We begin today’s roundup with Paul Waldman at The Washington Post and his piece on the administration’s choice to separate children from their parents at the border:
Amid growing outrage over the Trump administration’s policy of separating children from their parents when families arrive at the border, many are asking how the administration can be so cruel as to literally tear children from their mothers’ arms. There’s a clear answer, one that runs through all of the administration’s policies on immigration:
The cruelty is the whole point.
It’s both a reflection of President Trump’s beliefs and those of his key advisers on immigration, and a practical tool they are using to reduce the number of immigrants coming to the United States. There won’t be a more humane set of policies coming out of this administration, because they have no interest in being humane.
Ali Noorani at The Daily Beast explains that not only does the policy not work as a deterrent, it’s cruel and immoral as well:
This is Trump’s mean-spirited attempt to deter immigration and send a cruel message that those fleeing violence and trying to seek asylum will have their children held hostage.
The practice harms children. It does not actually work as a deterrent. And it’s an affront to a core American value: keeping children with their parents.
As Americans across the political spectrum learn about Trump’s policy, the shock settles in.
There’s some confusion on the policy, so make sure to read this piece by Amy Wang, who breaks down the facts:
For months, stories have abounded of families separated by immigration authorities at the border: Three children were separated from their mother as they fled a gang in El Salvador; a 7-year-old was taken from her Congolese mother who was seeking asylum; and so on, in reportedly hundreds of cases. In almost every case, the families have described heart-wrenching goodbyes and agonizing uncertainty about whether they would be reunited.
According to the Florence Project, an Arizona nonprofit organization that provides legal and social services to detained immigrants, there have been more than 200 cases of parents being separated from their children since the beginning of the year in the state alone.
Beny Sarlin at NBC explains how Trump is blaming Democrats for his administration’s cruelty (of course he is):
President Donald Trump's administration is implementing a new policy that will separate more children from their parents at the border, despite the president falsely blaming Democrats and an unspecified "horrible law" for their decision. [...] The Associated Press noted in a fact check that the administration had previously criticized a 2008 law requiring children traveling alone at the border to be released in the "least restrictive setting" while their cases are processed. But the law does not proscribe removing children from parents and it was signed by President George W. Bush with unanimous support in Congress as part of an effort to combat human trafficking.
On a final note, Catherine Rampell explains that cruelty is the entire point of this Republican policy:
For decades, Republicans have championed traditional family values and having parents, rather than the state, take responsibility for their children.
This Republican administration’s inhumane treatment of helpless children — who are ripped from their mothers’ arms, detained in human warehouses and drop-kicked into “foster care or whatever” — reveals such rhetoric to have been a scam.
The Trump administration’s goal is to inflict pain upon these families. Cruelty is not an unfortunate, unintended consequence of White House immigration policy; it is the objective.
After all, if forced separations are sufficiently agonizing, fewer families will try to come here, no matter how dangerous their home countries are. Administration members have argued as much.