In recent weeks, much has rightly been written about the forced separation of families and children at the US border. As details of the separations emerged, it became clear that we were witnessing an act of wanton cruelty carried out by an administration that has already done much to mainstream callousness in American life. Many of the detained children were being held in warehouse facilities; some, appallingly, were placed in cages. As former First Lady Laura Bush wrote in The Washington Post, images of these facilities were “eerily reminiscent of the Japanese American internment camps of World War II, now considered to have been one of the most shameful episodes in US history.”
How the Trump Administration’s Immigration Policies Harm Health | Dean's Note
Throughout his political career, President Trump has defined himself in large part by his antipathy towards immigrants, from his disparaging remarks about Mexican immigrants at the start of his presidential campaign, to his administration’s ban on immigrants from several majority-Muslim countries, to his more recent obscene characterization of Haiti and African countries. Even in this context, however, his administration’s decision to separate from their parents the children of immigrants arriving at the country’s border stands out as an especially cruel, mean-spirited act. As Ali Noorani (SPH’99), executive director of the National Immigration Forum, has said, “Separating parents and children in an attempt to deter people who are fleeing violence from legally seeking asylum is cruel to families, harmful to children, and wholly contrary to American values.”