June 20, 2018: Under Blistering Criticism, President Trump Does What He Claimed He Couldn't Do

 

6/20/18: The list of organizations and individuals offering blistering criticism of Trump administration policy regarding the breaking up of families along the border grows. That list includes: 

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops: Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the Conference said in a statement, “Separating babies from their mothers is not the answer and is immoral. [emphasis added here and below].” 

Pope Francis

Sen. John McCain

Ivanka Trump 

Michael Cohen: “As the son of a Polish Holocaust survivor, the images and sounds of this family separation policy [are] heart-wrenching. While I strongly support measures that will secure our porous borders, children should never be used as bargaining chips.”

The Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates (this group advocates for children with disabilities) 

Ana Mari Cauce, president of the University of Washington 

____________________ 

“These children deserve our protection and should remain with their families as they seek asylum.” 

The American Psychiatric Association

____________________

 

Jennifer Silvers, assistant professor of developmental neuroscience at UCLA: Silvers and co-author Jaana Juvonen penned an editorial calling for a change in policy to protect the children. Silvers notes: 

I’ve been tweeted at and been called un-American….It wasn’t our intention to create something highly political. We just felt compelled, as scientists and mothers, by what we know from the data and from our own personal experiences, which is that parents and their children belong together, period.

 

Jaana Juvonen, a professor of developmental psychology at UCLA: Juvonen, an immigrant from Finland who earned American citizenship a few years ago, explained in their editorial. “It is our duty to speak up. If we, as scientists or even as students, are privy to this knowledge and science, if we don’t convey what is known, who’s in the position then to challenge the new policies? What’s the weight of science?” 

Rev. John I. Jenkins, president of Notre Dame University

The head of the University of California

The superintendent of Miami-Dade County Public Schools

 

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME): This union represents 1.6 million government workers. An AFSCME statement reads in part: 

[Our] members make caring for families and communities their life’s work. From social workers to nurses to school bus drivers to first responders, public service workers do not choose their profession just to support their own families, but to keep all children and families healthy and safe.

 

…This inhumane policy is a cruel choice that does not make us safer, and it does not make us great. There is no law that mandates traumatizing children, only the prerogative of this president.

 

The American Nurses Association: A letter from the nurses’ organization offered adamant opposition to: 

…the Administration’s policy and practices toward migrants and asylum seekers that result in the forcible separation of children from their families.  These actions put the welfare of immigrant children at risk and are causing irreparable harm…

 

The Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statements (ANA, 2015) calls on all nurses to always act to preserve the human rights of vulnerable groups such as children, women and refugees.  The United States of America is better than this.  We cannot continue with a policy that is so immoral and cruel to children and families.

 

National Nurses Organizing Committee-Texas, an affiliate of National Nurses United, which represents 1,700 RNs in four El Paso hospitals 

15,000 mental health professionals who signed a letter addressed to leading members of the Trump administration: 

We would like you to remember what it feels like to be a child. To take a moment and remember how big and sometimes scary the world felt and how, if you were lucky, the adults in your life represented security and safety. We want you to remember what little say you had over what you did and what happened to you and that even though this was frustrating, some part of you trusted that your parents knew what was best for you. And that your physical and psychological survival depended on them.

 

[Starting in October 2017…children four years of age and under were being separated at the border] These children are thrust into detention centers often without an advocate or an attorney and possibly even without the presence of any adult who can speak their language. We want you to imagine for a moment what this might be like for a child: to flee the place you have called home because it is not safe to stay and then embark on a dangerous journey to an unknown destination, only to be ripped apart from your sole sense of security with no understanding of what just happened or if you will ever see your family again. And that the only thing you have done to deserve this, is to do what children do: stay close to the adults in their lives for security. 

 

Government-sanctioned child abuse. 

3,000 academics (signatories to a letter calling for the administration to end the separation policy 

American College of Physicians

The American Psychiatric Association: 

As physician experts in mental health, the American Psychiatric Association opposes any policy that separates children from their parents at the United States border. Children depend on their parents for safety and support…. These children deserve our protection and should remain with their families as they seek asylum. The APA recommends an immediate halt to the policy of separating children from their parents.

 

Also criticizing Trump policy: 

The Council of Great City Schools

The American Medical Association 

Dr. Colleen Kraft, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics: Craft expresses her horror after visiting one of the holding centers at the border and seeing a weeping little girl. “This is something that was inflicted on this child by the government, and really is nothing less than government-sanctioned child abuse.”

 

Faith leaders have also spoken: 

Franklin Graham: “It’s disgraceful, and it’s terrible to see families ripped apart and I don’t support that one bit.” 

Tony Suarez, a Latino pastor who has informally advised Trump, tweeted, “God have mercy on those who seem so nonchalant to the plight of children being separated from their parents.” 

A coalition of 26 Jewish groups: The Times of Israel noted that these groups, made up of those who remember well the dangers of sending families to camps, joined the calls for an end to the policy. 

 This policy undermines the values of our nation and jeopardizes the safety and well-being of thousands of people. As Jews, we understand the plight of being an immigrant fleeing violence and oppression. We believe that the United States is a nation of immigrants and how we treat the stranger reflects on the moral values and ideals of this nation.

 

The U.S. Episcopal Church (joined by several other faith groups)

Presbyterian Church (USA)

Evangelical Lutheran Church of America

Islamic Society of North America

United Methodist Church

 

The Business Roundtable: This lobbying group includes the CEOs of General Motors, Boeing, Mastercard and Walmart. Their statement lines up with those of countless others: “This practice is cruel and contrary to American values.”  

A bipartisan group of 75 former U.S. attorneys: Their statement reads: 

Like a majority of Americans, we are appalled that your Zero Tolerance policy has resulted in the unnecessary trauma and suffering of innocent children. But as former United States Attorneys, we also emphasize that the Zero Tolerance policy is a radical departure from previous Justice Department policy, and that it is dangerous, expensive, and inconsistent with the values of the institution in which we served.

 

ABC, more “Fake News,” adds to the list: 

Russell Moore, President of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention 

National Association of Evangelicals

Council for Christian Colleges and Universities

National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference 

The letter these and other religious groups send to the president reads in part: “As evangelical Christians guided by the Bible, one of our core convictions is that God has established the family as the fundamental building block of society. The state should separate families only in the rarest of instances.” 

The letter goes on to warn of the “traumatic effects” of separation, potentially “devastating,” “long-lasting,” and “of utmost concern.”

 

* 

SO, LET’S SUMMARIZE: First, President Trump insisted for days that he could not do anything about the law. His administration had to separate children and parents. 

Second, you couldn’t blame him. This was the Democrats’ fault. 

Third, his top aide, Stephen Miller, and his Attorney General, and his Homeland Security Secretary, all said the policy was necessary and the children were being treated great, and so, what’s the big deal. (See: 6/21/18.)

 

Trump does what Trump said he could not do. 

Then the heat grew too hot in the kitchen. Suddenly, the President of the United States, who had been lying all week about what he could and could not do, did what critics had been insisting he had the power to do from the start. 

“We’re going to keep families together, but we still have to maintain toughness or our country will be overrun by people, by crime, by all of the things that we don’t stand for and that we don’t want,” he grumbled. 

“If you’re weak, you’re pathetically weak, your country’s going to be overrun with people,” he added. He scoffed at the idea that some were saying he confused being strong with having no heart. 

“Perhaps, I’d rather be strong,” he said. 

Then he reached for his trusty presidential crayon box, grabbed his favorite color (white) and signed an executive order to end the practice he had been insisting all along he alone could not end.