What if the Children at the Border Belonged to You?

What if the children held in the facilities described in the ABC News report below belonged to you? Would you express your outrage? What would you do?

From the report on the ABC News website:

After assessing 39 children under the age of 18, she described conditions for unaccompanied minors at the McAllen facility as including “extreme cold temperatures, lights on 24 hours a day, no adequate access to medical care, basic sanitation, water, or adequate food.”

All the children who were seen showed evidence of trauma, Lucio Sevier reported, and the teens spoke of having no access to hand washing during their entire time in custody. She compared it to being “tantamount to intentionally causing the spread of disease.”

At the same time, the Trump administration argues that basic necessities aren’t basic at all.

As for the conditions at detention facilities, lawyers for the Trump administration last week argued that providing basic necessities, like soap, was not a requirement of the Flores agreement. Three judges on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals repeatedly asked if the lawyers if they were arguing that “safe and sanitary” did not include the ability to sleep soundly or use soap.

To Trump supporters: What if these kids belonged to you?

I realize this blog post won’t do much, but I ask my readers to tweet it and spread this on social media. I ask you, if you blog or write, to write stories about it. Ask friends with larger accounts to keep writing and complaining. Call your representatives and senators. Apparently, marches are planned. Go, if you can.

Court Evangelicals: Hear No Evil, See No Evil

We live in a time when the organized religion of the party in power is silent. Many religious right court evangelicals are sloppy drunk on power. They don’t speak for the poor and powerless and weak. They are arrogant, overfed, and unconcerned. How this administration can be lauded as pro-life, I cannot understand. I get the anti-abortion policies, but I don’t see how subjecting born, living children to these conditions simply for being refugees (for any reason) is pro-life.

For readers who might protest that all of this is the fault of Congress, I want to remind you that Congress for two years was in the control of the GOP. No, there is no excuse. Trump and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell could have a deal tomorrow. Trump could today direct his agencies to treat children humanely. He obviously does what he wants on everything else. If he wanted children to be treated well, things would change.

If your son or daughter was in one of these places, what would you want someone to do? What did Jesus teach us? What we want others to do to us, do to others also. Surely this applies to our children. Would I want this kind of treatment done to my children? American Christians spend millions to send missionaries to these nations to help people. Now they are here. They are starving and sick and crying right in our borders. It seems like the least we can do is to treat them humanely as we would want done to our own.

To contact your Representative and Senators, call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. You can give the operator your zip code and you will be routed to the appropriate office. The offices log the calls to assess sentiment so any expression that you want to see children taken care of humanely will help. If you know your Representative, you can also find the Twitter account, and send emails.

See also this New Yorker account.

60 thoughts on “What if the Children at the Border Belonged to You?”

  1. Try this one on for size – these children would NEVER be mine because I would NEVER endanger my daughter’s life by bringing her over a country’s border illegally, with the danger of encountering druglords, rapists and child traffrickers, not to mention dehydration and starvation. I would NEVER put my child in that situation. Isn’t Mexico is considered a “safe” country? So technically any person fleeing their home country to seek asylum should be stopping in Mexico?

    Of course I have compassion for the children on the border, I would never want any children to be in that situation. But where were all of you hypocrites when the same thing was happening under the Obama administration? And why on EARTH aren’t you reaming out the criminally irresponsible adults/parents who subjected their children to this situation in the first place? As a nurse I can call CPS on somebody for refusing eye ointment for their newborn infant, but dragging a two-year-old across the rio grande is somehow totally fine?

    1. Try this one on for size – these children would NEVER be mine because I would NEVER endanger my daughter’s life by bringing her over a country’s border illegally, with the danger of encountering druglords, rapists and child traffrickers, not to mention dehydration and starvation.

      Didn’t want to leave this here unanswered. Did you consider how bad things must be in the countries they are leaving that they are willing to risk encounters with drug lords and child traffickers, dehydration and starvation in order to protect the children? They were’t living the in the Gardens of Eden, you know.

      It’s not the parents that are criminally responsible, it is our government.

      1. It’s not the parents that are criminally responsible, it is our government.
        And to be fair, also responsible are the corrupt governments and criminal enterprises and vestiges of colonialism in Central America that have created the conditions that people are fleeing. Which is why the Trump administration’s proposals to cut off funding for efforts to improve the situations in those countries is insanely counterproductive.

        1. It’s true that the Central American countries did create the awful conditions. However, when for whatever reasons the refugees still have to flee and they flee to the US, the final responsibility become ours, both legally and because of human rights. Our government has not only failed, we have caused more harm. In any case, blaming the parents is just another way of blaming the victims.

