The U.S. received a self-inflicted black eye. The global perception of American values has sadly taken a damnable hit. The image of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents removing children from illegal immigrant parents and placing them in facilities many miles away has appalled much of the world.
The act is as un-American and non-Christian as it gets. White House spokespeople can claim these children are treated humanely but they miss the point entirely. And telling staff they are not to touch or interact with the children is by no means humane. Adding further degradation, immigrant parents who surrendered themselves at our borders and asked for asylum from Central American gang violence have endured more suffering when it took more than a month before being reunited with their children.
Many Republicans, most notably former First Lady Laura Bush, eloquently spoke out about the intolerance of the Trump administration’s policy. Those Republicans are embarrassed and angered. Unfortunately, not all Republicans share that position. An on-air Fox News staff person dismissed the issue, coldly stating “they aren’t our children” and one poll revealed that a majority of Republicans support the zero-tolerance policy.
The overall clamor led Sen. Ted Cruz and others to buck the majority of their party and prepare legislation to put an end to the practice. Under such pressure, President Donald Trump issued an executive order he claims puts an end to the problem. How that works exactly, is unclear since it does not repeal the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy of criminally charging adults who enter our borders illegally; and it remains unlawful to house children in a jail with the parents. Furthermore, Trump has asked Congressional Republicans to withhold immigration reforms until after the mid-term election.
Trump is missing a great personal opportunity. He continually criticizes the Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from the Russian collusion investigation and not stopping special counsel Robert Mueller in his tracks. But he could eliminate that irritant by placing the blame for the immoral policy on its chief architect. This is, after all, officially Sessions’ policy. Trump nonsensically blames the Democratic Party for the policy. Even a Fox News flunky was bewildered upon hearing the president’s statement.
Based upon his previous actions, it is clear that Sessions’ intent is hardly based on justice. The last serous bipartisan effort at immigration reform was thwarted by none other than Sessions. His stated objection to the bill was it included a path to citizenship. As for his embattled policy, Sessions now claims it was never intended to separate families. That is 180 degrees from his previous statements. The Attorney General made his position less tenable when he quoted lines from Scripture out of context to defend his policy. A multitude of the clergy took him to task and reminded him that America’s Tories used the same passage opposing our Founding Fathers who took up arms against government tyranny. And clerics from the Antebellum South uttered that same passage in defense of slavery. History rejected the argument in both occasions and will once again.
The president says zero tolerance is required to keep violent gangs out of the country. Such a statement is disingenuous at best. Many of these immigrants are leaving their homes because of violent gangs in Central America. Hispanic gangs in America are no more making Central American recruiting tours than the Bloods and Crips made journeys to Africa to recruit gang members. The administration’s bungling of the situation has placed elected GOP officials in an embarrassingly ticklish situation. Worse, it has damaged a great nation in the eyes of the world. This administration’s shameful policy represents not the values of its citizens but rather the intolerance of a minority.
Michael Adkins is the former chair of the Hancock County Democratic Party. He lives in Greenfield. Send comments to [email protected].
