currently 572, 5-17 year old children in the custody of the United States government.  These children were separated from their parents under the tenants of Trump’s “No Tolerance” immigration policy.  A policy which required that these minor children be incarcerated separately from their parents while the parents were being processed for entering the country illegally.  These children remain incarcerated today because the government separated them from their families without having a system in place to reunite them with their parents on the other side of the legal process.

One might assume that a disorganized policy such as this was a hasty response to a flood of illegal gang related immigrants pouring across our border.  That assumption would be incorrect.

The administration’s own border patrol officials tell us that in 2017 they apprehended only 187,000 persons trying to cross the border illegally; 180 of whom had criminal records or gang affiliations.  Numbers which pale in comparison to the 1 million illegals who entered the country in early 2000. In fact in the last four years of the Obama administration there has been an inverse negative migration of immigrants leaving the US for Mexico; the result of a growing Mexican economy and Obama’s tough stance on deportation.

We have now learned that this policy was not a slap dash response to a sudden border crisis but a cold, calculated measure to deter potential immigrants from coming into the country.  We have learned that the policy was actually concocted months ago, with its’ implementation held in abeyance while the administration waited for just the right time to gain maximum political leverage.  Finally, we learned that border patrol was ordered to target immigrant families with children so news of the separations would spread south of the border and serve as a strong deterrent to others contemplating an illegal crossing.

To review…immigrant families with children were specifically targeted by the Trump administration border patrol so that the separation and incarceration of those children could be used a political deterrent.

What we once thought was incompetence we have come to learn was cold, calculated, inhumane cruelty for political gain.

And what of the 572 children still in US custody?  The administration says they have no way of reuniting these children with their parents because out of either incompetence or cruelty, they have no way of knowing where the parents are.  Some where released into the US.  Some were deported back to their homeland.  The administration has no way of knowing.

The Trump administration’s solution…is for the ACLU to take the lead and use its expertise and resources to find the children’s parents!!!??  If this private enterprise cannot find the parents, says the government, then the children will become orphans and placed into foster care.  Are you kidding me???!!!!

A word of caution to those who would excuse the incompetence and cruelty on display here by rationalizing that these people came into the country illegally and should therefore expect to pay the consequences.  After all, they say, people in this country who go to jail are separated from their children.

The stupidity behind this line of thought is palpable.

First of all…according to our laws…crossing into this country illegally is a MISDOMEANOR punishable by paying a fine.  It is the equivalent of a parking ticket.  To carry this inane thought process to its conclusion…what we are doing at the border is like taking away a person’s children as punishment for parking in front of a fire hydrant.  It’s absurd.

Second…when people in THIS country are incarcerated their children aren’t hauled off to foster care.  The children return to their homes, sleep in their beds, play with their friends.  To infer such a false equivalence is preposterous as it is ignorant.

Trying to absorb the torrent of sewage emanating from this administration is like drinking from a fire hose.  It is hard to wade through the sludge.

Trump’s “No Tolerance” policy is the exception.

Thanks to it’s unprecedented incompetence, cruelty and inhumanity, Trump’s  “No Tolerance” policy stands alone.