The separating of children from their parents is morally reprehensible. What is wrong with people thinking this is okay? These kids will be emotionally scarred for life from the trauma of this practice.
Using the Bible to justify this goes way beyond common sense and decency. If you claim to be a Christian and condone this separating of children and their parents you are not even close to what a Christian is. You are delusional and part of what is wrong with Trump supporters.
Stop the insanity.
Dale R. Souders
PO1 USN RET
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Laws are laws, rules are rules. Children are not an alibi or an excuse for criminal behavior.
I would supposed that if one has children and commits a crime, then they should not be arrested, convicted, incarcerated and then separated from their children?
As a responsible parent I would never consider jeopardizing my family by committing any criminal act, and I do believe that entering the United States of America illegally is still a crime.
Dwayne Cales
Hixson
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Mr. Souders, please spare us the religious lectures. Being a Christian does not mean allowing yourself to be run over and taken advantage of by everyone who claims to have some sort of hardship. If anyone wants to see a Christian view of border security, I would urge them to read about the deeds of Charles Martel.
The only thing that's "insane" is allowing our southern border to be overrun.
If you don't want to be separated from your children, don't bring them to the United States unlawfully. It's really very simple.
Jay Underwood
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Separating children from a family is insanity, unless perhaps the children are in danger. However, the children who are separated from Illegal immigrants who avoided legitimate passage into the United States is a legal matter. The Laws that support the separations has been in place for two administrations or more. We live in a republic, a nation of laws.
One has to consider that many illegal immigrants approach our border without any documents for themselves [the adults] or the children who are with them.There is often no way to prove that the children belong to the adults they arrive with. Those children may have been trafficked in Mexico to be used as a possible aid to getting into the U.S.
Another consideration is that American citizens who go to prison do not take their children with them. Those separations are sad and demoralizing, but it happens every day in our society. Crime separates families. A woman who enters jail pregnant most likely has two days at the hospital with her newborn, then the woman goes back to jail and the infant is left with a family member, a spouse, or child services [to be placed in foster care]. A few prisons have set up nursery areas for inmates to interact with their young children, but the contact time is limited. A child taken by a family member or spouse can see the mother up to two hours a day as a visitation, but it is very rare that the caretakers can keep that visitation schedule due to time conflicts, logistics, finances, etc.
Illegal Immigrants [criminals under our immigration laws] are detained in gender and age-specific facilities.No member of a family stays together. Its not allowed. If the Immigrant had chosen to enter the United States legally, the adults and children have the likelihood of remaining together. They have a choice to make. Enter legally and keep the family together or try to enter illegally and get incarcerated and therefore separated from children and other family members.
Immigrants have a choice to make and we have laws to enforce. The previous administration had a definite platform in their campaign with one of the four pillars being a promise of accomplishing comprehensive immigration reform. That reform did not happen and its still a divisive subject.
If you want to blame anyone for separating children from families, blame our lawmakers.
Ted Ladd
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President Trump was so moved by the pictures of Syrian children after a gas attack, he ordered the bombing of a Syrian military instillation. Although he claimed at the time that he did this to send a message about such atrocities, it is clear now that he uses children, even injured children, to advance his agenda.
Fast forward to today, and he is using children again to keep his campaign promise to build a wall.
His AG Sessions has instituted a zero-tolerance policy that uses children as a negotiation tool to force Congress to build the wall.
What pains me as a Jesus- follower (imperfect as I am) is the use of the Bible to justify such horrible actions.
AG Sessions cherry-picked a Bible verse to support such sinful behavior. Under Sessions’ reading of scripture, the Bible justifies the government’s separation of children from their mothers. Sessions even seems to claim that the Apostle Paul would agree.
But we know God is love.
On Friday, Trump admitted to using innocent children as pawns to advance his agenda when he blamed his new policy of child/parent separation on Congress’ refusal to build his wall. Build his wall and the children will cease to be separated from their mothers.
But we know God is love.
As a Jesus-follower (imperfect as I am), at what point do I look in the mirror and say “Enough”?
At what point do I start to expect Jesus-followers to begin looking in their mirror?
Because we know God is love.
C. Mark Warren
* * *
While the total number of migrants apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border is near the lowest level since the early 1970s, the number of apprehended unaccompanied children and families is on the rise. These are vulnerable people who, for the most part, are deliberately seeking out U.S. border security authorities and asking for protection, or asylum if you will. There are others just trying to cross our border to attain a better life, but there is an inordinate number that is seeking asylum.
