It is fathers day today. And I thought I’d write a bit about something that is really bothering me.
I’ve come to terms with a lot of what is going on in the US federal government and our political system. I see it as a natural swinging of the pendulum. Many on the right think we went too far left under Obama. Many on the left think we have gone too far right under Trump. In time, Trump will be history and we will undo all of this nonsense he is putting in place. So is the way of politics and government and every time something happens in DC that bugs me, I think “this too shall pass.”
But, this policy of separating children from their parents at the border really bugs me. The NY Times has a good report up on their homepage right now about how we got to this place.
The Federal Government has been debating this issue of separating children from their parents at the border as a deterrent for more than a decade. From that Times piece:
Yet for George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the idea of crying children torn from their parents’ arms was simply too inhumane — and too politically perilous — to embrace as policy, and Mr. Trump, though he had made an immigration crackdown one of the central issues of his campaign, succumbed to the same reality, publicly dropping the idea after Mr. Kelly’s comments touched off a swift backlash.
I understand the need and the desire to protect our borders and enforce our immigration system, even though I believe we are being way too restrictive in terms of who we let into our country right now. But the law is the law and until we have a new law, we need to enforce the existing law. I get that.
But the children are not the ones making the decisions to violate the laws. And yet they are being punished just as much, possibly even more so, than their parents.
Kelly says “The children will be taken care of — put into foster care or whatever” as if it is no big deal to forcibly separate a child from his or her parents.
It is a big deal, a traumatic event with long-term implications for that child.
Many of us in this community are parents who have cared for and nurtured our children, loved them, supported them, and made them feel safe. We know what that bond is between parent and child, and we know that ripping it apart is an awful horrible thing to do and that we should not be doing it.
On this Fathers Day, let us all say to our government “no more.” We must end this immoral and unjustifiable policy and we must end it now. Ideally today. There is no better day, other than Mothers Day, to do that.
