Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

You are here: Home / Organizing & Resistance / Don't Agonize - Organize / Child Separation Abuse Open Thread: Agonize, But ALSO Organize

Child Separation Abuse Open Thread: Agonize, But ALSO Organize

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(If you click on the above tweet, Cameron has much more personal detail… but it’s really heartbreaking.)

Reader Interactions

108Comments

  2. 2.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Call your Congress Critters, good and bad. Tell the good ones that you have their backs and tell the bad ones that you are coming for them.

  4. 4.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Joe Scarborough
    ✔
    @JoeNBC

    I am sorry that the Trump Administration has created a vicious policy where parents are told their children are being taken to showers and never return.

    You built that, Joe.

    You and your corrupt, idiot show gave Drumpf hundres of millions of dollars in free advertising, while savaging Clinton every second over two-bit emails.

  5. 5.

    Josie

    Bless you for posting this, AL. As Dana says, those of us who are from the Valley know better than anyone how stupid and evil this policy is. I grew up and lived fifteen miles or so from the border, where gringos were always in the minority and never had a moment’s trouble because of it. The Valley is a beautiful place precisely because of the mix of two cultures.

  8. 8.

    lamh36

    Thank you for this AL.

    @Amy_Siskind
    Following Following @Amy_Siskind
    More
    Just got this message from a concerned citizen in Tornillo, TX if anyone can answer:

    “I’m here along the border. Where are the girls? We can’t find them anywhere. All we hear about are boys. Here in Tornillo they’re bringing in boys. Where are the girls? We are panicking.”

    5:03 PM – 16 Jun 2018

    @Amy_Siskind
    I’ve asked this several times. @jacobsoboroff reported this week that he inquired about the girls and they declined to answer. WHERE ARE THE GIRLS!!
    https://twitter.com/CeletaQ/status/1008108716716183576

    I’ve been asking myself, why ARE we only seeing the boys? The guy on Chris said that the brothers and sisters are allowed to talk to each other once a week or something via Skype or phone I believe…but so far, no one has any idea where the girls are located…

    Maybe I’m being paranoid, but it’s just too damn suspcious

    ETA: Also too, where are they keeping the babies/toddlers? So far we’ve only see the all boys facilities

  10. 10.

    dexwood

    I love labeling this as child abuse and hitting hard. Monsters, ghouls, and Nazis.

  12. 12.

    MomSense

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Every day I either call, email, or fax. For those of us who are phone shy, texting Resist to 504-09 is an easy way to take action. Resistbot handles all the details.

  13. 13.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @lamh36: Yea! Mark Pocan is my Rep. He replaced Tammy Baldwin when she went to the Senate. I always need to remind myself to call his office because he always does the right thing.

  15. 15.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @MomSense: I go for once a week. I don’t want to come off as a crank. Different regions, different customs.

    The big point is contact your Congress Critters. However you can. How often you feel effective. Just do it.*

    *Go ahead Nike, sue me.

  17. 17.

    Joyce H

    @lamh36:

    Maybe I’m being paranoid, but it’s just too damn suspcious

    When the leader of the nation that’s seizing these children once owned a business whose business practice was to lure pretty teenagers from Eastern Europe to New York City for “modeling contracts”, no, I don’t think it’s at all paranoid to be asking – WHERE ARE THE GIRLS?

  19. 19.

    sukabi

    @dexwood: it’s worse than child abuse, it’s prolonged terror and psychological abuse. In short they are torturing these kids and their parents.

  21. 21.

    debbie

    I think it’s time to call on the ICC. This is a war crime, even if there isn’t a war.

  24. 24.

    Mary G

    Here is someone who deserves to live in one of the tents instead of the children (WaPo link):

    EDINBURG, TEX. — As outrage mounts over the Trump administration’s separation of hundreds of migrant children from their parents, the person overseeing that zero-tolerance policy on the busiest stretch of the Southwest border said the number of families affected could double.

