Gratuitous cruelty by Homeland Security: Separating a 7-year-old from her mother (WP)

[dalton99a]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/gratuitous-cruelty-by-homeland-security-separating-a-7-year-old-from-her-mother/2018/03/04/98fae4f0-1bff-11e8-ae5a-16e60e4605f3_story.html
Gratuitous cruelty by Homeland Security: Separating a 7-year-old from her mother
By Editorial Board | March 4 at 7:11 PM


Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in the White House on March 1. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)

WHAT, EXACTLY, did a 7-year-old Congolese girl do to the United States to deserve the trauma that has been visited upon her — including forcible separation from her mother — by Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and her immigration agents?

There is no allegation that the little girl, known in court filings only as S.S., is a terrorist, nor is there any suggestion her mother is one. Neither was involved with smuggling, nor contraband, nor lawbreaking of any other variety. Rather, S.S.’s 39-year-old mother presented herself and her daughter to U.S. officials when they crossed the border from Mexico four months ago, explaining they had fled extreme violence in Congo, and requesting asylum.

A U.S. asylum officer interviewed Ms. L, as the mother is called in a lawsuit filed on her behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union, determined that she had a credible fear of harm if she were returned to Congo and stood a decent chance of ultimately being granted asylum. Despite that preliminary finding, officials decided that the right thing to do was to wrench S.S. from her mother, whereupon the mother “could hear her daughter in the next room frantically screaming that she wanted to remain with her mother,” the lawsuit states.

The Trump administration has said that it is considering separating parents from their children as a means of deterring other families, most of them Central American, from undertaking the perilous trip necessary to reach the United States and seek asylum. Now, without any formal announcement, that cruel practice, ruled out by previous administrations, has become increasingly common, immigrant advocacy groups say. In the nine months preceding February, government agents separated children from their parents 53 times, according to data compiled by the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.

[GitRDun]

1. Trump Mainstreaming

Cruelty, hate, intolerance, absolute indifference to the suffering of others.

How on earth did we elect that guy?

[Control-Z]

2. Could I hate him more?

Well, yes. Today I hate him more than yesterday. I'm not shocked. It is expected. I just keep hoping that a day will come when he does something heartfelt and good for someone other than himself and his deplorables.

Each day is new, right?

[JI7]

4. not just him but the rest of the trash that supports him are just as bad

[BadgerMom]

7. Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell

Enablers. Traitors. Cowards.

[calimary]

8. Indeed. I keep getting yanked back on that one: "So what does that say about THEM?"

Can't help it. That's my new default position whenever trump's supporters come up in conversation. They ARE deplorables. And too damn bad if they don't like it! If they don't like that, then they should stop BEING that.

[pazzyanne]

10. Unfortunately, they enjoy the nickname.

My RWNJ sister used the "Proud to be a Deplorable" slogan as her Facebook profile pictures during 2016. Needless to say, we don't see each other much these days. This is not the person I knew when she was growing up. Too much exposure to tRump causes brain damage.

[Control-Z]

11. That has always been one of the worst things about

his supposed win, at least for me. I believe the election was stolen but would not have been had there not been all those people of unbelievably shitty character who actually did vote for him. Not to mention, the people who helped steal it in all the other known (and unknown) ways.

That so many of these people actually do exist frightens the crap out of me.

[JI7]

3. white supremacists

[onecaliberal]

5. I could not hate the fucking republicans more.

[Angry Dragon]

6. Trump has proven he can not go anywhere without his children

TRUMP makes me sick

[calimary]

9. Can we simply deport that whole shitty con-artist family?

[Angry Dragon]

12. I do not have a problem with that