
“Immigrant Children” by Rob Rogers, June 1st 2018. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette refused to print this political cartoon. It fired Rogers two weeks later.
Separating children from parents has a history:
1855: Frederick Douglass, who was Black:
“The practice of separating children from their mother, and hiring the latter out at distances too great to admit of their meeting, except at long intervals, is a marked feature of the cruelty and barbarity of the slave system. But it is in harmony with the grand aim of slavery, which, always and everywhere, is to reduce man to a level with the brute. It is a successful method of obliterating from the mind and heart of the slave, all just ideas of the sacredness of the family, as an institution.”
1943: Anne Frank, who was Jewish:
“Dearest Kitty,
“…
“Terrible things are happening outside. At any time of night and day, poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. They’re allowed to take only a knapsack and a little cash with them, and even then, they’re robbed of these possessions on the
way. Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated.”
2015: Russell Begaye, who is Native, was separated from his parents as a boy to be sent to Indian boarding school. Here he defends the Indian Welfare Child Welfare Act (ICWA) of 1978, which in 2015 was under attack in the courts by the right-wing Goldwater Institute:
“There is nothing more devastating than seeing a Navajo child being taken from their parents. …
“Imagine your identity being erased. Imagine not being able to see your mother and father. Imagine knowing you have family but not being able to see them. The separation is too much. Now imagine children who are separated from their families and cultures for the entirety of their lives. ,,,
“Native Americans are just as good as any other society on earth. We love our families and will stand with them. We need to make sure that every Navajo child in state custody or foster care doesn’t have to go through life wondering who they are or who their parents are.”
2018: CNN reporter Jim Acosta asked White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders about President Trump’s policy for those who cross into the south-western US without proper papers – whether they are seeking asylum (not illegal) or not (a misdemeanour):
ACOSTA: How is it a moral policy to take children away from their parents?
SANDERS: It’s a moral policy to follow and enforce the law.
ACOSTA: Can you imagine the horror these children must be going through? When they come across the border, they’re with their parents, and then suddenly they’re pulled away from their parents? Why is the government doing this?
SANDERS: Because it’s the law, and that’s what the law states.
ACOSTA: It’s not. It doesn’t have to be the law. You guys don’t have to do that.
In fact it is not the law – just a Trump policy that he can end at any time.
Jeff Sessions, head of the US Department of Justice, defended the policy by quoting Romans 13 – which used to be quoted in the US in the 1840s and 1850s to defend slavery.
– Abagond, 2018.
Sources: “My Bondage and My Freedom” (1855) by Frederick Douglass; “The Diary of a Young Girl” (1947) by Anne Frank; Native News Online (2015); Media Matters (2018); Vox (2018).
See also:
- US slavery
- Holocaust
- Anne Frank
- Indian boarding schools
- other bits of US immigration that breaks up families:
- deportation raid
- ending “chain migration” – a Trump proposal
- Chinese Exclusion Act
- Angel Island
- Trump Era
- The future of race in the US
594
The Boston Globe on Trump’s policies:
“Their children were taken from them by Border Patrol agents who said they were going to give them a bath.”
“Jefferson told his foster siblings that his mom cried and yelled when they were separated.”
“‘I hope you understand the reason there was a separation is you violated the laws here,’ [the judge] said to them.”
Former Nazis on Hitler’s policies:
“They were led into the gas chamber, which they were told was a shower room.”
“They then started to cry out terribly for they now knew what was happening to them.”
“I am a German and supported and am supporting the government in Germany and the laws of our government. Whoever opposes our laws is an enemy of the state, because our laws establish him as such.”
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And these ghouls like Sarah Huckabee-Sanders and the other ghouls have the nerve to quote bible scriptures to justify their evil of separating young children from their parents. Trump refers to undocumented immigrants as “animals.” This reminds me of slavery when black families were torn apart and the Japanese placed in internment camps.
