By Jeffery Robinson
Children are crying for their parents while being held in small cages. The attorney general tells us the Bible justifies what we see and the White House press secretary backs him up. Be horrified and angered, but not because this is a new Trump transgression against real American values. America was in the business of separating families long before Trump.
I am not talking about spurious claims that Obama did the same thing or the valid comparisons to how our criminal justice system uses a cash bail system that every day rips children from their families before they or their parents have been convicted of any crime. The true story is that the United States has a well-documented history of breaking up non-white families.
When we sent Japanese Americans to internment camps, families were often separated when fathers were sent hasty relocation orders and forced labor contracts. In some cases, family members (usually the father) had been arrested earlier and sent to a different camp.
Forty years later, the U.S. government apologized, provided reparations of $20,000 to every survivor of those internment camps, and blamed the “grave wrong” on “racial prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.”
Sound familiar?
The separating of Native American families was more intentional. America deliberately tried to wipe native culture from our country. According to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American 
Indian, beginning in the late 1800s, thousands of American Indian children were forcibly sent to government-run or church-run “boarding schools,” where they were taught English and forbidden to speak their native languages.
An exhibit at the museum includes a quote from Richard Henry Pratt, founder of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, stating: “In Indian civilization I am a Baptist, because I believe in immersing the Indian in our civilization and when we get them under, holding them there until they are thoroughly soaked.”
The boarding schools forced children to cut their hair and give up their traditional clothing. Their meaningful native names were replaced with English ones. Their traditional religious practices were forcibly replaced with Christianity. They were taught that their cultures were inferior. Teachers sometimes ridiculed the students’ traditions. These lessons humiliated the students and taught them to be ashamed of their heritage.
“They tell us not to speak in Navajo language. You’re going to school. You’re supposed to only speak English,” John Brown Jr., a Navajo who served in World War II as a code talker by using his Navajo language for tactical communications the Japanese could not decode, told the museum in a 2004 interview. “And it was true. They did practice that, and we got punished if you was caught speaking Navajo.”
And then, of course, America enslaved Blacks for 246 years. Separating enslaved families was done for profit, for punishment, or simply because a seller or buyer wanted it that way in the 18th and 19th centuries.
“Destroying families is one of the worst things done during slavery,” said Henry Fernandez, co-founder of the African American Research Collaborative and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. “The federal government maintained these evils through the fugitive slave laws and other rules which defined African Americans as property with which a slave owner could do whatever they wanted.”
Each of these policies, Fernandez said, begins with the assumption “that the idea of family is simply less important to people of color and that the people involved are less than human. To justify ripping families apart, the government must first engage in dehumanizing the targeted group.”
“The Weeping Time” exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture documents the U.S. history of separating children from parents. “Night and day, you could hear men and women screaming … ma, pa, sister or brother … taken without any warning,” Susan Hamilton, a witness to a slave auction, recalled in a 1938 interview. “People was always dying from a broken heart.”
A report in the Maryland State Archives includes a narrative from a man named Charles Ball, who was enslaved as a child and remembered the day he was sold away from his mother.
“My poor mother, when she saw me leaving her for the last time, ran after me, took me down from the horse, clasped me in her arms, and wept loudly and bitterly over me,” Ball recalled. “My master seemed to pity her and endeavored to soothe her distress by telling her that he would be a good master to me, and that I should not want anything.”
Ball added that when his mother’s persisted, his master hit her with a rawhide whip.
Thousands of former slaves looked for lost relatives and children who had been sold away from their families. They placed thousands of ads in newspapers. Those ads are now being digitized in a project called “Last Seen: Finding Family After Slavery,” which is run by Villanova University’s graduate history program in collaboration with Philadelphia’s Mother Bethel AME Church.
Our history of separating families is no older than our use of the Bible to justify or transgressions against humanity. In 1667, Virginia law stated that if an enslaved person became Christian it did not mean freedom because the only way that conversion could happen was through the “charity and piety of their masters.” When Texas withdrew from the union it declared that enslaving people was justified by “the revealed will of the Almighty Creator.” William T. Thompson, the designer of the Confederate Flag said, “As a people, we are fighting to maintain the Heaven-ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race.” Jeff Sessions is simply the most recent person to try to justify an indefensible policy by referring to the Bible.
On June 14, Attorney General Jeff Sessions cited biblical scripture Romans 13 to claim support for the Trump administration’s forced separation of immigrant families. “I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order,” he said.
As it happens, this is the same passage cited by loyalist preachers who said America should not declare independence from England; it was cited by southerners defending slavery; and, it was cited to defend authoritarian rule in Nazi Germany and South African apartheid.
