No doubt there are very few foreigners who have a favorable opinion of the criminal occupying the Oval Office, and it is fairly safe to say entire nations see Trump as a global detriment. It is difficult to imagine how foreign peoples and nations regard the danger he poses to the people in America. However, the global family of nations, the United Nations, just released a rash of seriously harsh criticism specifically targeting Trump for his human rights abuses against the poor, families and children; specifically immigrant children. It is a sad state of affairs for America, and if Republicans who claim to exist for “the family” had a modicum of conscience or morality, they would crawl under the nearest rock in shame or throw the bum in the Oval out of office. But since they lack any sense of conscience, or an ounce of humanity, they likely disregard global criticism against their disgusting “feed the rich” agenda or their disgusting standard bearer Trump.
The latest United Nations round of condemnations against America for human rights abuses is not the first, and no doubt there will be many more with Trump and Republicans, including their “family values” religious right cohort, running the government and no small number of states. In the recent past the United Nation Council on Human Rights has lambasted America for criminalizing poverty, homelessness, and peaceful protests, failing to provide clean water, attacking the media, and doing nothing to halt law enforcement abuses based on racial animus. The latest condemnations, yes, there are two separate instances, specifically target Trump over his blatant disregard for the welfare of children, families and his tax reform favoring the filthy rich and corporations at the expense of the poor.
One of the U.N.’s condemnations was fully expected after the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty said he was “appalled at the conditions” Americans were living in; especially in the richest nation on the planet. He said at the time that, “There is a human right for people to live decently, and that means the government has an obligation to provide people with the essentials of life." That comment came after the U.N.’s tour of America’s rural South where said “he had never seen sewage problems like it in the developed world.” That was in December, 2017. Now Philip Aston, who visited slums around the globe is laying the blame at Trump’s feet with particular attention to his hateful agenda and devotion to the filthy rich and corporations. Mr. Aston said,
“The policies pursued over the past year seem deliberately designed to remove basic protections from the poorest, punish those who are not in employment and make even basic health care into a privilege to be earned, rather than a right of citizenship. The government should think harder about how to help those in need rather than punishing the poor."
Aston also was not spare in his condemnation of Trump’s tax reform that he rightly noted was created specifically to provide "financial windfalls to the rich and large corporations, and lead to even more inequality and poverty.”
The second U.N. condemnation against Trump was included in a press briefing criticizing Egypt and America’s human rights violations. The United Nations had nothing good to say about Trump’s abuse of immigrant children or his apparent glee at tearing immigrant families apart.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ravina Shamdasani, wrote that the global Human Rights watchdog is:
“Deeply concerned that the zero tolerance policy recently put in place along the US southern border has led to people being subjected to criminal prosecution and having their children – including extremely young children - taken away from them as a result.
The practice of separating families amounts to arbitrary and unlawful interference in family life, and is a serious violation of the rights of the child. While the rights of children are generally held in high regard in the US, it is the only country in the world not to have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. We encourage it to accede to the Convention and to fully respect the rights of all children.”
The use of immigration detention and family separation as a deterrent runs counter to human rights standards and principles. The child’s best interest should always come first, including over migration management objectives or other administrative concerns. It is therefore of great concern that in the US migration control appears to have been prioritised over the effective care and protection of migrant children.
Children should never be detained for reasons related to their own or their parents’ migration status. Detention is never in the best interests of the child and always constitutes a child rights violation.”(author bold)
What Ms. Shamdasani did not mention was that Trump recently claimed openly that immigrant children, “including extremely young children,” have no rights because “they are not innocent;” they are future criminals. And Trump made those comments the same day his beloved Border Patrol was accused of sexually and physically abusing child detainees. To make matters worse, last week Trump “quietly” cut legal aid for migrant children separated from their parents and families. That includes families and children legally living in the United States that are being torn apart by deportation proceedings with no legal representation.
Trump has no regard whatsoever for children despite his claim that he was driven to launch a rash of missiles at an abandoned Russian airfield in Syria “because of the children.” Trump does not care about children, whether they are American citizens, documented immigrants, or refugees seeking relief from abuses in the countries they fled. It is an abomination that many of those fleeing human rights abuses, including very young children, are facing abuses in America because there is an abusive tyrant in the White House; something the United Nations Human Rights Commission condemned harshly.
Americans who aren’t humiliated by yet another condemnation by the global human rights watchdog are either vicious Trump supporters or inhumane Republicans; the only people supporting human rights abuses by government fiat under direction from that barbaric racist Trump.