Beneath the Screams<\/p>\n
The United States is faced with a moral crisis. Our nation is taking children from their parents and holding thousands of them in detention.\u00a0 We are not starving them, but we are abusing them.\u00a0 We have snatched them from their parents, and we are not offering them a sure way to reunite their families.\u00a0 The mental and emotional damage is difficult to estimate, but it is sure.<\/p>\n
There is a tremendous amount of emotion in this issue. \u00a0In the House of Representatives hearing on the Inspector General\u2019s Report, Elijah Cummings, Democratic Congressman from Maryland, ignored Mr. Horowitz at the table, and eloquently demanded the Congress free the children.\u00a0 Multiple reporters and new commentators have emotionally broken down on air; Facebook, Twitter, and other social media are full of the arguments about what America should do.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to post \u201crational\u201d comments on those, it is so much easier to scream out.<\/p>\n
So let\u2019s start with the facts.\u00a0 The facts are the government of the United States has altered the immigration enforcement policy on the Southern Border.\u00a0 No \u201cstatutory law\u201d has been changed; what changed was the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice enforcement policy.<\/p>\n
Crossing the border is and always was illegal.\u00a0 So is driving faster than the speed limit.\u00a0 Both of these offenses were considered \u201ccivil\u201d offenses, in neither case was the lawbreaker held in jail.\u00a0 The government of the United States for many years (and many Presidents) treated illegal border crossings as a civil offense; offenders were picked up, processed, and returned across the border.<\/p>\n
The Trump Administration has changed that interpretation.\u00a0 They have criminalized border crossing.\u00a0 They have ordered the Justice Department to prosecute every case of illegal border crossing to the full extent of the law.\u00a0 The analogy is:\u00a0 now when you get caught for speeding, you are arrested and go to jail.<\/p>\n
There have been \u201cunaccompanied minors\u201d crossing the border for several years.\u00a0 This came to a head in the last couple of years of the Obama Administration, and the immigration service has had to find ways to house and care for these teenagers.\u00a0 So when the argument is made that Obama, Bush, and Clinton held children, it\u2019s true.\u00a0They held these teenagers, crossing by themselves without parents.<\/p>\n
They also held those few children who crossed with parents, but whose parents committed other crimes beyond the crossing itself.\u00a0 Clearly if a parent with child tried to evade the border patrol, much like those poor folks killed this week in a tragic car chase, then the parent would be jailed until trial, and the child would need to be cared for.<\/p>\n
So what has happened to create today\u2019s crisis?\u00a0 By criminalizing illegal crossings, the Trump Administration has created a whole new class of immigrants who are jailed until trial.\u00a0 Court rulings have made it clear that the minor children cannot be jailed (their parents committed a crime, they didn\u2019t) and so the families cannot be held together.\u00a0 Now, all of a sudden (since the April implementation of the policy) the Border Patrol is faced with thousands of minors to care for, ranging from the teenagers they were used to, to babies.\u00a0 They weren\u2019t ready for the numbers, and they certainly weren\u2019t ready for the little ones.<\/p>\n
So in answer to the right-wing cries that every President did this:\u00a0 not true. In answer to the claim the \u201cthe law is the law:\u201d no \u2013 it\u2019s changed.<\/p>\n
And to answer the President\u2019s cry that it\u2019s up to Congress to fix this:\u00a0 no, you changed it, you can fix it.<\/p>\n
And meanwhile the kids pile up at the border.\u00a0 And it\u2019s not only the change in policy that created this crisis.\u00a0 In addition, the Department of Homeland Security knew that there was a \u201cspring\u201d influx of migrants heading toward the border.\u00a0 In the past there has been increases in the hearing officers, judges, and attorneys needed to quickly evaluate the claims of immigrants for amnesty.\u00a0 This time, DHS did nothing.<\/p>\n
The lines to cross \u201clegally\u201d are days and weeks long.\u00a0 The Mexican border towns, long known for their lawlessness, are dangerous places for these families to wait.\u00a0 And as they wait, more and more migrants pile up behind them.\u00a0 The pressure builds to pay the last \u201cbribe\u201d to find someone to lead them across the border, illegally.\u00a0 Once they cross, they turn themselves into the Border Patrol.\u00a0 And since they are \u201ccriminals\u201d their children are taken away.<\/p>\n
The Trump Administration is wholly responsible for creating this crisis.\u00a0 At every turn, they have made choices to exacerbate the situation.\u00a0And, just as DHS wasn\u2019t ready at the border, they weren\u2019t ready for the influx of kids they\u2019ve created.\u00a0 They are scrambling to find places for them, building tent cities in the desert, and shipping children all over the country (reports of young children being sent to Florida and New York City.)\u00a0 No one; no one for or against the policy, has any assurance that those children can be tracked and linked back to their parents.\u00a0Adults have been deported, unable to regain their children, and unable to get them back.\u00a0 We stole their kids.<\/p>\n
Besides the horror of government sanctioned kidnapping, there is the economic cost.\u00a0 Who will pay for these children who get \u201cleft\u201d in America?\u00a0Perhaps a new private industry will grow up; right now the defense giant General Dynamics is making a fortune providing instant housing.\u00a0 The tent city in the desert of Texas costs $10 million.<\/p>\n
We have a border crisis, and a moral crisis.\u00a0 And we aren\u2019t even sure we can get the kids back, whatever we decide about the parents.\u00a0It grows darker and darker, an artificial crisis, created on purpose, with tragic results.<\/p>\n
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