The news that Trump is ordering an end to family separations at the border is good. It’s a limited act — he’s still enforcing an unconscionable “zero tolerance” policy against people seeking asylum and will now likely seek merely to prosecute and incarcerate children with their parents — but it is a step back from the brink and any step back in this madness is something. There will almost certainly be devils within the details of his order — he is Donald Trump and he is incapable of anything honest, straightforward and in good faith — but it is a sign of limited surrender, even if temporary, on the specific point of family separation.
The child separation policy, it should be noted, was calculated to (a) intimidate and terrorize immigrants; and to (b) create a needless crisis through which he endeavored to obtain legislative concessions furthering his xenophobic anti-immigrant agenda. It’s also clear that Republicans were all too eager to play along with Trump, attempting to use the cover of this crisis as a means of ramming through such legislation all while making a public case that, if Democrats did not sign on, they were not truly interested in addressing immigrants’ plight. It was cynical and disingenuous theater at best. In my view it was an attempt at appeasement of government-implemented terrorism. However you describe it, it was shameful.
This order does not end the matter, of course. For one thing — the most important thing — thousands of children have been taken from their parents already, some of whom have been whisked thousands of miles from their families, many of whom may never be seen again by their mothers and fathers. Significant damage has already been done to them, psychologically and otherwise. That damage will not be fixed by the issuance of an order. It will likely last years. In some cases it will last forever.
It will also not end Trump’s efforts to implement his anti-immigrant agenda. He will continue to seek to deprive immigrants, both those already here and those seeking to come here, of legal rights. He will still try to degrade, dehumanize and demonize them for political gain. He will still seek to build his pointless wall. On this front he should be fought at every turn by any and all legal, political and legislative means necessary. Even if the ethics of child separation are not complicated, the business of forging immigration policy is not easy business, and in no way should Trump be allowed to be the only voice speaking on the matter.
What he can no longer do, however — and what he should not be allowed to do again — is to manufacture and leverage a humanitarian crisis to to aid in those ends, using screaming children as his bargaining chips. That he has already done so is and will long stand as one of the most immoral and depraved acts undertaken by the United States in recent memory and those responsible for devising the plan, implementing it and defending it should be held to account.