Requests for asylum of individuals from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras increased by 25 percent in 2017 compared to 2016. The countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras are facing unparalleled levels of violent crime, with El Salvador and Honduras ranking among the top five violent countries in the world.
These people are fleeing their homes and countries for a reason. As White House Chief of Staff John Kelley stated, "the mass migration of children from Central America to the U.S.-Mexico border primarily consists of people trying to save their children.”
Central Americans who cite fear of generalized violence in their asylum applications are not making a baseless claim, courts have found that under the very terms of U.S. asylum law, applicants fleeing gang violence and other threats qualify for protection. But to hear right-wing sycophants, these people trying to save their lives, and the lives of their children, are nothing but "criminals".
How dare the poor people from those countries not spend the thousands and thousands of dollars necessary, and spend years and years applying to come here legally. They should be able to dodge bullets that long, and if not, "oh well". That is the message from the uninformed sycophants, spreading the right-wing propaganda they heard on Fox News.
Crossing our border illegally is a misdemeanor, and if the parents of these children have to be arrested, there's more that can be utilized, than just slapping them into prisons. There are places the people could go, with their children, where they could be monitored until their hearings come up. Instead, we are slapping the parents in prison, and the kids into military compound tent cities.
In the meantime, our government lost 1,475 children they were charged with protecting. Where the heck are the children?
We have an evil tyrant occupying the White House, that seems to think using the lives of children, and their parents, as pawns to get funding for his beloved wall, is just a game. The sad part is, his brigade of brownshirts, are more than happy to use children for political fodder, just as they are with our own schoolchildren being used as target practice.
The right-wing sycophants seem to keep screeching about enforcing our laws. They stammer, and stutter, and scream that we need to enforce our laws..."because we are a Republic". It's a shame they aren't as concerned with the laws against "obstruction of justice", violating the Article 1 Section 9 of our Constitution...the emoluments clause, destruction of federal records, Intimidation of Witnesses, violating election laws, violating copyright laws, violating IRS laws, and on, and on, and on. The right-wing sycophants are unusually silent about that. But, when it comes to the brown people crossing our border, they are grabbing their weapons and volunteering to patrol our border themselves.
I used to think America stood for better than what we have become. Obviously, I was wrong. We are no better than the evil regimes I've seen come and go throughout the world, and we deserve the same fate they received. The last straw was seeing our mindless puppet of an attorney general attempting to use the Bible to justify his inhumane treatment of the children.
Rod Dagnan
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Over the years I have read Mr. Dagnan’s posts as he has taken shots at the Boy Scouts, the Tea Party and others. Now he says in his latest post that he thought America stood for better than we have become.
This latest post is because people are illegally coming across the southern border getting detained by law enforcement. And when they bring children with them the children are removed to government custody. The same thing happens to American citizens who are jailed and their children all the time. It’s tragic and sad for all. But suddenly, because it’s the Trump administration and it involves illegals, the government is destroying families in unspeakable horrors. In their haste to ramp up opposition to this policy fake news reports were shown of migrant children sleeping in cages. It was working for a while until it was revealed this occurred during President Obama’s administration and not recently.
With Bush, migrants illegally entering with children were few. With Obama the numbers grew drastically, but the separations weren’t an issue at first until the Republicans became the majority in the U.S. House. That’s no coincidence.
Tonight on NBC their lead story was “tent cities for migrant children.” Perfect story for the left as they try to pivot from the recent jobs report of the lowest unemployment number in 40 years. I guess Mr. Obama’s shovel ready trillion dollar American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is finally kicking in.
But the thought of children ripped from their mothers is a diversion for the Democrats so we won’t focus on how the FBI at the highest levels were scheming an exoneration for Hillary and covering the fact Mr. Obama, using a pseudonym, was emailing on the unsecured server as well.
For all those who think we are such a horrible country, an evil regime full of, as Mr. Dagnan calls, racists (the slur du jour), xenophobes, birthers, militias, right wing sycophants, Ronpaulites and “these people,” please answer this question: if we are like that, why would people from other countries want to come here?
