At her Monday press appearance, it appeared that Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen was deeply wounded by the idea she would separate families and insist on infants being torn screaming from their mother’s arms. Nielsen claimed that the Trump-instituted policy was never intended as a deterrence, and just being asked that question was something that she found “offensive.”
That was Monday. But on Tuesday, as TPM reports, the idea of using kids as hostages to Trump White House demands wasn’t just acceptable, but a point of twisted pride.
HHS spokesman Steve Wagner: We expect that the new policy will result in a deterrence effect and we certainly hope parents stop bringing kids on this dangerous journey.
And actually, there was a very good reason why the idea was presented to Nielsen on Monday, even if she acted as if she’d never encountered that particular dead rat of an idea before. As John Kelly explained to NPR a month ago ...
John Kelly: But a big name of the game is deterrence. If your…
Reporter: And so family separation stands as a pretty tough deterrent.
Kelly: Could be a tough deterrent, would be a tough deterrent, a much faster turnaround on asylum-seekers.
Deterrence has always been part of the plan. Kelly said it before, Wagner said it today, and no matter how “offended” Nielsen claimed to be, it was equally true on Monday. The policy advocated by Donald Trump, Stephen Miller and John Kelly, the policy carried out by Kirstjen Nielsen, is to frighten immigrants badly enough to convince them it would be better to stay in life-threatening situations than to face the brutal certainty that the United States government would rip their children away to … wherever Nielsen is hiding the girls and infants. And that’s the less cynical way of viewing this policy. Because the more obvious take is that kids are being held to squeeze Congress into giving Donald Trump a “win” on immigration policy. Either way, other term for this policy is “state sponsored terrorism.” And the other word for those children is “hostages.”