Trump’s Child Separation Policy Does Exactly That, with Considerable Cruelty
On This Day In 2020
We talked a few days ago about Donald Trump’s barbaric “Zero Tolerance” policy of “child separation.” OTDI 2020, CNN reported on some newly-learned info about the scheme.
Turns out that Trump began testing the child separation concept, via a “pilot program” within weeks of his “American Carnage” inauguration. Under Trump’s new rule, even infants were separated from their parents; in one publicized case, the baby had been ripped out of the mother’s arms literally while breastfeeding.
After some evaluation of the pilot program, it was recommended that, going forward, the policy of taking the children from their parents should apply only to kids 12 and older. (As if it’s perfectly okay to “kidnap” a 13-year old but not an 11-year old). That comparatively-humane recommendation, however, was never adopted. And as the number of separated kids mushroomed into the thousands, the United States government continued to take away children even below the age of 5.
And where were these kids taken? SPLC cited the NYT in noting "that 'there is a stench' where detained migrant children are held in a Texas CBP facility. The children have not been able to bathe since crossing the border, and their clothes are soiled with snot and tears. Moreover, the children do not have access to soap, toothbrushes or toothpaste. A reporter described the facility’s conditions as 'a chaotic scene of sickness and filth.'”
This ProPublica recording captured audio of children sobbing and calling for their parents inside one such facility. It went viral, helping to stoke public outrage and eventually getting them to promise to end the program. That's a promise, of course, they broke.
At one point, lawyers appointed by a federal judge tried to reunite children with their parents. But, they were largely unable to do so...because it turned out the Trump Administration hadn't bothered to keep records of which child belonged to which parent. They also discovered that more than 1,000 parents separated from their children even under that initial “pilot program” had already been deported, forced to leave their children behind.
By the way, how did this “zero tolerance” policy come about? It was pushed by many of the very top people in the Justice Dept, including the accused racist and “mentally retarded” Attorney General Jeff Sessions. "We need to take children away," he said.
And then in typical sloppy Trumpian fashion, the whole thing was approved to be implemented …by a quick show of hands led by senior advisor Stephen Miller. Therefore, the impacts reverberated throughout law enforcement. As the NYT noted: "The failure to inform the U.S. Marshals Service before announcing the zero-tolerance policy led to serious overcrowding and budget overruns. The marshals were forced to cut back on serving warrants in other cases, saying that 'when you take away manpower, you can’t make a safe arrest.'"
The New York Times has the story and the Sessions quote
NBC News provided further info about the efforts to reunite
CNN detailed the plan's origins
ProPublica made the recording
The Southern Poverty Law Center has the timeline of Trump’s policies
MSNBC’s Katy Tur has the show of hands