    Manuel Padilla Jr., Border Patrol chief for the Rio Grande Valley, told The Washington Post on Thursday that his agents had separated 568 parents from children as young as 5 since the zero-tolerance policy was announced on April 6.

    But that figure represented only half the number of parents who could have been prosecuted for entering the country illegally, leaving Border Patrol plenty of room to ramp up family separations.

    “We are trying to build to 100 percent prosecution of everybody that is eligible,” he said. “We are not there yet, but that is our intent.”

    I don’t believe in hell, but if it does exist, this guy will be #1 in line. CHILDREN AS YOUNG AS FIVE YEARS OLD. Atrocities are being committed in our names.

  25. 25.

    debbie

    @lamh36:

    I don’t have cable and so haven’t seen wall-to-wall coverage. The few photographs I have seen, I saw children, not boys or girls, but those tweets are absolutely horrifying. I hope the authorities address this as soon as possible.

  26. 26.

    sempronia

    I haven’t read every comment on every thread, but I haven’t seen it suggested yet. It sounds like they’re not keeping track of which kids belong to which moms. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to tattoo matching numbers on the children’s and moms’ arms, so we can tell? You know – for historical continuity?

  28. 28.

    lamh36

    I have BEEN thinking the fact that this reporters were given the go ahead from HHS to these particular facilities says to my suspicious mind that these were the ones that would put on the greatest show for the press, while aso have the ambiguity of having been used to hold minors during the PBO admin as well. The question again is why not other facilities.

    What don’t they want you to see there?

    @Harryslaststand
    Follow Follow @Harryslaststand
    More
    I would warn journalists who are visiting some of these migrant camps for children in America that show migrant kids playing that the Nazis also built Theresienstadt to show the world’s press and Red Cross how well Jews were treated in concentration camps. #MigrantCrisis

    10:43 AM – 14 Jun 2018

  43. 43.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @debbie: We are not a part of the ICC. That is why Cheney is fine here, but, he should avoid France (for example).

  44. 44.

    Spanky

    @chris: Guess I’m gonna have to stop using “Fucking” as the General’s middle name.

    I apologize to the General and fervently hope this is a reflection of his true character.

  46. 46.

    EZSmirkzz

    @Omnes Omnibus: What are you talking about? It’s an open thread.

    Before looking at that, let’s address another point. The IG Report is in a sense of a masterpiece bureaucratic document. If the effort were to hide evidence of bias out of the New York field office it does a poor job. It simply draws no inferences from that evidence. So, for instance, much of the report is framed around examining whether pretty good evidence of hostility toward candidate Trump (though by no means only Trump) affected the actions of lead agent Peter Strzok. But whether the abundant evidence of bias and actions by those hostile to candidate Clinton had an effect is just passed over.

  49. 49.

    germy

    Overlooked: When Trump came down the escalator and entered the presidential race exactly 3 years ago, he paid actors $50 a pop to cheer him on. (Naturally, he failed to pay the $12,000 bill for months. And eventually, the firm representing the actors had to file an FEC complaint)
    — Ted Davis (@TedDavisSAV) June 16, 2018

  50. 50.

    HAL

    Trump supporting Facebook friend currently has a link to a c-span interview featuring Senator Barack Obama giving a news conference on immigration in which he uses the term illegal immigrant and talks a lot about securing borders, jobs for people willing to patiently go through the legal process and open borders issues etc.

    His point apparently is that both sides are hypocrites on the immigration issue. I can always tell when Trump’s actions are too hard to justify when these posts appear. Don’t ever call out your dear leader. Just pull a decade plus interview out of your ask to justify how horrible the person you voted for is, and ignore any evolution on the subject Obama has made since pre 2008.

  51. 51.

    lamh36

    @Cheryl Rofer: Exactly…it’s even worse not seeing it. I don’t even know that I’ve seen any reporting or even a location of where the facilities are?

