Crimes Against Humanity in Real Time? Is this what is occurring, in slow motion, at the United States’ Southern Border?
I know, sounds like something an alarmist might say, to shake up the room, so to speak. But I’m wondering. And I’m upset. I don’t know if this diary is all rant, half-rant, or just plain old garden-variety hyperbole, but I do know I mean what I've said from my heart. Perhaps I am being alarmist, but the first question is one of several I’ve asking myself a lot, these last two weeks. And I don’t yet have an answer that satisfies, and until I do, I can’t rest — can’t stop pushing, can’t stop wondering.
So today, I wanted to explore Southern Border policy and decided to write my Congressional delegation again today, after contacting them to post links to the New Yorker Article on the conditions at the Clint, Texas secret child detention facility concentration camp for kids. There are already several good diaries on this, written by elenacarlena, and two by Gabe Ortiz (newest one; 2nd one here), for example. This diary grew out of a discussion on one written by NP40.
While mulling over what I’ve been reading and hearing, I decided to contact my Senators and my House rep, republicans all, and link the New Yorker article featuring observations by Warren Binford, a lawyer who got into Clint, TX and sounded the alarm. Then I sat this morning to write a LONG letter to collect my thoughts and articulate my feelings about what we are doing to men, women and children at the border. I concentrated on the kids, and thought long and hard about what those detention centers REALLY ARE. I’ve now sent it to all of my congressional delegation, and posting in its entirety, below. I have asked for responses from them all, because I sincerely want to know what their thinking is, as I have shared mine.
I approached letters to all of them in the manner that I think they can best relate to: through the Bible. What I wrote is much too long given their attention span, but I felt every word had to be said. I chose the bible, because they are, one and all, fundamentalist Republican Christians. In that order. And I am not. I was once what I considered a liberal mainstream Christian and an old- school liberal and progressive democrat; I am no longer any kind of Christian.
I am no longer religious. The rank hypocrisy I noticed, years ago, in church members who wholeheartedly support unchristian treatment of people around them if they didn’t belong to “our” church, and even towards some members in that church, coupled with a pastor who preached inhumanity while quoting bible verses unless we were paid up on tithing (at the time), who had no f**ks to give unless person X was their kind of Christian who’d drunk the Koolaid and joined the right ‘church tribe’ began to choke me to death.
Me? I need to breathe. I need fresh air, sun, rain, fair wind or foul. I need to meet people as they are, and as I am, on level ground. I need to be able to sleep with my conscience clear, knowing I have done my best, and tried to live up to the principles I subscribe to. Trying to sit in communion with people who don’t ‘walk their talk’, makes me want to vomit. And I thought about that, a lot. Because there are people on our Southern border, who, through no fault of their own, are being sorted, categorized, caged, and brutalized, because they aren’t someone’s “kind” of people and had the temerity to come to us for help. And they cannot breathe. They have no fresh air. Or sun. They can’t go out to feel the rain or stand in fair or foul wind. They are in cages. They are cold, sick, helpless. and their children are being treated worse than rats.
I retain a skill from my church-going days: I can still quote bible verses with the best of them, and construct arguments based on some of it: so I gave it a shot. What I wrote is too long, but I hope I can get through to someone, anyone.
I’m sharing my letter with the community because I feel the need, so here goes. My letter: there’s a lot below the fold. Get a cuppa and take your time reading. I’ll be in and out tonight; I’m very upset so am indulging in some self-care — I’m playing blocks with my great niece.
Dear Senator I/Senator II/Representative:
I am contacting you in regards to my horror at hearing of the latest of the many, many human rights violations being committed at the southern border in the name of American Border Security: specifically (this time), the atrocious conditions children are being kept in at the Clint, TX facility, and likely, also, at other facilities we don't yet know about.
Why are we, a supposedly democratic nation of immigrants, building installations that are, by EVERY DEFINITION, concentration camps, and throwing children into them?
