Cruel and Unusual Punishers

In the harsh debate over gun control, one that should never remotely have given rise to the schisms that exist in American society today, there is one particularly telling undercurrent that describes American society in ways most Americans might not prefer to hear: we cherish children well below money and guns. In my February 18th Bang-ruptcy blog, I painted a rather distinct trail of money-grabbing gun manufacturers having funded the National Rifle Association’s most magnificently successful repositioning of wanton gun ownership as a basic American value above all else. Money and guns trump mass killings of anyone, especially children. They’re now selling us guns with no purpose than to kill as many people is as short a time as possible.

With the new GOP-directed Congress, headed by uber-businessman Donald Trump, conservative values – heavily focused on money and even more heavily focused on killing off programs that cost billionaires and corporation money – are the guiding light of government policy, some touching on social conservatism and others on how rich folks can make more money and spend less on being socially responsible. Like cutting healthcare. Reducing workplace safety requirements. Eliminating consumer protection. Repealing restrictions on dumping toxic waste into public waterways and the atmosphere.

They oppose abortion to save “innocents,” while championing the death penalty, sending asylum seekers back to countries where these “innocents” face almost certain incarceration, torture and even death, and favor cutting healthcare benefits that of necessity will kill millions with preventable or treatable ailments. That doesn’t count the ever-shortening life expectancy of Americans from environmental pollution or opioid addiction. Oh they talk about the horrors of opioid addiction but defund programs that just might make a difference.

In the world of “immigration reform” – words that the GOP can never implement as illustrated in my February 17th GOP-Driven Comprehensive Immigration Reform – LOL! blog – they seem to believe that to cater to that angry base that defines the contemporary Republican value system – evangelicals supporting sexual predators who espouse their values and foaming at the mouth to deploy military solutions to “show the world” who’s boss – they must escalate their embrace of cruelty as fundamental GOP politics.

As the words beneath the Statute of Liberty corrode away, as states like California that pretty much define themselves as significantly culturally Hispanic struggle against federal policies aimed at disrupting that culture, as farmers watch crops rot unharvested in their fields sending food price through the stratosphere, the feds are spending billions of dollars to purge the nation of undocumented workers. As hordes of undocumented immigrants move back home, as thousands of assault weapons bought at Southwestern U.S. gun shows cross the border into cartel hands – see my February 7th As American Guns Flow South…  blog – Donald Trump wants to spend wasteful billions on an easily penetrable border wall and hire thousands more ICE agents and border patrol officers.

For California, which does not want its cultural and ethnic values to be eviscerated, the defensive sanctuary cities and counties are countered by federal ICE officers – who claim to be focused on those with criminal records – to mount a show of force, arresting anyone without papers (by the way, do you carry citizenship papers on your person?) aimed at crushing anyone who opposes these right wing immigration policies, bringing California and other sanctuary venues to heel. Don’t hold your breath, feds; that will never happen. Mid-terms are coming and you will be able to read our political response.

Forget the unfairness inherent in our Congress’ dramatic inability even to find a simple solution to the DACA debacle. Their inability to understand that children, brought here without their choice in the matter and who have known no other nation, no other life, now defines the new American proclivity toward selfish cruelty very well. Economic studies even show us how expelling these clear-Americans will hurt all of us, but no matter, it is what our right wing wants us to become.

To send that message loud and clear, the feds are refocusing very heavily on the criminal violations inherent in undocumented immigration. To make it clear to those contemplating crossing our southern border illegally, there is another cruel practice that ICE wants all those folks south of the border to think about.

“Migrant families… are usually processed by immigration courts, an administrative process. Such families are detained together or released with notices to appear at later court proceedings. President Trump promised to end the practice, dismissing it as ‘catch and release.’

“Historically, most border crossers were sent back to their home countries, but the Trump administration has threatened to prosecute some migrant parents because entering the country illegally is a federal crime. The first offense is a misdemeanor, with a maximum sentence of six months. Those caught a second time face a felony charge with a maximum sentence of up to 20 years, depending on their criminal record. Once a case becomes a criminal matter, parents and children are separated.

