Shakespeare Anagram: Henry VI, Part Three
Over the past two weeks, we’ve been hearing increasingly disturbing reports about conditions in the detention centers along the border. On Monday, a group from Congress went to visit these camps, and they found the claims to be true. According to Mother Jones, the House representatives report the situation is dire:
The testimony from members of Congress who had the rare chance to visit three Border Patrol facilities in Texas this week has been damning: detained women instructed to drink from toilets, pervasive verbal harassment by guards, and conditions that, for many, confirmed their worst fears of the Trump administration’s cruelty at the border.
The president for his part insists that he inherited the family separation policy that led to this situation from the Obama administration. This is, for lack of a better term, a complete bald-faced lie. The Trump administration would have you believe that this is a continuation of the Obama policy and that they were overwhelmed by a sudden increase in people trying to enter illegally. But they volunteered for this job. This situation was created by a policy of his own administration called “zero tolerance.” This meant, in theory, the arrest of anyone attempting to cross the border, but in practice, it included people legally seeking asylum as well.
Under the Obama administration, illegal border crossings were treated as a misdemeanor. Arrests were reserved for those suspected of serious crimes, like trafficking, and those rare instances did involve family separations. However, these were temporary. Under Trump’s policy, the family separations range in the thousands, and because of inadequate record-keeping, the families may not be reunited. Ever.
There is plenty of evidence to suggest that the cruelty being inflicted on the detainees is not due to a lack of resources, but rather, a deliberate policy choice. A Trump administration lawyer actually argued in court that they weren’t legally obligated to provide soap and toothpaste to detainees. What’s important to remember is that these are children. Their parents did not commit a felony in bringing them here. And even if they had, it would still be our obligation to treat them humanely. Desperately trying to defend the president’s policy, Brian Kilmeade accidentally said the quiet part out loud when he made the case to his viewers that everything’s okay, because these are not our kids.
Notice how he also frames the current crisis as being a result of increased immigration, rather than a deliberate policy decision, while at the same time affirming that the president is trying to send a message. When Kirstjen Nielsen, then Secretary of Homeland Security, was asked last year if the family separation policy was meant as a deliberate deterrent, she was shocked and insulted, and walked away as reporters continued to ask her the question. However, according to then-Chief of Staff John Kelly, it was intended as a deterrent. Cruelty, it would seem, is the whole point.
This intentional performative cruelty has not only created a culture of viciousness among his supporters, but it has also permeated among those tasked with taking care of the detainees. Last week, ProPublica published an exposé of a secret Facebook page for current and former Border Patrol agents that revealed a mocking disdain for the detainees. The stench is noxious, but the fish rots from the head.
We can argue about whether or not our nation’s immigration policy has been strong enough, but no matter where you stand on that issue, the answer isn’t this. You can’t just say “Well, they broke the law” or “Blame the Dems” while families are being ripped apart and children languish in squalor. One hundred years from now, our children’s grandchildren will study this moment alongside the Japanese internment camps as a cautionary tale. We’re already there. Because it’s truly breathtaking that we’re committing such flagrant human rights violations so brazenly out in the open with so little public backlash.
This president likes to strut like a prizefighter, but he has a glass jaw. He will cave to public pressure, as he has done so many times before. We can’t lose our stomachs for this fight. Democrats have one chamber of Congress and the public microphone that goes along with a primary election. We are not without a voice here.
From Henry VI, Part Three:
And there it doth remain,
The saddest spectacle that e’er I view’d.
Shift around the letters, and it becomes:
Let’s eradicate the set dirt-ridden hate camp.
We have to end this.