Why are we torturing and neglecting them, causing some to die, then blaming the parents for our abuse and neglect?
And before you try to start lecturing me about describing CBP facilities as concentration camps, let’s discuss what a concentration camp IS and IS NOT. HERE ARE DEFINITIONS OF the phrase, "CONCENTRATION CAMP", all from a number of RELIABLE sources and an alleged unreliable one:
- AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY (2018):
"[A] camp where persons are confined, usually without hearings and typically under harsh conditions, often as a result of their membership in a group the government has identified as suspect."
"A guarded compound for the detention or imprisonment of aliens, members of ethnic minorities, political opponents, etc., especially any of the camps established by the Nazis prior to and during World War II for the confinement and persecution of prisoners."
- MERRIAM-WEBSTER DICTIONARY (1968):
"[A] place where large numbers of people (such as prisoners of war, political prisoners, refugees, or the members of an ethnic or religious minority) are detained or confined under armed guard."
- ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA ONLINE (2019):
Concentration Camp Article: "Internment centre for political prisoners and members of national or minority groups who are confined for reasons of state security, exploitation, or punishment, usually by executive decree or military order."
- UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM, HOLOCAUST DICTIONARY (2019):
"The term concentration camp refers to a camp in which people are detained or confined, usually under harsh conditions and without regard to legal norms of arrest and imprisonment that are acceptable in a constitutional democracy."
"Concentration Camp" (redirects to Internment): "Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges, and thus no trial." ... Thus, while it can simply mean imprisonment, it tends to refer to preventive confinement, rather than confinement after having been convicted of some crime. ... "Interned persons may be held in prisons or in facilities known as internment camps, also known as concentration camps. This involves internment generally, as distinct from the subset, extermination camps, popularly referred to as death camps." ... "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights restricts the use of internment. Article 9 states that "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile."
I want to know how you, as a professed Christian, can condone treating someone else's INNOCENT children with callousness and cruelty, far worse than we would treat any wild beast?
And we do it, JUST BECAUSE WE CAN. WHY?? Tell me, please. I really need to know why you and your colleagues believe this is ok.
Senator, I know you know that we JAIL people for doing terrible things to a dog or cat – starving them, caging them in unsanitary conditions, refusing to keep them clean, warm, safe, refusing to give them exercise and clean air to breathe, bedding them down on concrete or the ground – you know, the things that our government is doing to children that we TOOK AWAY FROM THEIR FAMILIES. That we are still taking, in violation of a number of laws.
And now, there is this latest report: this NEW YORKER article. It’s the latest of many, all telling similar stories that make the American Government out to be monsters, and credibly so.
Most of these children were NOT unaccompanied minors until Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) snatched them. Most of these children, if not all, were thriving and healthy BEFORE CBP took them. Most came in the company of family members, and yet, we are STILL SNATCHING them away from their families and refusing to give them back, using spurious excuses. We did not need to do this to begin with, and don’t need to now.
So why? I want to know, why is that is still happening? I want to know why my government refuses to treat these children like human beings.
I want to know why these children are not being released WITH those family members, or cared for properly, until they are, instead of housed and treated like vermin on the taxpayer dime @ $750 a day per child?
I want to know what that $750 a day per child is really being spent on. Do you know?
Would you tell me, and the people who voted for you what that money is being spent on and who it is being given to? We would like to know.
I want to know what you, personally, plan to do about THIS – what are you, personally, going to do to stop this abuse of children, return them to their families, and close the concentration camps?
I want to know what, exactly, do you plan to do to force your Senate Majority leader stop his wholesale obstruction of everything, stop collecting legislation on his desk and refuse to allow it to come to a vote, and allow the nation’s work to go forward, from both Congressional bodies, to ameliorate these conditions?
Let me remind you of some relevant Bible passages: let’s start with Matthew 18:1-6 and Matthew: 18:10-14. Also, let me remind you of the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25: 31-46). ESPECIALLY THE PASSAGES IN MATTHEW 25:34-36.
