Time to say “That was wrong. We cannot do that again.”
Immigration is a matter near and dear to my heart, as I spent 17 years as a migrant. I have written about refugees in the past, as I feel there are very clear calls to welcome the refugee in the Bible, and I’ve become knowledgeable enough to write about an opinion, at least in certain areas. But I’ve largely stayed away from immigration, because I don’t know a lot: especially illegal immigration.
But after reading this article called “An American Catastrophe” in the Atlantic, I think it is important that in hindsight we resoundingly REJECT the wrong practice of child separation, and denounce the Trump Administration’s policy which was inhumane and cruel. There certainly are many things that need to be fixed at the boarder: now we have a list of one thing that certainly does not work, and is not moral.
It is a really long article, and reading about the trauma to the families is emotional. But it is worth it if you can. If not, I’ve screen shot some of the things that stood out to me.
This policy was made in response to “The State of Emergency.” Numbers at the boarder were rising, and this was a key stand for Trump: something needed to happen. It was not prepared for or communicated well, and some of the main people involved clearly stated their purpose of punishing those who dared cross the border. Person after person tried to stop it, or misunderstood it, or simply didn’t care. And then, there were out and out lies.
Two specific tropes that were brought out to justify it:
While the idea that being tough on illegal immigration will deter other families from attempting, that has not been proven to be the case. Instead, the families try riskier ways. If a family is willing to give up everything to try to cross the border, the situation has to be pretty bad in the first place. That doesn’t just go away.
It was a lie that family separation had been a thing in the past, or that it was the only viable option. Not only were those LEGALLY entering being separated, it was being made very difficult to enter legally. One of the main things that drives people to do things illegally is when the legal way of doing that is not available, or broken.
So let me get this straight: they implement a zero tolerance policy (which has never been done before), forcefully separating parents and children to punish them, and then working specifically to NOT let them be reunited until they’d been properly punished (according to them)?
After the first two weeks of this, a judge said they had to actually have a database—because parents and children were being separated without any pertinent information being recorded, and families being sent to different states. The overlog caused (in an already overlogged, broken system) by this sudden zero tolerance created more ineptitude—but some of that was deliberately planned.
If that wasn’t enough-it overlogged them enough they couldn’t even go after the actual horrible cases which were (and still are) happening. Tragic.
I have seen rhetoric like this in articles passed around Facebook. To hear the trauma caused the parents and children, even mocking their separation, brought me to tears.
I wish I had the answers- I do not. I have no idea how to fix the broken system of legally entering the country, let alone fixing the broken system of illegally entering (which is exacerbated by the legal way being broken). But I can 100% say that the zero tolerance laws attempted during the Trump administration was not the right way to do it. If it’s not clearly condemned, it is doomed to be repeated (especially by those who still believe in it and are still working in the current administration).
I wish this was a blog about ideas to fix the issues. But sometimes it is important to stop, understand the past, and learn from it before looking forward to future solutions.