    2. Yes, your Inn-Keeper theology is quite popular among U.S. Evangelicals who have no room for refugees like Jesus and his parents. The U.S. Evangelical rejection of Jesus is well-documented.

    3. So you would prefer to have your daughter (and likely yourself) killed wherever you happen to be rather than to attempt any means possible of getting her out of that situation. Got it.

    4. Would those children be better off if they stayed behind and the boys pressed into those gangs while girls would be forced into prostitution?

    5. There is a lot of truth to that. An awful lot of people are making an awful lot of excuses for people who made CHOICES and are living with the known consequences of those choices. If you don’t want the penalty of breaking the law, don’t break the law. It’s a little thing called “personal responsibility.”

      HOWEVER, with that said, the entirety of the situation is not that straightforward. Many of these children, for instance, are probably being trafficked. They aren’t being placed in that situation by careless parents.

      AND at the same time, CPS is criminally ripping American families apart over stupid things (like refusing eye ointments for their newborns), which statistically puts them at increased risk of abuse and neglect, and few people seem to care about that, either. We want criminals putting their own children at risk by illegally bringing them into another country and inviting abuse and neglect to have more rights than conscientious American parents who don’t agree with the status quo.

      None of it’s really about what’s right or wrong or what’s best for children; it’s all politics.

  2. I wrote the White House. I gave Trump a lot of money for his primary in 2016 (I maxxed out) and give a lot to the GOP as well. This is outrageous. Whatever your policy on border control is, we can’t treat people this way, regardless of their age.

    1. It’s certainly one of the factors I consider, but I balance that against economic policy and its benefits to the lower class. This had me torn between Bernie and Trump last time, and nothing has changed.

      1. Your glibness does you no credit and makes me utterly disinterested in continuing this conversation.

        1. I deleted my comment because I didn’t want to continue a discussion with a thoroughly uncivil individual. Let’s take an inventory:

          “stamping your feet”
          “clown”
          “whiny”
          “super tender feelings”
          “can’t handle criticism”
          “need safe spaces”
          “the AM jesus bubble”

          I come here to an academic’s blog for a higher level of discourse than this. Blocked.

        2. The efficiency of politics is that it’s not an academic debate. None of these issues are resolved through discussion; they are resolved through voting, which is a simple exercise of arithmetic. I was teetering between Bernie and Trump, but I think your incivility just decided the matter for me.

      2. I’m curious (and not being argumentative), but are you old enough to have been around during the 70s, 80s and 90s when Trump was building his rather poor reputation as a human being? I ask because before his recent foray into politics, I’ve never met anyone from any side of the aisle that didn’t consider him a joke, a con man and/or a disgusting person. That’s just the reputation he has earned through those years. If you were around during that time, how did this inform your opinion of him as a good candidate for POTUS?

        Understanding this thought process has been most challenging, especially with the emotions surrounding the entire subject. Thanks.

        1. I care about oppressed people. It’s my raison d’etre. In my view the most oppressed people in the country are the lower class. In 2016, the only people who had a plan that made sense in my understanding of economics to radically help these people was Trump through his trade war and promise of medical reform, and Bernie through the same measures and more. Bernie wasn’t nominated, so it was an easy choice for me who to vote for.

          The reason I care about oppressed people is because I got to experience it first hand when I was kicked out at 17 by my Calvinist parents for being bi (I was still a virgin). I got to experience teenage prostitution to survive. I got to experience the soul-crushing nature of poverty.

          I’ll be marching in a pride parade in August for a major company in a major city, and before I estranged them my parents threatened to kill me for doing anything of the sort. I have to get my will in order before then so they don’t inherit my businesses by default. That’s my experience.

          For me the political parties aren’t factions worthy of loyalty, they are tools to be used for a higher purpose. I knew from my membership in a Wall Street PAC (through which I indirectly gave as much money to Hillary as Trump and even had a conference call with John Podesta during the campaign) that she would not have helped anything. I know that this is true of 19/20 of the candidates I just saw in the Democrat debates as well.

          Sometimes the reason people disagree in politics is simply because one person is cursed with more knowledge than the other.

          1. Your family situation certainly seems negative. My response to your other arguments might be that, whatever the problems, Trump is not the answer. I’m not sure Bernie would be either, to be honest. However, my premise is that Trump is the sort of person who should never be allowed to hold that office, that he is disqualified by his amorality and disdain for every quality that a president requires. This is evidenced by his long history that has unfortunately played out mostly in public. His presidency thus far has only served to validate this position in my opinion.

