“That’s no different than what we do every day in every part of the United States when an adult of a family commits a crime,” Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen told NPR this month. “If you as a parent break into a house, you will be incarcerated by police and thereby separated from your family.”
Trump Wasn’t First to Separate Families, but Policy Was Still Evil
President Trump finally caved to public pressure and promised to stop separating children from parents at the border. After long insisting that he couldn’t do anything about this, he snapped his fingers and changed the policy that he had denied was a policy.
.. Yet the next steps remain unclear and of uncertain legality. Will there be internment camps? This hazy juncture is a useful opportunity to draw lessons.
.. Yet the next steps remain unclear and of uncertain legality. Will there be internment camps? This hazy juncture is a useful opportunity to draw lessons.
.. “My brothers and sisters were bid off first, and one by one, while my mother, paralyzed by grief, held me by the hand. Her turn came, and she was bought by Isaac Riley of Montgomery County.
.. “She fell at his feet and clung to his knees, entreating him in tones that a mother only could command to buy her baby as well as herself. … I must have been then between 5 and 6 years old. I seem to see and hear my poor weeping mother now.”
.. — Josiah Henson, a slave in Maryland, in his account of his life from 1858
.. “The Negroes at home are quite disconsolate but this will soon blow over. They may see their children again in time.”
.. My mother then turned to [her owner] and cried, ‘Oh, master, do not take me from my child!’ Without making any reply, he gave her two or three heavy blows on the shoulders with his raw hide, snatched me from her arms, handed me to my master, and seizing her by one arm, dragged her back. … The cries of my poor parent became more and more indistinct. … The horrors of that day sank deeply into my heart.”
— Charles Ball, whose 1837 autobiography of a life in slavery included this discussion of his separation from his mother at the age of 4
.. My mother then turned to [her owner] and cried, ‘Oh, master, do not take me from my child!’ Without making any reply, he gave her two or three heavy blows on the shoulders with his raw hide, snatched me from her arms, handed me to my master, and seizing her by one arm, dragged her back. … The cries of my poor parent became more and more indistinct. … The horrors of that day sank deeply into my heart.”
— Charles Ball, whose 1837 autobiography of a life in slavery included this discussion of his separation from his mother at the age of 4
.. “‘I’m going to take your child to get bathed.’ That’s one we see again and again. … The child goes off, and in a half an hour, 20 minutes, the parent inquires, ‘Where is my 5-year-old?’ … And they say, “You won’t be seeing your child again.’”
— Anne Chandler, Tahirih Justice Center, in Texas Monthly last week
.. “The children will be taken care of — put into foster care or whatever.”
— White House Chief of Staff John Kelly last month
.. “Womp womp.”
— Corey Lewandowski, a Trump surrogate, mocking family separations on Tuesday
.. “We have an orchestra here.”
— A Border Patrol agent joking last week as children cried inconsolably after being taken from their parents.
.. So, Mr. President, you’re right that you didn’t start family separation. Today’s practice is not the same as slavery or Nazism, but it still fits neatly into the annals of barbarism.