Whose Idea Was It to Separate Families at the Border?

We’ve got a problem at the border. It’s not a new problem or a Trump problem. It’s been a problem for a long, long time.

It was Ronald Reagan, who, along with Calvin Coolidge, may stand as the standard bearer for what the Republican party should have been, who said, “A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation.”

If that’s true, then we’re only a nation in the rhetorical sense.

It’s infuriating to see stories of what amounts to a foreign invasion on our borders, groups of people, with no way of knowing their intent, flooding our borders and acting as if they’re entitled to enter a sovereign nation and just set up shop.

There was a point in my life where my mantra was: Stay home and fix your own nation, just like we have to work on ours!

I still believe that, to an extent.

Then grace and mercy kick in.

No, I’m not an open borders kook, but I absolutely believe there can be solutions to our border control problem that don’t include separating children from their parents at the border.

And yes, I also get the argument that when parents screw up here, they’re separated from their children. I’m a Guardian Ad Litem, so I’m uniquely familiar with that issue.

There’s a big difference in a parent on drugs or who leaves their child alone in a vermin-infested home, with no food, while they go out to party with their friends, and those parents on a desperation trek towards what they hope will be a chance at a better life for their children.

Oh, and as for Attorney General attempting to get back in President Trump’s graces by taking the hardline, then trying to excuse away this atrocity by twisting Scripture is the worst.

There is no verse in the Bible that allows for such cruelty.

There’s plenty about mercy, however.

Proverbs 14:21 AMP – “He who despises his neighbor sins [against God and his fellow man],
But happy [blessed and favored by God] is he who is gracious and merciful to the poor.”

Proverbs 14:31 NIV – “Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker,
but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.”

Zechariah 7:9-10 CJB – “⁹ “In the past Adonai-Tzva’ot said, ‘Administer true justice. Let everyone show mercy and compassion to his brother. ¹⁰ Don’t oppress widows, orphans, foreigners or poor people. Don’t plot evil against each other.’”

So who do we have to thank for this callous policy of separating children from their parents at the border?

What reports are saying is that President Trump, while publicly saying he hates the policy, sees the pain as a negotiating tool to get Democrats to the table.

You can probably pick that up by the multiple tweets from President Tweety-Pants blaming the Democrats for a border mess that has resulted in what some estimates say is around 2,000 kids separated from their parents or guardians.

The “mastermind” behind the policy, according to a report in the New York Times is White House adviser and immigration hardliner Stephen Miller.

Unlike Trump, who has publicly claimed to hate the practice, Miller told the Times it was a “simple decision.” “No nation can have the policy that whole classes of people are immune from immigration law or enforcement. … The message is that no one is exempt from immigration law,” he was quoted as saying.

Sure, but how far is too far?

Miller also reportedly pushed Trump and other White House officials to begin using deterrence policies, and after border numbers spiked in April, he was said to have been instrumental in convincing Trump to resort to the “nuclear option” now so widely being condemned as inhumane.

It is inhumane. And cold. And we can do better.

Here’s a thought: Begin fixing those issues within our system that makes it attractive for them to risk that trip across rough and unforgiving terrain to get here. Maybe build bridges with that government and work in unison to help them fix the problems of corruption and crime that drive the people north.

There are options. Separating families should not be among them.