By editorial board • 

Immigration policy tearing families apart simply evil

A government immigration policy calling for forcible and deliberate separation of children from their parents is shockingly callous.

The practice goes beyond being un-American. It goes beyond violating the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. It goes beyond sound immigration policy. We call it monstrous.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Monday all undocumented immigrants at the Southern border would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, regardless of their ages or circumstances. What’s more, children would be forcibly removed from their parents as a matter of official policy.

Bear in mind that many, if not most, of these people are desperately poor. They cross the border with no motive more sinister than trying to feed their families.
Sessions said children are routinely removed from parents arrested on criminal charges.

That statement, like so many coming from this administration, is hogwash.

Families are separated when children are deemed at risk or their parents are incarcerated, rendering them incapable of providing continuous supervision. There is no legitimate reason to rip apart all undocumented families by policy. The intent is simply to inflict as much brutality as possible on the parents, satisfying our xenophobic hostilities on innocent children in the process.

And that is pure evil.

Local organizations like Unidos Bridging Community and Lutheran Community Services need our support in such troubled times. They are fighting to restore sanity and compassion to federal immigration policy, but their voices are too often drowned out by a rising chorus of hate and hostility.

President Trump claims harsh border security is essential to our survival as a country. If border security and national survival mean tearing families apart and victimizing children, America will fail to exist as we have known it.

A country isn’t defined by its borders. It’s defined by what it stands for, particularly when standing for something is the most difficult.

Comments

E.J. Farrar

Thank you for saying this. I'm sure you will take a lot of heat for it, but it had to be said.

T.W.S.

America cannot help the poor and downtrodden of the world if it cannot even help herself and its own citizens and legal residents. There are more Veterans falling through the medical cracks, homeless and committing suicide at a rate of more than 20 a day; children lost within the child social services and foster system, thousands homeless or living in such poverty that they barely have clothes to cover their bodies and keep warm when it is cold, enough food in their bellies; minorities not getting the assistance they need...I can go on and on and on about how America is not helping her own FIRST, yet liberals like you want to let more public charges into this country only to add to that already existing burden with more care and concern than you do for your own fellow American citizens/legal residents.

The choices these people are making to leave their own country, holding their country's respective flag demonstrating their allegiance to their homeland is self-evident empirical evidence that they have no desire/wish to respect America's sovereignty, her laws, her citizens, and no interest to assimilate. This is further proven by the millions that have already come before them.

Enforcing America's immigration policies is neither xenophobic or hostile or evil. It is about protecting America's citizens from those who have no right, no business and legitimate bonafide interest to come here to merely become a public charge. More than that, we have a right to know who is coming into our country and why.

We don't lock our doors to our house because we hate those outside, we do it to protect those inside. Same applies to the borders of America, the front door to our home.

T.W.S.

1. The illegal immigrants SES factors are not our problem or our fault.
2. The illegal immigrants country's conditions are not our problem or our fault.
3. The illegal immigrants putting their children in harms way trekking across hundreds of miles of treacherous lands is not our problem or fault.



We owe them nothing.

If they want to come here, then they need to do so legally...even if that means one parent sacrifices solitude by applying to come here legally first, become a permanent legal resident then sponsors the rest of their family to come here, legally. Doing it this way is safer than wantonly placing their children in harms way making that journey, which in and of itself is child endangerment, and under our laws that is a crime. So not only are they attempting to illegally enter our country, they are also committing another crime by knowingly endanger their children. That is their choice and not our problem when our immigration policies are enforced to protect the children and safely deport them back to wherever they came from.

Joel2828

While I think this editorial has some merit, the hyperbolic, emotionally laden language sprinkled throughout it (monstorous, pure evil, tearing apart, shockingly callous, desperately poor, etc. etc.) diminishes its credibility.
Immigration is a complex and difficult subject with people of good will on both sides of the debate. A more thoughtful and balanced approach could make the same points and be more persuasive.

country97

Joel2828 Thank you for pointing this out. I guess the editorial board does not feel the comment "their voices are too often drowned out by a rising chorus of hate and hostility." do not apply to them.

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