LUKE 6:31 31 Do to others as you would like them to do to you. (NLT)
By now, all of us have heard about the current Trump administration and Justice Department’s police to separate children from their parents who have crossed the border from Mexico into the United States. This policy is evil, inhumane, wicked, immoral, cruel and cold-hearted… How can one human being take crying children from the arms of their parents and justify this as appropriate and acceptable behavior? Well, it has been done in the past. This country has a history of this type of evil, inhumane, wicked, immoral, cruel and cold-hearted behavior.
This type of behavior is best accomplished by first dehumanizing and devaluing the person or group of people. Once the person or group of people are dehumanized and/or devalued, it is easier to justify inhumane treatment of them.
- Native Americans in America who were massacred and treated like animals
- Africans on the continent of Africa, and forcibly brought to America in chains
- People of African descent who were brutally beaten, tortured, malnourished, treated worse than the farm animals, etc.
- Jim Crow Laws that reinforced racism, discrimination, lynchings, etc.
- Jews in Nazi Germany who were imprisoned, tortured and exterminated, etc.
- Japanese in America during WWII who were imprisoned, beatened, tortured
Therefore, it was not difficult for the Trump administration and Justice Department to develop a policy that would include the separation of children from parents seeking to enter the country.
Even worse, the reports reveal that the children are being kept in cages. Children are sleeping on mattresses on the floor. Children cannot be hugged by those who are providing “care” for them. How can they provide care for these children, who are going through the most traumatic experience that they have ever experienced – being removed from their parents – without being allowed to give hugs and provide physical comfort?
This is reminiscent of our foremothers who had their children taken from them, and would never see them again. Often times, the children were taken from the mothers while they were still nursing them. The mothers would be forced to go back to the fields bearing the pain of their milk filled breasts. Slave narratives reveal that as these mothers were whipped, milk and blood would be co-mingled in the air
Additionally, the practice of taking children from their parents was done on the West Coast of Africa and in the concentration camps in Germany
To make this situation even more egregious, there is no policy for reuniting parents with their children. The director of the unaccompanied minors program for Catholic Charities said, “There is no system whatsoever to track these family separations, no efforts systematically to reunite thee families. There is no supervisor, there is no database saying ‘child here, parent there,’ so they can come back together.” The following has occurred with many of the parents:
- Parents were not given the opportunity to say “Good bye” to their children (many taken forcibly and deceptively)
- Parents have no contact with nor do they know the location of their children
- No identifying numbers were given to associate parents with their children
Sadly, the United Nations has determined that the US is a human rights violator. Many of these mothers are refugees who were seeking asylum. God only knows the long-term emotional and psychological impact of this separation on the children.
“Cursed is anyone who denies justice to foreigners, orphans, or widows…” Deuteronomy 27:19 (NLT)
