Liberals get 'woke' that families at the border get separated
SAN DIEGO -- In the words attributed to the great Panamanian boxer Roberto Duran: "No mas!" I can't take it anymore.
Even as a Mexican-American "Never Trumper" who has been attacked for three decades by racists and restrictionists for defending illegal immigrants, I've had my fill of the recent surge of convenient and politically driven outrage over the policy of separating families.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, as many as 2,342 children were taken into custody from May 5 to June 9.
It's tempting to join the liberal media chorus and blame the ghastly practice of separating families solely on President Trump's "zero tolerance" policy. The administration's "axis of evil" -- White House aide Stephen Miller, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and White House chief of staff and former Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly -- have made it clear that they wanted to punish parents who come here illegally by confiscating their children at the border as a form of deterrence.
If only life were that simple. I'll admit that it's not exactly responsible parenting to bring your child with you while entering the United States illegally, if you'll admit that neither is leaving your child to the tender mercies of ruthless and violent gangs in Central America.
If you never have to make that choice, be grateful. And -- if you host a talk show on Fox News -- you should also be quiet.
And yet, those of us who follow the immigration debate closely year in and year out -- and not just when there's a Republican in the White House -- and who remember the atrocities committed by the Obama administration will have difficulty pinning the current border crisis entirely on President Trump.
I'll leave that trick to partisan Democrats with bad memories. For instance, it was priceless to see what California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said about the border crisis of summer 2014, when more than 100,000 women and children from Central America came across the U.S.-Mexico border. Feinstein claims she was totally unaware that President Obama had reinstated a policy of incarcerating immigrant families at the border. That story was hard to miss.
Now, with Trump in the White House, it's a new day. Who knew that liberals, Democrats and Trump-haters cared so much about the well-being of immigrant and refugee children who get separated from their parents?
Especially given how indifferent many of those same folks seemed just four or five years ago when the president doing the separating was a Democrat.
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