Jeffery Robinson is ACLU Deputy Legal Director and Director of the Trone Center for Justice and Equality
Anyone that writes “The true story is that the United States has a well-documented history of breaking up non-white families.” Must not be aware that the Number of “non-white” families broken up by the US government is just a tiny percentage of the families the US has broken up by drafting men in to military service or by the ( mostly) disfunctional CPS system. I don’t get the race baiting by ACLU. It seems to me that the best way to reform the bail system and reduce the number of families the US pulls apart is to get everyone working together.
And I really don’t get your point. It doesn’t what percentage of people are broken up, if the ones that are human rights failures of epic proportions.
The draft ended in 1973.
The author of the piece used the word “history” and prior to 1974 the US drafted about 15 million mostly white guys (with about 1 million getting killed). The US today tricks a lot of guys in to signing up to “protect their country” and sends them to die “protecting the profits of big oil and other US campaign donors”
> prior to 1974 the US drafted about 15 million mostly white guys
Is this statement correct?
I remember visiting the Vietnam Memorial around 40 years ago, and being struck with the number of Hispanic names engraved there — and my sister saying to me, “and a heck of a lot of another group that you can’t identify by their last names”. I seem to recall those more well off (as whites tend to be overall) got college deferments and were better connected to other means to duck the draft.
You remember correctly, Alan… I say that as someone subject to the draft from 1972 thru its end… I had a high number in the “lottery”… so, never got classified as other than 1-H… some low number friends considered going for 1-S (they were originally classified as 1-A)… one tried to lock that in by joining UCD ROTC… and making sure he got good grades… he bailed as soon as the peace accords were signed, + 6 months… Blacks in the South had a hard time getting deferments… and Hispanics, probably everywhere… Blacks and Hispanics were overly represented %-age wise, than Whites [as far as being both drafted, and sent to ‘Nam]… fact, (well documented…).
Great point.
And there is summer camp.
I think some people are exploiting the situation for politics and their livelihood.
I have friends that were raised by relatives as their parents were missionaries. I also have some that were separated from their parents because of health reasons. I guess God is also guilty for separating children from their parents.
Basically, I don’t see this as the tragedy that the political left is making it out to be. Most of the minor illegal immigrants the US has had to deal with recently were unaccompanied from their home country. What percentage of these children that arrive with “family” who are actually surrogates that don’t care for the children any more than they can help secure residency (legal or illegal)?
And then what about all the parents in the military or having other jobs that require periodic and long separation from their children? Are we going to legislate all of that as a tragedy?
Difference is in the examples you give the parents get to choose who cares for their children, and are judged by the parents to be appropriate. Usually there is a certain amount of coordinated communication between parents and care-givers.
For the immigrants in question, there is no parental say in the matter, there is little to no communication as to how long the separation will last, and it seems very clear that the government program is ill-equipped to care for children, nor seems to care as much in re-connecting the children with their parents.
Interestingly you’re the one often criticizing the federal government as a failure as a “nanny” state.
I view national security as the primary (constitutionally-mandated and protected) function of the federal government. I view illegal immigration as a soft invasion that over time has damaged our nation security and will continue to damage it if not curtailed.
I view the illegal immigrants coming here as 80% lying about their claim of asylum. They are exploiting our system that is meant to be compassionate. They are putting children unnecessarily at risk because they know they are effective pawns at the game of getting into the country.
I agreed with W when he said “government is not a loving institution.” I think it is irrational to expect government to truly care for people. People should care for themselves and our top expectation for government should be to not harm those that would care for themselves… not prevent people from caring for themselves… and have laws, rules and policies that encourage people to care for themselves. Except for children… the government needs to be browbeat into caring for children as if those children are more important than the lives of the government employees charged with caring for them.
But that responsibility starts and stops with America’s citizens and legal immigrants. It has to. We simply cannot care for the world’s children. It is irrational, impossible and foolish to think that we can.
As a conservative I have a strong moral filter for sanctity. Sanctity of laws. Sanctity of national sovereignty. Sanctity of the original intent of our founding documents. However, I also have a strong moral filter on sanctity of life… especially the lives of children. I believe it is our screwed up immigration system that is providing the attractive nuisance causing these adults to drag kids with them to help improve their odds of getting in. I believe it is the political left that is causing more harm to these kids than Trump, as the left primarily (and the GOP political establishment that likes all the cheap labor being imported) likes the Democrat vote machine and also likes the immigration wedge issue to campaign on. I agree with Trump that by making it less attractive for these families to try and scam our system, fewer will… and hence fewer children will be but at risk with the attractive nuisance claiming fake asylum.
