It is Who We Are

*Update* The news is reporting this morning (06/20/2018) that we have withdrawn from the U.N. Human Rights Council. The people running the country now are inhumane and isolationism is not the answer in a global economy. The more I read about this, the more I despise the current administration.

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Written 06/19/2018

My Facebook page is littered with images and comments about the issue of the current administration's stringent policy of separating children from their parents at the border. Since I mostly only see liberal writings on Facebook, there is a lot of hand-wringing and cries of, "this is not who we are."

There are also commentaries from my non-liberal acquaintances, who, as best I can tell, think anyone who doesn't look like them is a little beast that deserves to be locked up. Those commenters are, I suppose, part of the 35% who agree with President Trump regardless of what he does. (At the moment about 65% of people don't like the separation of children and parents policy, 35% approve.)

I have refrained from commenting or posting about this issue not because I don't care about it (I certainly do) but because I tend not to have knee-jerk reactions to things and prefer to figure out what is really going on before I do make a declaration.

At the end of this piece, you'll see a list of recommended reading and you will find links within this blog post. These are resources I have looked at this morning in an effort to better understand this particular issue. You will note that I went outside of the US for some of my information, and some of it comes from senate hearings on immigration issues, and yes, even Fox News. (I will read stuff from Fox News but I am not fond of their website, which is full of video. I don't want to watch my news unless it is the local stations. I don't watch videos from many news organization. I prefer to read my news. And unfortunately the commentary from Fox News anchors is incredibly biased. They shouldn't be offering any commentary at all and simply let the issues speak for themselves. I don't care if you agree with me on that or not, that is real journalism and the commentary from Fox entertainers (I can't really call them journalists) makes me shudder.)

For the record, as a moral stance, I don't think parents and children who are having to wait for any length of time for a hearing on their immigration status should be separated. If you can warehouse children in a former Walmart building, you can warehouse the whole family there. I would think it would be cheaper to keep them all together.

I also fear that this type of action serves only to create hostility towards the US and that somewhere among the thousands of children currently not with their parents we are creating little terrorists who will one day blow something up, or the parents will do rash things to try to get their children back. We have already read of one man who killed himself after being separated from his wife and child. Love is a strong force and not to be underestimated.

But this issue, like any issue with the government, is complicated. For one thing, this does not all lay at Mr. Trump's feet (though much of it does). As much as I would like to place it there, because I do not like the man, as a former journalist I simply cannot do that.

The government has struggled with immigration policy for decades - or, if you really care to go back into history - for as long as the USA has existed. We are, after all, a people who separated native- born Americans from their parents and sent them to boarding schools to assimilate them.

We are also a people who put Japanese families into interment camps during World War II.

We're a people who hated Irish immigrants in the 19th century and didn't really care if they had no potatoes.

So to cry about current policies is a bit hypocritical if you haven't had the issue on your radar before now. If you're only upset about it because you dislike Mr. Trump, then I suggest you go find a corner and think about what it is you're really protesting. President Obama struggled with this. Presidents Bush and Clinton struggled with this. All administrations have.

As best I can tell, the current situation has been ramped up by a zero-tolerance policy enacted by the Trump Administration earlier this year. Over the last 20 years, the system of immigration has evolved and stems from at least three things: (1) a ruling known as the Flores Settlement Agreement (1997), which ensures that children who are removed from parents are treated humanly and given "food and drink, emergency medical assistance, toilets and sinks, adequate temperature control and ventilation, adequate supervision, and separation from unrelated adults whenever possible;" (2) the Homeland Security Act of 2002, and (3) The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008.

The 1997 act came about as a result of a legal settlement and thus did not go through Congress - it is a ruling of law and Congress has not changed it. The Homeland Security Act of 2002 went through Congress and was signed by President George W. Bush. The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, (which renewed a similar law from 2000) also went through Congress and was also signed by President Bush just prior to his leaving office a month later.

I do believe that the current reading and understanding of the Flores settlement which requires "separation from unknown adults" may be giving rise to some of this, and gives Mr. Trump's efforts to double down hard a semblance of legitimacy even though congressional leaders this morning are saying it is merely administrative policy pushing this. (Update: Here is a Snopes article claiming that the Flores settlement has no role in the current situation, meaning it is the current administration that is solely responsible for the "break up" of families. Also, here's a Washington Post article that discusses how this is Mr. Trump's policy, not a matter of law.) 