    Even if reporters aren’t let in…where da hell are the locations?

  53. 53.

    JPL

    @lamh36: They are not only ripping children away from parents, but they are also separating siblings. It’s unconscionable.

  56. 56.

    lamh36

    @HAL: I have no Trump supporting FB “friends”…I run my FB like a dictatorship…I don’t have my TL bombarded with the bullshit if I don’t want to.

    I may not be able to control much about not having to hear from MAGA idiots, but I can surealy control that.

  57. 57.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @lamh36:

    I swear there is sexual abuse/trafficking going on with the girls (quite probably some of the boys, too). The past year and a half has been testing, but this situation is beyond my most terrifying nightmares.

    **********

    Way, way O/T: Barack Obama reads well-written, policy-centric, occasionally wonky books. Donald Trump reads recommends books by people who like him, especially if his name is in the title.

  59. 59.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @lamh36: I have seen no reports of locations for the camps for girls and for babies and toddlers.

    I did retweet a request from a woman who does maps for information about camp locations.

  61. 61.

    JPL

    @chris: He is upset, and rightly so. I see what is happening on the border and I think about the boats we turned away before WWII. It’s the same thing. Do you die there, or try to escape to a better life.

  62. 62.

    lamh36

    @Cheryl Rofer: I mean…am I crazy on this Cheryl or what…because…they’ve already admitted to seperating siblings. They already told the reporters brothers and sisters are allowed to talk once a week or whatever…they even put out that ridiculous “they had a prom” bullshit…ok…then where are the “prom girls” coming from…

  63. 63.

    hervevillechaizelounge

    Join me in Crazytown: it is possible this was all planned and Pizzagate was a false flag to ultimately allow the media to both-sides the inevitable sexual abuse which awaits these children?

    Every republican accusation is really an admission in disguise.

    Related: I can no longer discern which of my paranoid thoughts are socially
    acceptable:(

  64. 64.

    JPL

    @sukabi: In the 80’s when I lived in Dallas, a neighbor a few doors down from me adopted a 4 and 5 year old who lost their parents due to violence in Mexico. Their two sons were off to college, and they had plenty of room, but were told not to separate the girl and boy, because of the trauma they already occurred in their lives. They shared a room until they felt more comfortable. Oh the family also had 24 hour security outside their house, because the pro-fetus folks targeted the dad because he was the hospital administrator at a hospital that performed safe abortions.
    The long term damage that Trump is doing cannot be fixed.

  65. 65.

    sukabi

    @JPL: there’s a long, uphill road to redemption for this country, and we haven’t even started the climb.

  66. 66.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @lamh36: No, you’re not crazy. I can’t imagine how people are willing to do this.

    Well, actually, I can, but I would have preferred to believe that Americans wouldn’t.

    Here’s a good article from a lawyer who has thought about this. She also had a good thread last night about how she thinks this came about. I’ll see if I can find it, in between cleaning the house, which is how I’ve been posting all day.

    I think about this experience when I think about the front-line CBP agents, ICE agents and HHS officials who have been ordered to forcibly separate children from their parents, attend to young children in government facilities, or supervise the placement of these children in foster homes thousands of miles from their parent. And I think about the government lawyers giving those agents and officials advice about how to implement the order they have been given.

    It is beyond the scope of this post to further explore the potential civil rights or other legal theories implicated by physically removing children from their parents in the course of border and immigration enforcement—and, if the allegation noted at the outset is true, of government agents misleading migrant parents about where their children are being taken. But it is incumbent on the agents, lawyers and other personnel involved in these processes to carefully consider the guidance their agency is issuing. I wonder: Can they say no? Has anyone in a position of authority told them they can say no? Is anyone willing to say no?

  68. 68.

