Well, I guess the problem with either comparison — felony or misdemeanor — is that, as I understand it, if we stop a lone would-be border-crosser and find out that he’s on the brink of breaking that law, we don’t let him in once he pays a fine; we still shoo him away, right? So for the parallel to really work, I guess we need a scenario where the outcome of the trial could be “you don’t get to be in this country”.
Still, I’d genuinely like to hear all of the answers: what do we do when some guy is awaiting a misdemeanor trial and a kid is in the mix; what do we do when some guy is awaiting a felony trial and a kid is in the mix; what do we do when, I dunno, exile is on the table and a kid is in the mix? What do we do when anything even remotely like this comes up, is my question.
Do you lose your children for possession of a small amount of an illegal drug?
Do you lose your children if you are charged with shop lifting?
Are these asylum seekers given a chance to post a bond?
Under the assumption that we have made decision to incarcerate them for being charged with a misdemeanor, is there anything physically preventing that from happening?
Because TOWP was asking about felonies, with possible consequences of life imprisonment or execution.
And that is actually a problem with our legal system that should be addressed as well, that people sit for months, or even years in jail, awaiting a trial for crimes that doesn’t even require a prison sentence.
Missed the edit window: The DHHR in my state routinely files abuse and neglect petitions and removes children whose parents commit crimes in their presence.
Generally, in the legal system, we do whatever is most punitive and painful for the family and the child. Not sure really that we should model other things on what are already harmful practices to our citizenry. Be better to fix our problems than make sure that others suffer for them.
There aren’t all that many situations remotely like this, other than this situation. We don’t have exile, we only have deportation of people we’ve decided don’t belong here.
But, in general, if a kid is taken from a family that is not capable of legally caring for it, it goes into child protective services. There will be fostering, maybe orphanage type of thing. But not tent cities in the southern desert in summer. How many children will we suffer to die in those conditions before anyone bothers to give a shit? I know we let adults die from exposure in these conditions without doing anything about it, I doubt that the “compassionate conservatives” will give one more damn about children, as long as the are of the wrong skin color and nationality.
But this crime is unique in that it is a misdemeanor where there is a great unlikelihood that the defendant will appear for trial if released on any bond. Even if a bond is set and he cannot post it, do we really put children in holding cells with their parents?
I think the answer is that those on the left do not consider border crossing to be a “real” crime like DUI or domestic battery, therefore, there should not be arrests at all. Then, change the law.
The OP is too general, and assumes we are all talking about the illegal immigration/asylum issue. There are certainly some times when children need to be separated form their parents. One might even argue that illegally smuggling children across the border (especially in dangerous circumstances) is child abuse.
But, as noted, this is a new policy rooted in punishing the parents or deterring future border crossing by others, not protecting the child. It’s using children as pawns in a policy ploy. We should not be doing this.
These are asylum seekers. They generally turn up, because if they don’t then their chances of being granted asylum are zero. As far as bonds that cannot be posted, like I said earlier, that’s a problem with our legal system in general. If we want to solve that issue as well, tat’s great, otherwise, it’s a distraction.
As far as “real crime”, sure illegal immigration is. But it is not a felony, and it does not have a victim, so I would treat it more along the lines of possession of drugs crime than a DUI or battery, where you have actual or potential victims of physical harm.
And as far as asylum seekers, which is what we are talking about here, they are not committing any crime at all. Even if they are turned down, they still did not commit a crime when they crossed the border with the intent of seeking asylum. They would only commit a crime by staying i the country after being rejected or after not showing up for their court date.
It would be like charging someone for trespassing on their neighbor’s lawn while their house burned down and taking away their children. Even if you say they can’t stay on their neighbor’s lawn, you still can’t charge them with trespassing and tell them that you are taking their children away for a bath, never to be seen again.
Let’s also remember why a big number of these families are showing up in the US: fleeing horrible violence in their own countries. The idea of these parents showing up in the US, hoping to find a home where they won’t be tracked down and murdered, only to find that their children are taken away not simply as a logistical consequence of not having appropriate places to house them, but as a punishment for fleeing their gang-ridden hometowns.
Well now that is a separate issue but it is something I agree on. We must do more to help those people back in their home countries so they do not have to move here.
As I understand it alot of the newer immigrants are from Central America fleeing violence.
I’m sure they’d get a lot of Democratic votes if they proposed a simple bill to stop doing this. I wouldn’t be surprised if they got more Democratic votes than Republican votes.
I see it as part and parcel of the same issue. These people are essentially fleeing for their lives from gang wars, and we are going to tell them, “Go somewhere else, or we will take your children! Hope ya don’t get murdered!”
I don’t see how anyone can countenance this policy and still assert they care about humanity.
Even if all you know about Jesus is what your average secular person knows, you’d know that Jesus would hate gratuitous cruelty to children. You don’t even need to crack a Bible to know Sessions is wrong.
But if you’re a Christian and you need more than that, consider “love your neighbor as yourself.” This is one of the two Great Commandments, encompassing the Law and the Prophets. You interpret other Scriptures in the light of these, not the other way around. If your interpretation of some other Scripture justifies actions that run roughshod over “love your neighbor as yourself,” as this policy does, you’re doing it wrong. It’s that simple.
The last time I had a visceral reaction of this kind to reading about what my government is doing on my behalf it was about Abu Ghraib.
How fucking dare they? We need to be shouting about this. It’s beyond wrong, and it’s the sort of thing you get from immoral pricks like Trump and Sessions and the people who elected them. The latter group can begin redeeming themselves by leading the resistance to this inhumanity.
But, again, what complicates the analogy is that, if a guy gets caught in possession of drugs, he doesn’t simply pay a fine and then get handed back those drugs so he can keep on possessing them; and, if he gets caught starting up a car before he actually does any driving under the influence, he doesn’t just serve time behind bars before being told that he can now go out and drive under the influence.
And, likewise, if a guy gets caught trying to illegally slip across the border, the idea is that he gets penalized and then doesn’t get to stay, right?
As for what they do with children of people that are arrested for other reasons in the USA, there are organizations that look for the welfare of the children of the people that are incarcerated.
It looks like so far, that agencies like those ones are not being consulted at all regarding the children of the people asking for asylum.
Hahaha, that’s a good one! Could you please describe for the audience how exactly this works?
“Hey Luiz, I’m heading up to the border where I am certain to get arrested! Can I borrow your kid for extra sympathy points?”
“Sure Hector, go ahead! Just make sure the kid joins MS-13 as soon as he gets there, that’s his real family!”
That one little statement about borrowing a kid to defeat the immigration system packs a lot of assumptions into it. Immigrants value their children less? Immigrants are happy to lend out their children to defeat the border authorities? Immigrants are dumb enough to think a sad story and a crying kid will be the magic bullet that the border authorities cannot defeat?