In the Trump era, cruelty knows no bounds. As if tearing families apart along our Southern border and perhaps permanently displacing children, all for the crime of seeking a better life in the United States weren’t enough, the Trump administration has found a way to make the situation even worse. Not only are they not reuniting young immigrant children and infants with their parents, they are ramping up for even more long-term incarceration for these families. Adults and children alike are being held in prison-like facilities, facilities that are expensive to operate. So, how does the Trump administration intend to pay for these expanding detention facilities? By taking funds from a program that provides care to low-income HIV/AIDS patients in the United States. From Slate:
To help cover these potential costs, the documents say, HHS will seek supplemental appropriations from Congress. The documents also indicate that HHS plans to pay for child separation by reallocating money from the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, which, according to its website, “provides a comprehensive system of care that includes primary medical care and essential support services for people living with HIV who are uninsured or underinsured.” Per the documents, the process of transferring those HIV/AIDS funds has already begun.
In addition, HHS plans to reallocate $79 million from programs for refugee resettlement, a move that could imperil social services, medical assistance, and English language instructions for refugees in the U.S., as well as programs for torture survivors.
It’s layers of cruelty upon layers of cruelty. Harming low-income U.S. residents in need of critical healthcare services, taking funds from programs that help immigrants recover from unspeakable violence and torture in their home country, taking funds meant to help families fleeing from violence resettle in the United States. Those who stand to suffer the most from these actions are people of color and this budget allocation is just one more way that white supremacist ideas are becoming white supremacy policy in the America. In 2018. White supremacy policies created by a largely all white administration, overseen by a largely all white, all male in the United States Congress, backed up by a nearly all white Supreme Court. As political scientist Norman Ornstein noted on Twitter, this problem is only getting worse, not better.
It’s time to take back Congress this fall and start to beat back these viciously cruel policies.