Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
Trump Administration Splits up Asylum-Seeking Families
The Trump administration has decided to separate children from their asylum-seeking parents. The administration blames the Democrats, but in truth, this policy stems from a policy decision by Attorney General Jeff Sessions which began on April 19. There is no law that requires this separation. It is a vicious, cruel and likely racist policy being implemented by a vicious, cruel and clearly racist administration. It is a crime against humanity, against international and American law. Some 1,995 kids have been incarcerated without charge separately from their parents. How many will now grow up to hate America? The Trump administration is creating terrorists.
The lie the administration's policy rests on is asylum-seeking is a crime. It is not. Even if one is in the US illegally, one has the right to apply for asylum. The US Citizenship and Immigration Service website says, "You may apply for asylum with USCIS regardless of your immigration status if: You are not currently in removal proceedings; You file an asylum application within one year of arriving to the United States or demonstrate that you are within an exception to that rule."
In addition, USCIS says on its website, "You may include your spouse and children who are in the United States on your application at the time you file or at any time until a final decision is made on your case."
The administration believes that if it commits acts of horrific baseness, it can extort from Congress limits on legal immigration and funding for a wall on the southern border -- the wall Mexico was supposed to pay for when Mr. Trump was lying his way into the White House. It is the same kind of thinking that terrorists of the Bader-Meinhoff gang and the Red Brigades used in the 1970s and 1980s. The difference is that those groups did not have the apparatus of the state behind them.
The administration is beyond redemption. The only solution is to vote it out of office. Impeachment will leave Mike Pence in power, and he is complicit. Were he removed as well, Paul Ryan would get into the White House, and one doesn't see an improvement there either.
There is a sense in America that "this is not who we are." That remains to be seen. There are members of the American body politic and in the various government offices who believe the atrocities at Abu Ghraib against prisoners of war were not only justified but desirable. These people are the real problem.
After the Nazi regime ended in Germany, after the communists of eastern Europe lost power, the machinery of the fascist state (brown shirts or red flags, fascism is fascism) ceased to operate. But the people who operated the machinery did not die. Ex-Nazis and ex-communists remained in positions of influence and power. The most obvious example is Vladimir Putin. The KGB may as well still exist since the Russian nation is run by ex-KGB officers.
In America, there will be an end to the Trump presidency either by the ballot, by term limits, by impeachment or natural causes. Yet those who acted in support of this administration, down to the individual border-guards who are pleased to be detaining asylum-seekers, will remain.
Worst of all, the lives of Mr. Trump's supporters are not improved one whit by any of this. If these horrors made American lives better, one would would still oppose them, but for many, the morality question would be subsumed by a question of costs and benefits. There are no benefits to Americans with this policy.
Thomas Jefferson said it best, "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever."
© Copyright 2018 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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