Many at the southern border who are in question here are coming from Central America to avoid gang violence (i.e., death). Typically they’re from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, who typically rank in the top three in per capita murders in recent years, often by a whole lot.
Trump himself likes to tout how awful is MS-13. Well they run many communities in El Salvador, and that’s what a lot of them are fleeing.
“If you’re fighting for your life and the lives of your family members, then the only way that the Trump administration can make it less attractive for these families is to murder them on sight. That’s what you’re up against.”
San Diego is just over 4,500 Km by road from San Salvador. We are hardly the closest MS-13 free place. And in fact we have MS-13 here unlike many other possible destinations. If you are actually fleeing MS-13 Los Angeles and some other US cities would be low on your list of destinations.
We are the most attractive for other reasons.
According to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_murder_rate
Los Cabos Mexico has the highest murder rate per capita. I love to vacation there.
And St. Louis is #13.
These places that these people are fleeing from have lower murder rates per capita.
The meme is dishonest. 80% of them are fleeing from lower economic circumstances.
“meme is dishonest” Our system demands applicants be dishonest. Is someone applies to the US Embassy in San Salvador and says that they are on some kind of MS-13 death list they have a much lower chance of success than if they drive to San Ysidro and claim asylum. This is across administrations.
Why do you suppose that is?
I think they only have better odds if they bring some kids the claim are theirs. And those better odds are enhanced by catch and release as they will end up illegal in the US and eventually they will get amnesty from the Dems and cheap foreign labor interests in the political establishment.
Not spurious at all. Here’s an MSNBC segment where the liberal commentators admitted that Obama was indeed breaking up families. Today’s outrage is so two-faced, it’s more TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) about getting Trump than it is about the illegal immigrants.
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/brad-wilmouth/2018/06/18/msnbc-panel-admits-obama-also-separated-immigrant-families
Keith – There’s no comparison between Trump’s cruel and intentional zero tolerance policy and the collateral impact of Obama era policies.
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2018/jun/19/matt-schlapp/no-donald-trumps-separation-immigrant-families-was/
I agree with you about TDS. Trump, indeed, deserves to have a syndrome named for him.
No, TDS refers to the out of control derangement syndrome that all of Trump’s haters have fallen victim to. It’s an epidemic.
Oh. So, TDS is like how those on the right treated Obama minus the racism.
History of the term here: https://www.vox.com/2015/2/23/8089639/obama-derangement-syndrome RIP Charles Krauthammer.
https://townhall.com/columnists/charleskrauthammer/2003/12/05/bush-derangement-syndrome-n940041
TDS far exceeds anything we ever experienced with Obama and Bush, primary because the mainstream media has TDS and did not have OBS (although it was certainly showing signs of BDS) and we have raging social media now.
What is deranged are the administration’s policies—like child separation, denial of healthcare, personal attacks on political opponents and U.S. allies, despot worship, xenophobia, rampant racism, disrespect for the rule of law and the First Amendment, etc., etc. The media are just reporting the facts.
The Obama and Bush administrations both referred some cases for prosecution. Occasionally that resulted in separation of children briefly from the parents. It was not a specific intentional policy to do so, nor was it an intentional policy to prosecute all cases of illegal border crossing and detain the parents — thereby necessitating removal of the children. Reunification occurred as quickly as possible. In the case of the Trump administration, it is clear there was never a plan for reunification from the start nor were the consequences of “zero-tolerance” prosecution fully considered. Or considered at all, evidently. They don’t even know how many kids they took or exactly where they are at this moment.
It has been amazing and disheartening to watch Trump supporters try to make excuses for this debacle, and use the standard practice of denigrating those who oppose it. There are too many cases in history of these kinds of policies being implemented, separating children and breaking up families, for us to overlook how fundamentally immoral this is. “Obama did it” — except basically his administration didn’t. “It’s like summer camp” — it’s absurd to trivialize enforced separation that way. It might be better to acknowledge that this policy is a complete debacle and urge that it be fixed, and not just papered over. The federal courts are already acting. The administration has work to do to remediate this. So the rhetoric rings pretty hollow when you consider what was really done here and how damaging it is. It’s just flat-out inhumane.