And Mark, did you catch President Obama’s attempt at quoting Scripture in Nashville in December of 2014? He was promoting of all things, his immigration policy, when he said,” I think the good book (I presume he means the Bible) says don’t throw stones in glass houses.” He gleefully added,” or make sure we’re looking at the log in our eye before we are pointing out the mote in other folks eyes.” Improvising off the TelePrompTer perhaps? Or maybe I missed your denunciation of him for that.
But it’s an election year and a party with no ideas and no charismatic leader needs issues and distractions. Remember the Occupy People in 2016?
Ralph Miller
* * *
Mr. Dagnon, I agree with Mr. Ralph Miller in response concerning your comments, entitled as you are to make them. You are wrong, however I doubt you will realize that. You may have served your country either in the military, jury duty, some other community service or have traveled extensively, or stayed nearby in the Chattanooga and come your conclusions from observation somewhere along the way or here.
We are not forcing illegal immigrants’ parents to bring their children here and knowingly face separation. In fact it is dereliction of parental duties for these parents to put their children at severe risk. They are gambling on drawing sympathy from people like yourself.
Every illegal alien that comes here is violating the current U.S. Criminal Code (federal law). If America is so bad as you envision you have the choice of moving out of the U.S. to one of these countries that illegals are coming from or elsewhere. You might be surprised at the democracies that would not accept you. Their standards are pretty high, such as New Zealand for one example. If you find that repulsive, consider taking some illegals to your home and business 24/7. Or could it be you want the taxpayers to pay for their welfare?
Have you read the statistics on the percentages of crimes these illegals are committing, the prison population of them? If immigrants, and there is a difference between illegal intrusion and legal migration, come to the U S. they should come lawfully with talent to offer.
Gerald Presley
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What is happening on our borders is a crime against humanity. It is inhumane in the extreme. The Trump policy is clear. Make this country so terribly prejudiced and fascist that people of color will choose to leave rather than stay. It’s a sad thing to see Trump and his administration doing everything in their power to breed a culture of hate and division not only at the borders but within the heartland as well.
When Mr. Trump can say that there were good people on both sides of a Nazi riot – it shows how cold and dark this man's heart and soul are. There is no such thing as a good Nazi. Not in this country. Not in this day and age. Not after many of our fathers and grandfathers fought and died protecting the world from the brand of Nazism that Hitler puked out onto the world. That he can support tearing children from their parents shows us, all of us, how far he is willing to go to forward his agenda of hating ‘the targeted other’ – any non-white person as if whiteness somehow empowered people with superpowers. It doesn’t. It doesn’t even make some of them who participate in a Nazi riot ‘good people’.
ICE are behaving like good little order following fascists.
I have no doubt that Mr. Trump would like to have the same powers as Putin of Russia and Un of North Korea. He would kill those who disagree with him and not give it a moments thought. He is that hollow. I suspect he’d be willing to kill these immigrants rather than spend the money it takes to house and feed them. On the other hand, his pals in the for profit business of prisons and camps are making money like bandits.
These are not normal times. It is not normal to tear children from their parents. It’s not normal to consider deliberate lies to the press acceptable. It’s not normal to wish you could become a dictator and rule with an iron fist that would make it a crime punishable by death to not sit up at attention when he speaks.
This behavior is not normal. Some would call it insane. I know I do.
Where are the good Evangelical Christian people who think tearing children away from their parents is wrong and why aren’t they doing something to stop it?
When will me shout with one voice – in unison – ENOUGH.
John Morton
* * *
The Trump Administration lies about this situation repeatedly and people accept these lies. The only people who were held by the Obama Administration were those who entered the country illegally. Trump decided that everyone who comes to our Southern border is committing an illegal act.
This is not just unjust-- it is unAmerican. We are a nation of immigrants. Most of the readers of this paper are the descendants of people who came here to follow a dream. My mother’s family arrived in 1612 for religious freedom. My father’s German grandparents came here as children, none of them able to speak a word of English, seeking asylum.
The people at our Southern border are not just gang members, drug traffickers and human traffickers. They are families from all over Central America who are fleeing horrendous conditions in their own countries. These people come a thousand miles carrying children, leading toddlers and reduced to a handful of possessions in pursuit of the American Dream, safety and hope. We arrest them at the border, put them in handcuffs and take away their children.
This is wrong. This is neither American nor Christian. If you think that detention camps for brown people are acceptable, you are treading dangerously close to the spirit of the Third Reich.
Maggie Hay