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.

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.

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

You don’t look like one. Not even close, Alan.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

Greg Weiner in the NYT yesterday agrees with you, that his poor behavior should not be ignored despite his policies: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/30/opinion/trump-fallacy.html