Perhaps you may need to refresh your knowledge of these passages, and read them to your colleagues? I’m certain a devout Christian, like you, has a Bible on him somewhere, and can look these passages up to refresh your memory as to EXACTLY what Jesus said. And please mention them to your fellow members, because some of your oh-so-righteous colleagues look and act like they desperately need to get on their knees and pray to God for forgiveness for the sins being committed against these defenseless children, to which many have been enthusiastic party and accomplice to.
Your republican colleagues who refuse to act or talk with the Democrats are no better than the goats that Jesus described in Matthew 25, as long as any of you, Republican or Democrat, stand by and allow these atrocities to continue to be perpetrated against men, women, and children who are coming here for help.
You are no better than goats as long as you do not MAKE CBP and ICE adhere to the law and treat the people in their custody humanely, respecting their inherent dignity.
You are goats as long as you make terrorizing children and their helpless parents, seeking out help, a profit-making enterprise for the donor class to invest in.
You are goats as long as you allow the administration to use cruelty and inhumane treatment against defenseless people, and especially against children, to punish THEM for the administration's sins and failures.
You are goats as long as you allow the administration to blame its bad acts on earlier administrations and officials, who dealt much more admirably with their challenges than this one, even if not well.
Yes, they made mistakes, but they neither hurt nor killed anyone deliberately (or at all), ESPECIALLY they did not target someone’s children to hurt or kill, just to make a point. This administration does this, with your compliance and that of your GOP colleagues, and claims it’s not their fault they kill through neglect and cruelty.
Why are you letting it happen?
Our current immigration crisis is entirely of our own making - a self-inflicted wound. Scapegoating defenseless people and LYING ABOUT WHO AND WHAT THEY ARE, TO JUSTIFY INHUMANE, CRUEL TREATMENT of them and of their children that we have taken hostage, all to wound their parents, to try to force them to choose between that and certain death, is unworthy of us.
It is reprehensible, it is unchristian, it is criminal.
THESE are the textbook and legal definitions of CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY.
- (MERRIAM-WEBSTER, OXFORD DICTIONARIES):
"[An] atrocity that is directed especially against an entire population or part of a population on specious grounds, and without regard to individual guilt or responsibility even on such grounds.”
"... criminal acts that target a group of people based on their religion, ethnicity, or some other trait, which is not a direct result of something that group has done. One of the most common crimes against humanity is genocide, which is the murder of a large portion of the population."
- INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL AT NUREMBERG CHARTER (08/08/1945):
"… murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war, or prosecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in execution or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated." [emphasis mine]
No, we have not YET begun committing genocide, although people are dying as a result of what our government has done and is doing – from what you, and your colleagues, are letting them do. But, at the rate we are going, it’s just a matter of time.
Let me point out Matthew 25:34-36 to you as something you all need to pray on, long and hard. Then think, long and hard, about what is happening, because it is happening in your name, as well as Trump's, as long as you go along with it. I am writing to you about this, to let you know, you need not claim you are doing this in MY NAME or in the NAME of any of my family. We do not support this. We do not want this. I believe that we — I and mine, represent the majority: the DECENT people in this country. It is not that we do not believe there is an immigration problem, it’s that we believe we do not have to become brutal, cruel, or inhumane, to deal with it. There are other ways. What we want, is you to stop playing politics, stop the cruelty, and use those other ways.
Matt. 25:34-36: “[34] Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. [35] For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, [36] I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ " [Emphasis mine]
I do not play falsely with my vows, oaths and promises. I do not play falsely with people who have put their trust in me to do my duty, to do the moral and right thing, to the best of my ability. How about you? Can you say the same, honestly?
I once swore the same oath that many who serve the US government, military, and state governments do. It is similar to the one you swore as a member of the US Congress, and swear again, I suppose, with each successive term.
Moreover, I swore to uphold the oaths I took for a period of 50 years, thus, those oaths I swore are still in effect for some years, yet. I took them VERY SERIOUSLY then, and still do, today.
