A Combination of Cruelty and Ineptitude

THIS SUMMER, people were filled with righteous anger about the separation of children from their families at the southern U.S. border. The crisis sparked a critical mass of outrage about the Trump administration’s inhumane policy, especially when audio surfaced of separated children crying desperately for their parents. The press, a few members of Congress, and other elected leaders did heroic work in exposing the horrific human toll of these policies.

In the weeks the family separation policy was in place, more than 2,300 children were separated from their parents. Reuniting these children with their families will take months. Some of these children may never be reunited with parents—meaning they effectively have been made orphans by this administration’s combination of cruelty and ineptitude.

Make no mistake: This was not merely an accidental byproduct of a convoluted and broken immigration system that is long overdue for comprehensive, just, and compassionate reform. Family separation was the direct consequence of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy toward immigrants, some of whom were following the legal path of pursuing asylum. Administration officials argued that forcibly separating children from their parents was acceptable because it would be a “deterrent” to families seeking to enter the United States without proper authorization.

FOR MANY PEOPLE of faith, the atrocity was compounded when Attorney General Jeff Sessions and White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders decided to abuse scripture in their attempts to justify the abuse of immigrant children by claiming that zero tolerance, and by extension family separation, was “biblical,” offering a massive misinterpretation of Romans 13. Faith leaders from a wide variety of denominations—from the U.S. Catholic bishops and Sessions’ own United Methodist Church to the Southern Baptists and the National Association of Evangelicals—said no.

The broad group of Christian elders who initiated the Reclaiming Jesus movement, which Sojourners helped convene, issued a call to action titled “‘Suffer the Little Children’: The separation of immigrant children from their parents is not biblical.” The call offered a theological and scriptural explanation of why this cruel policy is so clearly counter to God’s Word.

The crescendo of outrage at the sheer inhumanity of family separation forced Donald Trump to retreat and sign an executive order that he claimed would end family separation. The fact that our society showed itself still capable of moral outrage sufficient to reverse Trump’s course provides some hope for the future. But Trump’s executive order was insufficient and flawed—it merely set the stage for a more difficult but equally important fight to end the inhumane treatment of migrants at the border. Trump’s rhetoric since then, such as tweeting that undocumented immigrants will “infest our country,” makes clear that he intends to continue to stoke racist and xenophobic sentiments toward immigrants as an election issue.

The Trump administration now wants to detain families indefinitely in facilities that resemble prison camps and is trying to get courts to lift the 20-day limit for keeping children in adult detention facilities. The so-called zero-tolerance policy for families at the border amounts to a zero-compassion policy, and it has to be stopped.

There are practical and proven methods for ensuring that migrants seeking asylum have their cases fairly adjudicated and show up for their day in court, including electronic monitoring and assigning case workers to families. While far from ideal, this is a much more humane option. Children do not belong in prison—full stop. The fact that their parents committed the misdemeanor offense of unauthorized entry doesn’t change that. Such misdemeanors in no way justify the lasting harm of separating children from their parents.

Congress urgently needs to step in. Trump and his administration have demonstrated over and over that they simply do not possess the empathy or decency to treat immigrant families humanely, and they cannot be trusted to do so under current law. Congress should act to prevent this or any future president from using an inhumane zero-tolerance policy toward migrants crossing the border. Congress must also compel the administration to swiftly reunify families separated under this disastrous policy and forbid the separation of parents from children in any circumstance except when the parents themselves endanger a child’s well-being.

Scripture is authoritatively clear on the obligation of Christians to treat “strangers” as we would treat Christ himself; to love our neighbors, especially those who are different from us, as ourselves; and to take special care of vulnerable children. We can do no other than to fight for a country that treats immigrants with empathy and compassion, tempering justice with mercy for these beloved children of God.