separating children from parents

“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
  • Frederick Douglass
• 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
  • Donald Trump
  • Jeff Sessions
• The future of race in the US

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