12/ Today’s DHS Kidnapping policy is the logical extension of yesterday’s family detention decisions. It’s the same mouthful of detention-as-deterrence mouthwash, just swished to the other side. Nothing, NOTHING in our law requires us to abuse and traumatize families and children
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13/ The reason otherwise friendly partisans on the left went to the mat with the Obama Admin is because we saw the utter inhumanity that happens inside these internment camps. Women aren’t allowed to let their children farther than 3 feet away from them. Imagine your toddler.
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14/ I remember holding back tears when I saw cutouts from Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar on the walls in the “kids’ area” of the legal trailer and thinking about how this would mean those kids will always associate the same book I was reading my child with this jail.
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15/ I remember hearing the constant, violent coughing and sickness of small children, and the worry of their mothers who stood in the sun outside the clinic all day only to be told their kids should “drink water.” I remember nearly doubling over when I saw the line of strollers.
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16/ if being in these cages ate away at our humanity, getting to know the people locked inside them helped restore it. They women We represented had been raped, beaten, or stalked in some of the most violent places on the planet. They carried on for their kids. They had hope.
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17/ And the detention policies of the last administration were set up to deter that hope. All the while yielding a hefty corporate profit. It was and is a moral failing that these places still existed when President Obama left office. It wasn’t for want of trying to close them.
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18/ I remember sitting down with my Member of Congress soon after I got back from the baby jail and trying to impress upon him the fierce urgency of taking immediate action to close these places down. I believed if people just knew, it would end. We as a nation would end it.
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18/ I’ll never forget what he told me, back in August of 2015. “Do you realize that Donald Trump — DONALD TRUMP!!! — is currently polling at nearly 40% in Tennessee? His point was that politically, I was probably wrong: People might not end up caring, even if they learned.
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19/ what I hope for us in this moment of critical mass, in this tipping point, is that we will collectively have the courage to hold our leaders accountable when they tell us putting families in for-profit cages to deter asylum-seeking is necessary to stop family separation.
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20/ To do that, we need smart, effective experts helping our leaders formulate the policy solutions. To me, that means helping and deploy their wealth of knowledge. It means helping and and and organize.
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21/ It means making sure and and and and have the resources they need to represent, visit, and document the abuses committed against human beings in cages. And it means showing up when we’re called to be present/
Unfortunately, by suggesting that Trump's separation of toddlers from their parents is a logical extension of an Obama-era policy will be used by Trump apologists to justify their heinous policies. You are working against yourself and these kids. Unfortunate.
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Indeed: however unthinkable family-detention was under #POTUS44, families were still together. turned it up a notch to an even more immoral level by separating children from their families...
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ok... we dropped the ball when Obama was prez. but now Trump is prez...and doing this. shouldnt we focus on this, right now? how does saying this started with obama help? regardless of where it started, its wrong to separate kids from parents.
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Agree but it's important to acknowledge our immigration policy has sucked for more than just this administration. It goes back decades. So let's use our new outrage at Trump's policies to make sure we elect NEW people to Congress who will actually enact true reform!
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I heard Australia’s policies were grotesque, leading to depression and suicides among refugees. Have things improved?
I am on your side and empathize with your position. But I hope you realize that this thread will be cited ad nauseum by the MAGA crowd seeking to bolster their narrative that Obama was as bad as Trump. Maybe you believe that too, but it's demonstrably false.
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Seeking asylum is not a crime, 3>, get that through your head!
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