            Not to badger you, but my original question remains unanswered. Are you old enough to have lived through this display of his actions and the reputation he gained during those years? If so, I’m wondering how you were able to set this aside in order to help elect him to that office.

            We could debate economic growth and any number of other areas, but I don’t see that as useful to my particular query. If my position is correct, no domestic bliss is worth the risk of having Trump as president. You are entitled to disagree, I’m just trying to understand how that process works if one had prior knowledge of who the man really is.

          2. I’m a former prostitute, David. I don’t care about whatever reputation he accrued in the 1970’s. No, I’m not old enough to have learned that, nor do I believe a birth date can grant “knowledge of who the man really is”, since the date on my birth certificate would not establish a personal relationship with the man.

          3. It’s not the date you were born that matters, but how much history of the man you have experienced. If we can’t go by decades of consistently bad and even cruel behavior, then what are we to use in our decision? Just the words they speak today? This wasn’t from the 70s, it is from the 70s forward.

            In the words of the man himself, he doesn’t believe he has ever done anything wrong. If one doesn’t consider his long history of bad behavior, this statement loses it’s context, and it’s warning. If we do consider it, then his lack of any remorse is itself the warning.

          4. I’m sure if I were dating him this would all be relevant to me. When I hire an electrician I don’t care how many times he cheated on his wife, how many times he’s been bankrupt, or what personality disorders he has. I only care about the probability of him completing the task I need done in a timely manner. It is the same here. I voted for a trade war, and I got a trade war. You wanted to understand my thought process, and now you have it.

            As for the economics of a trade war and the benefits to labor, I defer to the experts who did all the fighting and dying for labor and the lower class in this country: https://aflcio.org/resolutions/resolution-8-working-people-will-lead-fight-global-new-deal-trade

          5. I guess the answer to my question is that you and I have vastly different views on the qualifications of a president, and the extent of the damage the wrong one can cause in the world. If your only concern was that we engage in a trade war, then Trump would definitely be the only candidate to pick from any party.

            As to whether 19th century economic measures are a good idea today, I’ll leave that for another discussion. Thanks for engaging with my question.

      3. I’m curious (and not being argumentative), but are you old enough to have been around during the 70s, 80s and 90s when Trump was building his rather poor reputation as a human being? I ask because before his recent foray into politics, I’ve never met anyone from any side of the aisle that didn’t consider him a joke, a con man and/or a disgusting person. That’s just the reputation he has earned through those years. If you were around during that time, how did this inform your opinion of him as a good candidate for POTUS?

        Understanding this thought process has been most challenging, especially with the emotions surrounding the entire subject. Thanks.

  3. “What if the Children at the Border Belonged to You?”
    An ethical response to that question would require compassion and empathy.
    This administration, and its GOP supporters, lack both.

  4. I know this isn’t popular on an ‘everything Trump does is bad site’ but to be fair it wasn’t long ago that Democrats were saying Trump was making up that there was a border crisis to take peoples attention off the Mueller Report. And Democrats have had the majority in the House of Representatives for months and I’m think Republican’s in the senate would approve emergency funding for this problem but not sure.

    Even Chris Cuomo said “Why don’t they (Congress) do something instead of just standing against anything getting done?” and “both sides prefer impasse to action here.”

    I think calling your Rep’s and Senators like Warren asked is probably the best thing to do.

    As far as the last deal on the border not going through when Republicans had both Houses Trump was giving them more than they were originally asking for but it included a wall and they didn’t want to give him a win so the deal fell apart. If I remember correctly Ryan wasn’t real helpful either.

    Calling a Representative a politician used to be a derogatory term and this is politics…so…

    1. what is the actual “crisis” at the southern border (other than the one Trump as made with his “zero-tolerance” policy)?

        1. You mean when Obama got us out of a recession? how is that a “crisis”?

          How is “signalling” anything a “crisis”?

    2. My “representative” is indicted congresscon Chris Collins who, other than his defense of Meals on Wheels, is down with whatever his Golden Idol decides to do. I may still write letters (which he no longer answers), but I’m not going to waste any of my limited breath calling his office.

    3. I know this isn’t popular on an ‘everything Trump does is bad site’

      If you truly believe this site to be so shallow, why would you bother reading or commenting here?

      1. When it comes to Trump I don’t recall things be written about him when he has does thing well or good for our country, do you?

        If someone wrote only negative things about Israel that would be called antisemitism, so if people only write negative things about the President who has done good things for America then I guess you could call that shallow, but why would you question me ‘bothering’ reading a blog that writes about other things I agree with?

        And would you prefer an echo chamber?

