We begin with The New York Times:
The president’s preferred bill is a hard-line plan fathered by Representative Bob Goodlatte, the Virginia Republican and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. That bill would, among other steps, tighten asylum standards, slash legal immigration by 25 percent by ending both the diversity visa lottery and doing away with most family-based immigration, and consign Dreamers to permanent limbo by requiring them to re-up their status every three years. And, of course, the bill would fund The Wall. It all fits nicely with Mr. Trump’s tendency to talk about immigrants as though every one of them is an aspiring MS-13 foot soldier. [...]
Maintaining checks and balances can be tricky with any president, but that’s especially true when a commander in chief has authoritarian impulses. As made evident by his slavering over such brutal autocrats as Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, Mr. Trump believes that effective leadership is all about crushing anyone who stands in your way, collateral damage be damned. If lawmakers aren’t willing to stand up to him in a case where justice and public sentiment are so clearly on their side, they might as well hand him the keys to the Capitol right now.
The Tamba Bay Times:
Innocent children should not be used as political pawns. That is exactly what the Trump administration is doing by cruelly prying young children away from their parents as these desperate families cross the Mexican border in search of a safer, better life in America. The pictures are heartbreaking, and this cruel policy is another stain on a nation that once stood as a beacon for basic decency and human rights.
The St. Louis Post Dispatch:
Harsh is too generous a word to describe President Donald Trump’s family separation policy. Try abominable. Horrific. Monstrous. The practice more closely resembles actions by Nazi storm troopers or Islamic State fanatics than a modern developed nation that not long ago was a worldwide beacon for human rights. Trump has dragged America to a shameful new low.
The Times-Union:
The ease with which President Donald Trump and those around him stand squarely on both sides of the fence has perhaps never been more shamelessly, and shamefully, on display than in their defense of this abhorrent practice. Yet through all the religious and political fog, the administration cannot deny what the vast majority of Americans see so clearly: that the president's latest strategy is nothing but a despicable attempt to get his way on immigration by literally taking hostages — children, no less.
The Roanoke Times:
This raises an obvious question: Is our government treating these children like animals? The agency says no, and technically it’s right. The children are being treated worse than animals.
- The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that the children in the former Walmart in Brownsville are allowed outside for two hours a day — one hour for physical exercise, one hour for free time.
At the Roanoke Valley SPCA, each dog is taken out “a minimum of three times a day for a walk.” [...] So, yes, some of the dogs in our animal shelters get more outdoor exercise than these children incarcerated by the federal government.
- Colleen Kraft, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, visited one detention facility and said she was told that staffers were not allowed to touch the children, even to comfort them. [...]
By contrast, animals held at shelters routinely get petted as part of their socialization.
The Dallas Morning News:
What is happening on our southern border today, however, is something different than drawing a hard line at the border's edge. The government of the United States, under the Trump administration, has instituted a "zero-tolerance" policy that is forcing a fundamental question to the forefront of our national debate: Who are we as a people, and who do we want to be?
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram:
We repeat what we've said: Separating immigrant children from their parents is inhumane and should end. The American Psychological Association calls the policy “needless and cruel,” and said the longer the children and parents are separated the more likely it is the children will develop “psychological distress, academic difficulties and disruptions in their development.”
Our chief deal-maker, the President, is shamefully using children as a bargaining chip as he attempts to strong-arm Congress into delivering on his immigration priorities - a border wall and further restrictions on who can enter the United States legally.
When Republicans control the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives and the White House they get to take the blame or the credit for the immigration policies being enforced.
They own this issue. The Republicans in Texas who control all branches of government here also own it if they don’t openly object and advocate for better solutions.
We were hoping to hear our state’s Republican leaders reject the practice and promote other means of securing our borders. Are they unable to come up with better solutions? Are they afraid of disagreeing with the President and facing the wrath of his vengeful tweets?
Jack Holmes went inside one of the detention facilities and says the worst is yet to come:
[W}hen you see the inside of the facility, and combine it with what we know is happening here and elsewhere along the United States southern border, the lingering sense is that we are on the brink of a humanitarian disaster. And this is before we’ve built any tent city.
Here’s John Cassidy’s take:
Trump is set to meet with senior Republicans on Tuesday to discuss immigration. If there were any decency and courage left in the upper echelons of the G.O.P., the President would be forced to make a U-turn. Right now, though, there is only Laura Bush—and the New York Post, Trump’s favorite newspaper. The Post usually supports Republican policies, but on Sunday it ran an editorial titled “Stop Breaking Up Families at the Border.” In the piece, the Rupert Murdoch-owned paper curtly dismissed Trump’s effort to pin the blame on Democrats: “The immediate cause of the crisis is Team Trump’s decision to start prosecuting illegal border-crossers, rather than simply deporting them. Because the law severely limits how long the feds can detain the children, immigration officials on the ground then have no choice but to break up the families.”
On a final note, don’t miss Jill Lawrence’s thought experiment over at USA Today on what these last weeks would had looked like if Clinton was doing what Trump was doing:
By week’s end, Clinton’s massive success could be judged by the level of apoplexy she had triggered among Republicans. Starting a trade war? Check. Adopting North Korea's language (“provocative” and “war games”) for U.S. defense exercises with South Korea? Check. Glowing film on North Korea produced by the U.S. government? Check. Effusive praise of Kim (tough guy, great personality, very smart)? Check.