Today would have been Anne Frank’s 89th birthday. The Auschwitz Memorial and the Anne Frank Center have the details:
12 June 1929 | Anne Frank was born in Frankfurt. In 1942 on her 13th birthday she received an empty diary. She died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945.
'Human greatness does not lie in wealth or power, but in character and goodness.' (#AnneFrank) pic.twitter.com/1YVRkEVHkP
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) June 12, 2018
‘I want to go on living even after my death!’
‘When I write I can shake off all my cares’ – Anne FrankToday would have been Anne Frank's 89th birthday. She remains a beacon of hope in darkness, and we are honored to uphold her legacy. We must teach the past to build the future
— Anne Frank Center (@AnneFrankCenter) June 12, 2018
Anne Frank was registered in #Auschwitz on 5 September 1944 after being deported from #Westerbork in occupied #Netherlands with her parents Edith & Otto and her sister Margot. On 30 October 1944 Anne & Margot were transferred to KL Bergen-Belsen where they both died in 1945. https://t.co/MtufgAYzU3
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) June 12, 2018
One has to wonder whether 89 years from now school children will read the diaries and journals of the children that the President and Attorney General Sessions, after receiving policy recommendations from the wickedest of sons Stephen Miller, have ordered be separated from their parents and interned. And just what those diaries will say. How they will indict us as a society. How they will convey our cruelty and heartlessness to future generations.
The President of the United States reportedly considering construction of a prison camp to hold up to 5,000 children https://t.co/H1ovc4I7pv
— Wesley (@WesleyLowery) June 12, 2018
They're calling them "tent cities" but yes, they are camps. They're going to construct camps for children. https://t.co/RI3vrJpIhu
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) June 12, 2018
I think the word is "camps." Prison camps, for the kids.https://t.co/P4he3iUzLT
— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) June 12, 2018
According to one lawsuit filed against the Department of Homeland Security, one C.B.P. officer, in McAllen, Texas, allegedly told an asylum seeker, “Trump says we don’t have to let you in.” https://t.co/wQgHHssqsV
— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) June 11, 2018
NEWS: Attorney General Jeff Sessions says the Trump administration will reject requests for asylum on the basis of domestic violence or gang violence.https://t.co/NlaXhgBIJh pic.twitter.com/brnVWtG28P
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) June 11, 2018
Sessions said today this asylum decision is based on applying law consistently. But he also acknowledged his top goal in all things is keeping people from coming to the US https://t.co/LLcDVsjsmW pic.twitter.com/FxcQuFpLMF
— Elise Foley (@elisefoley) June 11, 2018
A public defender in McAllen says some migrants are told their kids are going to be taken away briefly to bathe, and then it dawns on them hours later they aren't coming back
— Liz Goodwin (@lizcgoodwin) June 10, 2018
While it is true that US military bases have been used during past administrations, both Democratic and Republican, to temporarily house unaccompanied minors who were sent to the US and entered without documentation to get them away from violence in their native countries, what the President and Attorney General Sessions have ordered is something new and different: children separated from parents who have requested asylum. Showing up at a port of entry or presenting oneself to Customs and Border Patrol personnel after an undocumented entry to request asylum are not criminal offenses. The former is actually allowed by US law, the latter, at worst, is a civil misdemeanor. And both situations, as a result of US Senate ratified treaty obligations pertaining to asylum seekers that have the force of US law, require humane treatment of asylum seekers. They are also separating children from parents who have made an undocumented entry into the US without claiming asylum, justifying it by claiming the law requires it. Here too undocumented entry is a civil misdemeanor, not a criminal offense. There is nothing in the law that requires that children be separated from their parents if families are apprehended while attempting an undocumented entry or after making an undocumented entry.
The reality of America is once again very, very far away from the ideal that is America. These children will record their judgements of America in the diaries and journals they keep. Judgements that will stand with those recorded in Anne Frank’s diary. And history will not remember this time in America favorably.
Open thread!