Tuesday, June 19, 2018

AMERICAN GULAG

Let me see if I have this right. (1)  First President Trump dreams up a draconian policy (separating children from their parents) and says it is a law;  (2) then he says it is all the opposing party's (Democrats) law; and (3) then he demands that the opposing party give him something (The Wall?) to get rid of the policy.  Now that's Chutzpah! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chutzpah)

The whole idea of separating children from their parents is too long a topic for a detailed discussion here so I am urging you to at least read an article in the LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-immigration-families-border-wall-20180616-htmlstory.html.  If you want a more favorable account of separating children from their parents, see: https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/illegal-immigration-enforcement-separating-kids-at-border/  I think this article addresses more what the system was supposed to be like and not what it is.  But I assure you, this is the kind of thing that if you have to explain it, you might as well not bother.

Former First Ladies Laura Bush, Rosalynn Carter, and Hillary Clinton have all given criticisms of the order.  First Lady Melania Trump has also made a compassionate statement.  I must say, though, that in the case of Melania Trump, a close reading of her statement does not conflict with things her husband, the President, has said.

Some Congressmen, even Republicans like the Speaker Of The House Paul Ryan, are starting to criticize the separation program also (http://time.com/5313052/gop-republican-children-parents-family-separations-trump-administration/).

The Council of Roman Catholic Bishops has come out against the separation of children and the Pope has backed them.  Now 640 members of the United Methodist church, of which Sessions is a member, charges Sessions with violating the United Methodist Church’s Book of Discipline, its code of laws and social principles. (http://www.newsweek.com/jeff-sessions-united-methodist-church-catholic-church-family-separation-980210)  The Presbyterian Church of the U.S.A. also has come out against the separation of families of illegals.  some Evangelical Christians have come out against the separation policy, most notably Frank Graham, son of Billy Graham.

So the adults and children are put in separate Detention camps that may be separated by hundreds of miles.  These Detention camps are not like the Internment camps where families were not separated or Concentration camps, but more like Jails where defendants are separated.  It seems like there are cases where mothers and children are not reunified when the mothers are deported (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-border-patrol-immigrants-family-separation-ice-children-separation-a8394326.html)  There are thoughts that some children will never be reunified with their parents.

Picture of boys in a detention center.  Does this look like a jail to you?



According to NBC News, which visited the facility, only four social workers were available to care for the hundreds of children held in the facility's wire enclosures.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/18/trump-immigration-policy-that-is-separating-families-in-pictures.html  And only social workers can change diapers.

America is comprised of all sorts of people.  On Morning Joe this morning, one participant pointed out that about 35% of Americans approved of Joe McCarthy after the military hearings.  McCarthy's favorable rating dropped from 46% in February to 34% in June of 1954 in a Gallup Poll (https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/176441/public-opinion-recent-history.aspx).  So it wouldn't surprise me if around 35% of Americans approve of separating illegal parents from their children.

Japanese-American Internment Camps

Army-directed evacuations began on March 24. People had six days notice to dispose of their belongings other than what they could carry.
anyone who was at least 1/16th Japanese was evacuated, including 17,000 children under 10, as well as several thousand elderly and handicapped.
Japanese Americans reported to centers near their homes. From there they were transported to a relocation center where they might live for months before transfer to a permanent wartime residence.
These centers were located in remote areas, often reconfigured fairgrounds and racetracks featuring buildings not meant for human habitation, like horse stalls or cow sheds, that had been converted for that purpose. In Portland, Oregon, 3,000 people stayed in the livestock pavilion the Pacific International Livestock Exposition Facilities.
The Santa Anita Assembly Center, just several miles northeast of Los Angeles, was a de-facto city with 18,000 interred, 8,500 of whom lived in stables. Food shortages and substandard sanitation were prevalent in these facilities.*
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Each relocation center was its own town, featuring schools, post offices and work facilities, as well as farmland for growing food and keeping livestock, all surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers.*
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The last Japanese internment camp closed in March 1946.*

It was not only Japanese Americans who were interred during WW-II but many Europeans as well, particularly of German decent**

* https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/japanese-american-relocation
https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/6763

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/18/what-the-first-ladies-have-to-say-about-zero-tolerance-immigration-policy.html

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