    EZSmirkzz

    Hope I didn’t kill your thread AL. Interesting observation at dKos,

    The Trump administration is presently recycling the same playbook it used to strip Dreamers of their deportation protections, and using it to rip children away from their parents. Here’s their game: Donald Trump and his officials unilaterally start executing a policy that creates a desperate dilemma, then they claim that a GOP-led Congress—that has proven almost totally incompetent at passing anything—must fix it legislatively, and then they make extreme demands about the legislative fix, rendering it DOA in at least one if not both, chambers of Congress. Finally, the White House and GOP lawmakers then ultimately blame Democrats for failing to fix the problem they created and failed to fix, even though they’re running the entire government.

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/6/16/1772466/-View-from-the-Left-In-raw-struggle-between-good-and-evil-Republicans-side-with-pure-evil

    Above my pay grade to call things pure evil, but as I noted, Matthew Dowd noted Trump could reverse this policy with a stroke of the pen. To quote the Apostle Paul, “I would hate to be condemned for the things of which I approve.” I’ll stick to my previous comment on the subject, https://balloon-juice.com/2018/06/14/america-is-not-a-theocracy-and-attorney-general-sessions-and-the-white-house-press-secretary-dont-know-anything-about-the-bible/#comment-6908739

    Peace

  69. 69.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    It is a shame that we are not part of the ICC, because the first bastard who should be put on the docks is Stephen Miller! And in Phoenix, at a rally against the policy we see some Pro Trump supporters who in a few years if things don’t improve, will be the ones operating the death camps.

  71. 71.

    MomSense

    @Catherine D.:

    Mine have always gotten through. They will also submit your message as a letter to the editor or tweet if you give the ok.

    Before 2017, I never had trouble getting through to a human being on the phone at any of Collins’ offices but now you either get voicemail or a full voicemail message.

  73. 73.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Here’s the thread I mentioned above:

  75. 75.

    debbie

    I just faxed and emailed Rob Portman, that son of a bitch.

    Senator Portman:

    Where do you stand on immigration and what is your position on the detention of refugees and the separation of children from their parents?

    Do you stand behind those members on your side of the aisle who support Trump and Session’s policy of separating children from their parents and their siblings, refusing all contact for even the most desolate children? Is this really how the pro-life party treats children?

    You present yourself as a reasonable Republican, yet you say nothing. Are you blind to the optics of this situation? Is this really what the Republican Party has come to? Your silence is complicity and the stink of this will never leave you.

    If you still consider yourself to be a man of principle, stand up and speak up loudly and forcibly to stop this. Right now.

    And now the countdown for the mealy-mouthed email response begins.

  76. 76.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    @JPL: We are quickly going beyond Truth and reconciliation stage, if the Democratic Party comes back to power, I want public spectacles of a trial with these CO(CENSORED!!!!)ERS!!!!

  78. 78.

    burnspbesq

    @debbie:

    I think it’s time to call on the ICC.

    Waste of time. No jurisdiction. The U.S. signed the treaty, but has never ratified it, and later notified the UN that it didn’t intend to become a party.

  79. 79.

    debbie

    @burnspbesq:

    Thanks. At least now I understand. Appalling that we wouldn’t be part of it. Some fucking shining beacon on the hill are we.

  80. 80.

    schrodingers_cat

    This policy is Marine General Kelly’s brainchild. He came up with it when he headed the DHS. His protege Nielsen has put it in practice with blessings from the WH. I am just surprised that it took them this long. This was their plan all along.

  84. 84.

    WaterGirl

    What’s happening is beyond horrible. On a different note, I am really liking what I am seeing from Beto O’Rourke.

  85. 85.

    B.B.A.

    There was an argument that the ICC treaty would violate the Constitution by granting judicial power to something other than the Article III courts.

    I see this as a flaw in the Constitution rather than the treaty.

  86. 86.

    Yutsano

    @JPL: Here what I want to know Representative Hurd: what do you plan to DO about it? Are you actually going to go against your party’s actions here and stand up to the president and the attorney general? Or are you just going to shrug your shoulders and say “Oh well”? Don’t just fucking talk you coward: DO SOMETHING.