        BTW, not that you are obligated to but you never did answer my question in the comments “The Gospel Coalition Posts Helpful Vaccine Article”. It was “I’m curious what do you think those verses mean?”

        1. I would be hard pressed to find anything positive that Trump has done while in office. However, even if you were correct, the sheer tonnage of bad things he has done simply overwhelms, as does his likelihood of doing more.

          I didn’t question you reading a blog you disagree with, but one which you consider shallow – there is a difference. It is the same as the difference between my wanting an “echo chamber” and my wanting reasoned debate – you do not provide the latter. You just swoop in on rare occasions and take pot shots. That is boring and does not engage.

          To your previous question, I try not to engage too deeply in theological questions, particularly with people who exhibit the characteristics I mentioned above. It is utterly unproductive.

          1. “I would be hard pressed to find anything positive that Trump has done”
            You proved my point.

    4. I know this isn’t popular on an ‘everything Trump does is bad site’

      If you truly believe this site to be so shallow, why would you bother reading or commenting here?

  5. Americans seem to be making more noise over the situation with calves at Fair Oaks Farm than immigrant children.

  6. I strongly suggest everyone read the New Yorker link posted by Warren. It will make you sick, want to cry, punch walls, scream, etc. If you’re American, this is being done in our names.

    And I’m not going to quibble about whether these are concentration camps or not. Housing 350 children in a space intended for 104, not properly feeding, clothing and housing these children, all because of how they came here-sorry, the government is running concentration camps in our names.

    These are crimes against humanity and we’re Good Germans.

    1. When Trump tried to warn congress about the dire circumstances they refused to listen. Nancy Pelosi went so far as to tell the people who work at the border everyday that she “rejects their facts”. So now the story has changed and we are supposed to see there is a crisis at the border. What are the Democrats saying now? Nothing. To them, those suffering are nothing more than a campaign issue to bash Trump. The last thing they want is to alleviate anyone’s suffering. As far as they are concerned, the more stories like the ones from New Yorker and CNN the better.

      1. No, no, no. Trump is THE CAUSE of this. You cannot say it’s the Democrats when Trump refuses to deal and McConnell refuses to let legislation come to the Senate. Moreover, Trump has stood by and approved as his minion Stephen Miller pushed through family separation and, no doubt, this incarceration crisis. If Warren deletes this, I will understand, but Trump had every ability to make sure those children had proper food, clothing and supervision. He did not. In fact, his Justice Department sent Sarah Fabian to the 9th Circuit last week to argue that no, under the longstanding Flores agreement, no, the Trump administration DID NOT have to make sure that the children were “safe and secure” (words from the Flores agreement).

        These are concentration camps, they were put in place through policy as directed by Donald Trump and his people and I WILL NOT stand here and let you put it on the Democrats. It’s all on the GOP. The GOP has the stain of having children crammed into buildings with little food, clothing or care. OWN IT.

        PS Those private companies with the kids? They’re being paid $775 a day to treat children like this. You should be mortified.

      2. No, no, no. Trump is THE CAUSE of this. You cannot say it’s the Democrats when Trump refuses to deal and McConnell refuses to let legislation come to the Senate. Moreover, Trump has stood by and approved as his minion Stephen Miller pushed through family separation and, no doubt, this incarceration crisis. If Warren deletes this, I will understand, but Trump had every ability to make sure those children had proper food, clothing and supervision. He did not. In fact, his Justice Department sent Sarah Fabian to the 9th Circuit last week to argue that no, under the longstanding Flores agreement, no, the Trump administration DID NOT have to make sure that the children were “safe and sanitary” (words from the Flores agreement).

        These are concentration camps, they were put in place through policy as directed by Donald Trump and his people and I WILL NOT stand here and let you put it on the Democrats. It’s all on the GOP. The GOP has the stain of having children crammed into buildings with little food, clothing or care. OWN IT.

        PS Those private companies with the kids? They’re being paid $775 a day to treat children like this. You should be mortified.

        1. What Mirele said. Blaming Dems is such a cop out. Trump doesn’t need anyone to direct his administration to provide humane treatment to refugee children.

          1. For the record, I’m pretty sure Warren is a pro-lifer, and he clearly cares about what is happening to these children.

      3. what is it you believe the Democrats should be doing? The Executive branch (i.e. Trump admin) is responsible for the operation DHS, ICE, and Border Patrol.

        Further, as mirele pointed out, this situation isn’t some screw-up in management, but deliberate. Justice Dept lawyers went to court to argue they could treat these children this way.

      4. The Democrats have only been in the majority in the house since last Fall. What was Teflon Don’s excuse before that?

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