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I forgot about Native Americans children taken from their parents and stripped of their culture and placed in school to be indoctrinated with white culture.
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There is a quote about “Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it.” I think that’s what is happening in this country under this current administration.
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The saddest part of this picture is the removal of children of the rich to go to schools very early in their lives.
The children grow up much more callous because of their experience!
Many of the leaders see nothing wrong because they themselves were separated early.
Do you remember when people were saying any one other than Hillary?
yeah!
Donald Trump: At age 13, he was enrolled in the New York Military Academy, a private boarding school, after his parents discovered that he had made frequent trips into Manhattan without their permission.[17][18]
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I just watched a movie about President Jackson
2 hours, but worth watching.
http://econintersect.com/pages/contributors/contributor.php?post=201806140102&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Global%20Economic%20Intersection%20Newsletter%20Feed&utm_content=Daily%20Global%20Economic%20Intersection%20Newsletter%20Feed+CID_92eea365b2adbbd53e26a260e90547be&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=Documentary%20Of%20The%20Week%20The%20Contradictions%20Of%20Andrew%20Jackson
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@ Mary Burrell
Bad people have been misquoting the bible forever!
There are many people who do not actually respect the Bible. To them it is just a book.
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The fact that they fired cartoonist Rob Rogers is pretty telling of the cowardice of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette after he had been working there 25 years. Just like all supporters of the Trump cult that refuse to tell the truth about what is happening in this country.
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U.S. greed and depravity has led us to mass incarceration, then prisons for profit (private prisons), now we are incarcerating innocent children for PROFIT in private prisons. #DISGUSTING
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Reblogged this on League of Bloggers For a Better World and commented:
U.S. depravity has led us to mass incarceration, then prisons for profit (private prisons), now we are incarcerating innocent children for PROFIT in private prisons. Disgusting
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Make Amerika Great Again. Sieg Heil!
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sarcasm
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I don’t know if it’s relevant here, but apparently the “Child Welfare Services” in Norway does the same thing… google them for more info. But it’s okay, because it’s written in their law, isn’t it?
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Tres apropos for fathers’ day!
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The Ricb children were not separared from their parents with forces originating from a source that the parents had no knowledge ( without the parents consent) of prior to “removal occurring.
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@ Yele66
In plain English, please.
Add context.
No jargon.
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@ Afrofem
Yele66 is saying that rich children were separated with their parents’ consent and not by an outside force. The context is Allen Shaw’s comment.
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I realize that Abagond gave some examples in US history where official policy resulted in the separation of parents from children, since the current situation involves immigration, maybe we should include links on some prior topics that Abagond posted relating to this phenomenon.
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 (and the immigration detention center erected later at Angel Island in the next century) resulted in multiple successive generations of family separation. Some of them never saw their wives, husbands, children or parents for decades or even the rest of their lives.
My great uncle was separated from his daughter and grandchildren for some 48 years. My father’s sister did not meet her mother (my grandmother) until she was age 14-15. In the 1990s, I met a woman in her 80s in my grandfather’s birth village who married a man who went to the USA (my father remembered him from his childhood) and she had moved to live in her husband’s village for nearly 60 years. None of them lived this way because they wanted to.
Chinese Exclusion Act
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2014/06/03/chinese-exclusion-act/
Angel Island
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2015/06/04/angel-island/
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@ Abagond
The misspelling of the word “rich” threw me off. I wasn’s sure if it was some weird acronym “Ricb”.
Thanks.
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@ jefe
Thanks!
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And the forefathers of all these people, including the “Pilgrim Fathers” (hahaha!), came to America with valid passports and proper visas issued by Native Americans.
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Hi people, I see here many tears over this “separating children from parents” issue. But do you know what? POTUS actually love children, very much, didn’t you know? Then look:
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/07/08/politics/trump-tweet-thailand/index.html
He loves much children….
… but they must remain at a comfortable distance from his lawn!
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Reblogged this on Project ENGAGE and commented:
What is family separation
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