As to this “TDS” nonsense, opposition to Donald Trump as president is not a sign of ‘derangement’. He is inappropriate as our head of state and is a clear embarrassment as the representative of the USA to the world. He is clearly unfit for the job. His legislative skills are non-existent, and his managerial skills are questionable. His judgment of character and fitness is appalling. It’s becoming increasingly clear that he has conflicts of interest and probably committed federal crimes; certainly those around him did, because there are already guilty pleas on record. The list of things that demonstrate his unfitness grows every week. Military solution to Venezuela? Not just a casual mention, but repeatedly discussing it at the highest levels? And that’s just this week.
HAHAHAHAHA!
Don, you claim TDS does not exist and then demonstrate that you are afflicted with it.
One thing I know about liberals… they are wired to be obsessed by appearances. Symbolic speech gives them goosebumps and a pat on the back of the politician for a job well done… even if nothing substantive ever gets done.
Embarrassment is key. It is the reflection of an elite… their president is not impressive enough.
Trump is a builder from Queens. He talks like a builder from queens. I get that these type of people are beneath you. But your freaking out over one becoming President is TDS.
Obama was a law professor from Columbia. He talked like a law professor from Columbia.
Obama is your type of leader… we get that.
My type of leader is someone that gets stuff done. And if he/she is getting stuff done to solve problems, I could give a rat’s arse what he/she says.
And if Obama had got things done to solve problems, I would have been supportive. He killed Osama. I was supportive of that… his only real accomplishment solving a problem.
No, Jeff, and I am quite tired of your insults.
ACA provided care for my daughter under the <26 clause which otherwise would have bankrupt me. I saw many, many patients with precancerous or early cancerous conditions who had not had previous access to care and so whose lives were likely saved by the ACA. I don’t call that nothing.
His judicial appointments created a partial balance on the Supreme Court. I don’t call that nothing.
His EPA put into place a number of environmental regulations. I don’t call that nothing.
His establishment of DACA allowed many brought here as children, who you yourself said we have an obligation to care for, more time to pursue their education and build careers. I don’t call that nothing.
The media are feeding your TDS Eric. Your list above is so full of hyperbole it does not warrant any time for a response. This is all just the negative branding that the left and the left media keeps repeating. It is intellectually dishonest and a sign of laziness to keep repeating the twaddle.
Got it Don. I won’t insult you. I will just re-post what you write in the hope that some day you can look at it with some introspection.
I have a long list of Trump accomplishments that I am very pleased about. I am guessing that more than 50% of them you are not happy about. But if Trump was so unqualified as you suggest, then how is he getting all this stuff done?
You see, once you stop allowing the TDS to take over and believe that you are righteous and Trump and his supporters are all stupid and evil (a symptom of TDS)… maybe we can have some discussion about the policies and agenda.
Good definitions of TDS:
From my perspective it is easy to spot as unhinged and overblown criticism of the President that lacks any connection to objective assessment of the actually platform, agenda or policy. It is personal hate. It is disgust of the person. It is highly emotional… mostly anger and rage… and sometimes responses to depression and fatalism that don’t connect with reality.
I can see the causes. The people wired to fear being made to admit they wrong about something almost more than they fear death have had their hat handed to them. This low-brow verbal and linguistically-challenged billionaire keeps pushing evidence that maybe there is a lot his opponents need to admit being wrong. It sets their hair on fire. Better to shut him up by any means than to have to stomach an admission that the liberal righteous mind has been terribly off.
The design of the governance of this country was government of the people for the people, not government by the elite ruling class for the elite ruling class. Trump is not the first blue-collar non-ivy league, non-academic elite President… but he is the first that the media is attempting to destroy without hiding their interest and intent.
This was the beginning of the article: “Children are crying for their parents while being held in small cages.”
Hyperbole. Disingenuous. Intellectually dishonest manufactured outrage. TDS.
Jeff needs to learn that:
1. Trump is not “blue-collar” (he grew up super rich and would be even richer today if he just held on to all his Dad’s middle class NY apartments and didn’t get involved with casinos, luxury properties and reality TV).
2. Trump went to an “Ivy League” school (Jeff is like “most” people on the west coast that can’t name all the Ivy League schools and Ted Cruz (who went to Princeton and Harvard) refers to U Penn and Cornell as “Lesser Ivies” they are still Ivy League schools).
P.S. Every member of the US Supreme Court went to either Harvard or Yale when Obama was president and when Scalia died Trump replaced one Harvard Law guy with another Harvard Law guy. I read this morning that the guy many think will take over for the Irish American Kennedy who went to law school at Harvard is an Irish American guy that graduated from Yale law school (just like Bill and Hillary who were guests at Trump’s wedding).