  88. 88.

    Platonailedit

    UPDATE: 43 senators now support our bill to bar children from being taken from their parents at the border. We still need a Republican senator to join. If you’re represented by a Republican senator, please ask them to cosponsor S.3036.

    #FamiliesBelongTogether— Sen Dianne Feinstein (@SenFeinstein) June 15, 2018

    Apparently McCaskill, Heitkamp, Manchin, Stabenow, Tester & Donnelly are the 6 holdouts. Call them.

  90. 90.

    MomSense

    @WereBear:

    I love resistbot. I’ve been on an automatic payment every month since it started – not much but any little bit we can do to facilitate engagement and advocacy is worth it.

  91. 91.

    WaterGirl

    I wonder how many of these Republicans sobbed when they watched the child in Kramer v. Kramer doing hysterically as she (I believe it was a girl) was being ripped away from one of her parents.

    Of course, that girl was white and she looked like their kids.

    On a different note, I couldn’t help but notice the reference to “showers” in Joe’s tweet – that made me wonder if he is Jewish. The parallels are obvious, hopefully that will help wake people up to this atrocity.

  92. 92.

    B.B.A.

    @Omnes Omnibus: An unconstitutional treaty doesn’t become constitutional because the Senate ratifies it. We could make a treaty with the Vatican declaring Catholicism the state religion, but that doesn’t mean etc.

  95. 95.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @B.B.A.: I don’t have the time nor the patience to explain why membership in the ICC is not unconstitutional.

  99. 99.

    J R in WV

    This is copied from my comment in Immigration Endgame, because a new comment would be just really hard.

    I can’t really comment on this whole child abuse thing very well. I just want to RAGE in all caps, and using vile language which applies to those from the top — Trump — all the way down to individual enforcement agents in the field, along the border.

    Those agents should be informed that “I was just following policy, following orders…” was not acceptable for those guards in Europe in the middle of the last century, and it won’t excuse crimes being committed by government employees today either.

    These border agents and private contractor employees are quite likely guilty of kidnapping and associated child abuse crimes. These people better wake up and realize they are committing crimes, not executing a job according to laws and policies. It is criminal conduct, and ignorance nor policy is no excuse.

    I won’t be commenting much, because I can’t control myself very well right now.

  105. 105.

    Mike G

    @HAL:

    Trump supporting Facebook friend currently has a link to a c-span interview featuring Senator Barack Obama giving a news conference on immigration in which he uses the term illegal immigrant and talks a lot about securing borders, jobs for people willing to patiently go through the legal process and open borders issues etc.

    These are the same people who bought Trump’s bullshit that Obama was inviting millions of the world’s worst to stroll across the wide-open border and sign up for secret-lucrative welfare that Americans couldn’t get.

    I’m seeing a lot of defensive troll lies about Trump/Sessions’ policy too — “It’s the same as Obama’s policy”, “It’s the law now so that makes it right”, “American prisoners don’t get to have their kids stay with them”, etc.

  106. 106.

    scav

    At this point, I’m not going to call them Trump supporters any more: I want something stronger to call them, to their faces. I was playing with enablers, but I’m thinking collaborators might have more resonance. Probably will keep both in my pocket. (Jam them in with all the swear-heavy words that really want to come rocketing out.)

  107. 107.

    John Fremont

    @lamh36: Don’t forget during Operation Iraqi Freedom the DoD coordinating “narrative maintenance and development ” with embedded journalists. There was also plenty of retired officers providing commentary who were actually hired by contracted PR firms doing business with the Pentagon.

  108. 108.

    Gravie

    My current Senator, Merkley, is leading the charge on this. Happy to see that my former Senator, Van Hollen, is joining in. We will need to have their backs now, and especially when they’re up for reelection. The rich, depraved, and relentless right-wing smear machine will be looking for payback against them.

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