One of the most alarming items among the many things I read this morning was a statement given before the Senate Committee that Mr. Trump is seeking to undo the Flores agreement, meaning, I suppose, that children would not have food and drink, etc. What does he expect to do with them, then, if you do not treat them humanely? Does he plan to put them in hot abandoned Walmart structures and let them die? This perplexes me and I'm not sure why one would seek to undo something that ensures appropriate care of children.

A major question I have, not that it matters from a moral stance, is whether these are all people who are trying to cross the border illegally and sneak in or whether some of these separations are between people who are going through the process legitimately only to see their children removed from them. Nothing I have read this morning actually clears this question up for me. I suppose for some people any person who is not a US citizen who steps foot on US soil is an illegal immigrant even if they are standing in line to go through the appropriate hearings and processing. It doesn't really matter; I don't believe this separation of families is defensible regardless of the situation.

There is speculation that this policy has been enacted to force financing of the border wall, a big expensive structure that would cut across the borders between Mexico and the United States. (I have to wonder, given Mr. Trump's disgruntlement with Canada, if building a wall there won't be next.)

I don't believe in walls. They didn't work in Germany and they aren't going to work here. I see it as a big waste of money to assuage the ego of bigots and racists who prefer lily white subdivisions and who don't want to hear foreign languages spoken when they are shopping at Sam's Clubs. I would rather the money go to social programs that would make these same people, many of whom are on disability or living off of Social Security, feel a little more secure in their life. It is hard to feel secure if you're living on Social Security and the government, as it has for about 20 years, constantly says Social Security is broken and must end. But giving these folks some sense of security isn't going to happen. A fearful populace is easier to lead around by the nose.

The point of this little article is get to some version of truth of the matter (and offer a little opinion along the way - it is a blog, after all, not a newspaper.). The truth as best I can determine is that (a) Mr. Trump has escalated an already-existing issue to prove some point or to get something, or to rile up his base because it makes them happy to see others suffer or for other unknown reasons, (b) some of his administration believe we are a country ruled by the Bible and not the U.S. Constitution and law, which somehow justifies doing things that Jesus Christ himself would abhor, and (c) for me personally I find the separation of immigrant families an abhorrent abuse of power but, having not taken notice of it in the past, I really have no standing to raise my fist about it. I can say I don't like it but I also have to acknowledge that ultimately, this is merely a reflection of who we are.

I also don't like the changes to other immigration programs, the one that means children of illegal immigrants can be sent to countries they've never seen, and I don't like the fact that such enforcement has increased exponentially since Mr. Trump came into power. As The Guardian puts it:

When it comes to the undocumented population living in the US, in the administration’s eyes, there appears no longer to be any distinction between violent criminals and people who have been living quietly without legal status for decades.

 

From October 2016 to September 2017, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) said, it had apprehended nearly 38,000 individuals who had no criminal convictions – a 146% increase from the previous year.

I freely admit that I dislike the current administration and its policies. I do not like Mr. Trump as a person, and I do not like the people he surrounds himself with. I am not defending him here, (though I am afraid it might sound like it) but I am trying to understand a difficult subject with some objectivity.

The fact is, Americans are not nice people. We never have been. We like power, we despise change, and we all want to be rich. Not a bit of that is good. None of it is Christian. It may be a stereotype, and I know there are many exceptions, but the exceptions are not the rule.

Our current leader and his policies are a reflection of that.


Recommended reading:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/19/families-border-separations-trump-immigration-policy

http://www.aila.org/infonet/flores-v-reno-settlement-agreement

https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/McCament%20Testimony.pdf

https://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/immigrants/flores_v_meese_agreement.pdf

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/18/us/politics/trump-immigration-germany-merkel.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/06/trump-doubles-anger-grows-child-separation-policy-180619075717557.html

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/06/19/sessions-rebukes-critics-who-compare-border-situation-to-nazi-germany-fundamentally-were-enforcing-law.html

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/family-separation-trump-republicans_us_5b28499be4b0f0b9e9a421f1