Can you say the same, in public or even in private? Please, I'd really like to know.
And if you do take those oaths seriously, I'd like to know what you are doing, personally, to uphold them. Or are you just rubber-stamping monstrous policies because it’s easy, policies put forward by people a Christian – a true Christian – would call out in public as the dishonest, irresponsible, corrupt, and monstrous people they are?
You have sworn an oath to your party and to the administration, in addition to your oath to the Constitution and the United States. Your oath to your party and the administration obviously mean more to you than your constitutional oath, as the latter is one you NEVER adhere to, and the former two you observe scrupulously, above any other allegiance. Is that really what you believe to be right and reasonable?
Does that allegiance to party supersede not only your allegiance to this country, its constitution, but also all decency, humanity, and doing right as the Bible instructs you to?
________________________
I'd say shame on you for being complicit in this crime against humanity but I’m probably wasting my breath — this deliberate cruelty, brutality, and neglect towards the children of a people the administration is happily making scapegoats of, for problems within and without our borders, mostly caused by our own people, are buying all of you political advantage you are too damned lazy to work for, honestly and forthrightly. You buy it is human blood and bone and act justified. That’s something I’m sorry for.
This administration LOVES to call some immigrants — the non-white immigrants and refugees from countries your president and too many in the GOP consider S**tholes — they are characterized as animals, bestial, an infestation - but those actions show that the only beasts, animals, infestation exist within this administration,and its actions make all of us complicit in ITS crimes, its sins, by association — an association that most people do not want and do not condone.
You, our congressmen, KNOW this is true, you know what you OUGHT to do, you know the right things to do, and yet you go along with everything this administration does, every crime it commits, and only talk against it in private. And now, live internment camps are coming to Oklahoma again.
Was what we did to Japanese immigrants and Japanese American citizens not enough for you? No?
Was the Trail of Tears or forcing Native children into government-funded “boarding schools” while their parents starved to death or died of disease and privation on government land, not heinous enough of a stain on our national honor for us to say, never again? My great-great grandmother came of age in one of those “schools” in AZ, only to be forcibly kidnapped, forced into marriage, and dragged to Arkansas — she never found the rest of her birth family, again. Would you like to hear what she said about “Government Intervention” and its impact on her life — hear about the retaliation murders she witnessed as a child, carried out on a bunch of women and children by the US army?
No, probably not. I don’t think you could bear it, since, according to the government, the Natives “deserved” what was visited on them and brought it on themselves, according to official cant, but I’d BE GLAD TO TELL YOU since knowing, you could compare her stories with the stories being told now by immigrants and their children, being brutalized in our custody.
Did what we found in the Death Camps in Nazi Germany not dampen our national appetite for cruelty? Or did it just sate it for a while, so that when this administration takes to re-creating atrocities against the defenseless, we shrug our shoulders and blame it on others and National Security?
You all have LET THIS come here and grow into a National Disgrace. It’s happening on your watch. This administration obviously has no will to show Christian kindness, charity, or humanity to the helpless and oppressed, unless they represent a certain demographic, of course. These abuses, which I consider criminal, are only a few of many under this administration that you have stood silent about and been complicit with.
WHY? Why do this, why stain your name, your character, your soul, this way?
Why do this? When the time comes that there is nothing and no one left but you and yours, and they come for yours, what will you do? Pretend they WON’T ever come for you and yours? Pretend it doesn’t matter because you’ll be dead and gone by the time it’s all over? I’d like to know.
This is a most heinous set of crimes against innocent children being committed before our eyes. There are other heinous crimes being committed against their families, but the children concern me most right now. A lot of people are not walking their talk with respect to decency, Christian charity, kindness, and Christlike behavior, but they sure as can preach what they won’t practice …
I would like to have all of my questions addressed, in detail, because what’s coming out publicly, from the administration is a big lot of nothing and lies. I look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
Tulsagal