This guy gets it (and explains why I’ll never be at a wedding with Bill & Hillary or go kiteboarding with Richard Branson)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5dBZDSSky0&list=RDi5dBZDSSky0&t=2
Native American and African American history may not be the best comparisons here… Anyone who would need convincing that separating immigrant families is wrong is likely to also believe that slavery and the native genocide are both too old to be relevant.
I feel the same on this as I do with BLM. Racializing/politicizing it does little to bring enough people together to stand for what most of us agree on. Families should be kept/left together. Whether they’re sent home together or kept in the US together is a separate, more divisive argument. Most people- including conservatives, found the separation of these children from their parents to be disturbing. It was disturbing and it made no sense because it cost lots of money to do it.
I know many mothers, most white – were triggered by this because it reminded them of having their own children taken away by family courts, or else intact white families losing thir kids to CPS on bogus complaints/orders. It was strange to me how many of them took stances against immigrants families because they resented that immigrant children were inciting more public outcry than American kids who suffer comparable judicial abuse.
Then black/Hispanic moms/families who’ve lost their kids tended to align themselves with the immigrants based on melanin in common.
To me, we are better off to unite against what we all agree to be an abuse of human rights; separating kids from their parents.
That also requires ridding ourselves of delusions about government and its ragencies. Government nor its agencies can ever be nurturers. Foster homes are nightmares for kids, even the “good ones”. Kids belong with their parents with whom an earnest bond and unconditional love exists. No foster home no government agency can provide that
At best these institutions are isolating, scary, and lonely for children. Period.
Re TDS: The labeling of political opponents and dissidents as suffering from mental illness was a feature of the Stalin-era Soviet Union and beyond. Little wonder that avid supporters of the despot-worshipping Donald Trump resort to the same response to political opposition. Such rhetoric should not be treated lightly or ignored.
“labeling of political opponents and dissidents as suffering from mental illness” is still current practice in all areas of the political spectrum.
Google found 26 MILLION web sites when I typed Trump Mental Illness, (and only 1,300 web sites when I typed JeffM Mental Illness) Including this one that said:
“More than 60,000 mental health professionals have signed John’s petition, which states:“We, the undersigned mental health professionals, believe in our professional judgment that Donald Trump manifests a serious mental illness that renders him psychologically incapable of competently discharging the duties of President of the United States. ”
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-time-cure/201709/the-dangerous-case-donald-trump
LOL, it looks like those with TDS are doing the labelling.
That is so true Jim Hoch. There’s a thin line between acceptance and propagation. Seems it was crossed a long time ago on everything from mental illness to abortions and sexuality.
Its easy to label people in a society where people are literally too proud of their labels.
In 1965 African Americans were moving forward in the US. Their case for equality had been made and accepted by the government and the public. This is why the Immigration Act of 1965 was so devastating to them. Prior to that the US immigration policy was merit based. People coming here were part of policies designed to bring in people who would be solid contributors to American society. Following it we turned away from merit based immigration to taking large numbers of non-English speakers from countries that were culturally very different from us.
This meant the schools and social programs meant to bring up the disenfranchised had to expand in numerous ways to integrate english language learners at all levels. We had to teach and support people from cultures that were still semi-tribal how to be a part of a modern society. Many of them would never learn and become permanent economic wards of the state. The average immigrant is a net economic loss for the country. They are basically a subsidized work force for large corporations and the elites.
The taxpayer is doing the subsidizing financially, but it is African Americans who paid the social price. It was their turn. We could have been investing in bringing them up and giving them equity for the wrongs of slavery.
Joel that is a brilliant manipulation that (unfortunately) works well to divide people who’d benefit to unite; while also excusing those in power from doing what’s right.
It’s true that African Americans, along with Native Americans were more exploited by the USA than any other group in America. Its also true that America, as a whole, would have benefitted from making a thorough reparation sooner rather than later. (In a lot of ways, its a bit too late now to be feasible. So we do what we can and let time, slow as she is with delivering gifts, do her thing).
But Hispanics, especially Mexicans – were exploited too. I don’t know that I believe they’re a permanent drain on the economy as you suggest. Perhaps the first gen of arrivals take more than they give (idk) but their culture is very proud and I’m inclined to believe they raise their children to achieve and bring a lot of value to America. Its a beautiful culture and community.
Their spirit has not been broken as much as that of African Americans. The help distressed African American communities need is mostly emotional. Many grow up surrounded by struggle, feeling devalued and unloved, given no reason to believe in themselves. They are intelligent, talented, capable Americans with very broken hearts. Healing that could be free if our society were more empathetic and open minded.