What’s Happening at the Border? Answers to Common Questions

Q: Why won’t the Democrats in Congress make it stop?

A: The Democrats constitute a minority in both houses of Congress right now. They can’t do anything without Republican cooperation; that’s how Congress works. The democrats do have a bill in congress right now to prevent family separation, but they need plenty of Republican support and the president has to agree to sign it for it to work.
Furthermore, this situation doesn’t require congress to do anything. This is the Trump administration’s policy, and all that has to happen is that Trump has to tell Sessions to stop doing it and go back to things the way they were before. It’s not really a law in the first place, and what Congress does is draft and vote on laws. Congress could work to stop it from ever happening again, which would take time. The president’s actions would be quicker. I think both need to be done as quickly as possible.

Q: What about Elian Gonzalez? Where was the outcry over him?
A: I don’t see what that has to do with anything. There was a huge outcry over Elian Gonzalez. It was all anybody heard about for at least a solid week. Cuban-Americans were so outraged by Clinton’s actions in that case, that’s arguably one of the reasons Bush won the presidential election by an eyelash instead of Gore. Elian is a grown man now, and I wish him all the best. Can we go back to the children who are currently in cages, now? Because we can’t help Elian, but we can help these children.

Q: All these politicians are pro-aborts! Isn’t it hypocritical of them to sometimes care about children?
A: Maybe so, but it’s doubly hypocritical for someone who calls herself pro-life to not care about thousands of suffering children. We’re supposed to have the moral high ground: pro-life from conception until natural death. That means we’re supposed to care about all the children, and the adults for that matter, and here are some children who we can protect if we fight hard enough without losing any ground in the abortion debate. No unborn babies are going to die because you took a moment to care about the born children being held in tent camps. We can do both. We must do both. Here’s a chance to show pro-choice people that you actually do care about life, not just slamming women who have abortions. Here’s a chance to work together with pro-choice people on a topic you both agree on. Think of all the opportunity to evangelize.

Q: Why should I care? What’s in it for me?

A: Yes, someone asked me this question. He said he was a Catholic. Called me a bleeding-heart and asked why he should care about the children. I usually don’t try to answer questions this basic and antagonistic, but here’s my answer.

I don’t know how to explain this to people who don’t already know, but you’re not supposed to hurt people. It is wrong to hurt people. It is also wrong to not care whether you hurt people. Except for an extremely narrow set of extraordinary circumstances, if you find that what you’re doing is hurting people you are morally obligated to stop or to do it another way that doesn’t hurt people. This barely even rises to the level of an ethical principle; it’s more like the background without which you can’t start formulating ethical principles in the first place. You are not supposed to hurt people. If you don’t know this going into the discussion, there’s little anyone can do to help you act ethically.

And here’s the thing: the United States is supposed to be a democracy. It’s a representative government. Lord knows it’s not what it should be in many ways, but that’s the idea. And when a government that’s supposed to be a democracy does something, they’re doing it in the name of the people who elected them.

That’s us.

That’s you and me, my fellow Americans.

The United States government is causing this level of agony, irreparable emotional trauma, to innocent kids and toddlers because their parents broke the law–  except in the many cases where they didn’t break the law– in order to punish those parents and as a warning to any other parents hoping to seek refuge in the US. They’re not doing it to keep America safe and prosperous, they’re doing it to prove a point. And because they are the United States government, they’re doing it in the name of the people of the United States of America.

In a sick, indirect sort of way, you and I are the ones imprisoning and tormenting these children, because our government is doing it in our name. And we have to fight to make it stop. We have to cry out “not in my name” loudly enough that we scare our government into doing something else.

If you’re a US citizen, this is your responsibility. It’s being done in your name. Your reputation in the eyes of the whole world is being tarnished by sickos abusing kids. This is your problem, yours and mine.

That’s what’s happening at the border, and that’s why you should care.

My post from a few days ago has information on whom you can write to or call with your outrage, and what else you can do to help. As I’ve said before, the one thing you cannot do is nothing.

I can’t really think of anything else to say about it.

(image via Pixabay)