“According to public defenders and immigrant advocates, more and more immigrant families who come to the southern border seeking asylum are being charged in federal criminal courts from El Paso to Arizona. [Illegal border crosser] Jocelyn was charged with a misdemeanor, and her son was sent to a shelter in Chicago. Comprehensive statistics do not exist, but activists and attorneys say anecdotal evidence suggests the practice is spreading.

“‘There’s not supposed to be blanket detention of people seeking asylum, but in reality, that’s what’s happening’ in El Paso, said Dylan Corbett, director of the Hope Border Institute, a nonprofit social justice group. ‘We’re still in this limbo in our sector and across the border: What’s going on? What are the new policies?’

“Last week [mid-February], 75 congressional Democrats led by Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Downey) sent a letter to the secretary of Homeland Security expressing outrage at increased family separations and demanding officials clarify their policies within two weeks… ‘We are gravely concerned that these practices are expanding and worsening, further traumatizing families and impeding access to a fair process for seeking asylum,’ they wrote…

“Last April, Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions issued guidance to U.S. attorneys urging more aggressive prosecution of those illegally reentering the country. As the number of migrant families crossing illegally increased last summer, parents were detained by U.S. marshals, but their children were reclassified as unaccompanied minors and placed at shelters across the country by the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

“Migrant advocates sued in federal court, arguing that when asylum seekers declare a fear of returning to their home country, federal law dictates that they be referred to an asylum officer, even if they crossed the border illegally, and their cases considered by immigration judges.

“In October, El Paso immigrant advocates asked Border Patrol officials whether they were separating migrant parents from their children… ‘They volunteered yes, we’re doing family separation,’ Corbett recalled, adding that one agent ‘said it was standard practice locally here in the sector to separate all children 10 years and older from their family. We were all shocked.’

“Afterward, Border Patrol attorney Lisa Donaldson emailed those who had attended the meeting, insisting that the ‘Border Patrol does not have a blanket policy requiring the separation of family units’ and that any increase in separations ‘is due primarily to the increase in prosecutions of immigration-related crimes.’” Los Angeles Times, February 20th. It just looks as if Border Patrol officers have such a blanket policy in place, particularly when it comes to sanctuary states. Must be a mere coincidence, then.

But even in Trumpland, people are getting a bad feeling in the pit of their stomachs over the criminalization of undocumented aliens… increasingly separating children under the guise of immigration policy. Here is one story of the Trump administration’s emphasis on “for profit” private prisons (this one focused on undocumented immigrants), institutions with generally horrific human rights abuse records in one of the reddest countries in America. “Elkhart County, Indiana, is proud of its recreational vehicles. The county—90 percent white, 41 percent factory workers, and located along the state’s northern border with Michigan—hosts RV rallies at its 4-H fairgrounds, houses an RV hall of fame, and is the heart of a region that manufactures 80 percent of the world’s RVs. It’s also a deeply conservative area, voting about 2-to-1 for Donald Trump in the 2016 election.

“And yet, over the last two weeks [beginning of February], an improbable alliance of pro-immigrant activists, county officials, and RV manufacturing executives came together to defeat a local proposal that would have helped carry out Trump’s hardline deportation plans: a privately run $100 million immigration detention facility [to be owned by CoreCivic] just outside Goshen, the county seat…

“Executives of the top three employers in the area—Thor Industries, Forest River, and Lippert Components—as well as dozens of other community leaders signed on. ‘If the facility gets built, it would be harder to attract new workers and residents, which we very much need,’ the letter said. ‘CoreCivic, on the other hand, would create jobs we don’t need at wages we don’t want. Any tax dollars generated by the project wouldn’t be enough to offset the long-lasting damage such a facility would do to our county—both in terms of perception and in terms of creating an unwanted unwelcoming reputation.’” Daily Kos, February 14th.

There is nothing but shame in just about all of the federal policies enumerated above. That notion of empathy – even the very basic evangelical values of kindness, restrict for the downtrodden and a commitment to a lifetime of charity and forgiveness – seems to have evaporated in a red hat mantle of selfish cruelty, one that does not even benefit the overall prosperity and safety of the United States as a whole.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if you haven’t guessed by now, I oppose these right wing immigration policies with every fiber of my being.