What's more horrifying: Trump administration tricking/coercing parents into giving up their children, or that some people will excuse it, with "if they didn't want [to be tricked into giving away their kids], they should've crossed the border legally." pbs.org/newshour/amp/n…
Many of these parents DID cross the border legally, to seek asylum, and STILL had their children taken. But those who didn't? The penalty for misdemeanor improper border crossing isn't *having your children taken miles away, indefinitely.* In fact, it's *usually* a $10 fine.
I've noted before that "If you don't want your kids taken, don't cross the border illegally" is another iteration of "if you don't want to be killed by cops, don't break the law." It's obscenely disproportionate punishment, applied almost exclusively to people of color.
It's unjust enough that laws as written are applied so unequally by race-- countless cases where a transgression that lands a person of color behind bars get a white person a warning, and the data bear it out in multifaceted ways at the system level... slate.com/articles/news_…
And in terms of undocumented immigrants, overall? The majority overstayed their initially valid visas. The focus on being here *legally* is applied selectively-- to migrants of color, fleeing violence and poverty. nbcnews.com/news/latino/vi…
So, "you shouldn't be here illegally" or "you shouldn't have broken the law" comes with an asterisk: "*since you're brown/black." And with the force of white supremacy, the implication is you deserve what you get-- however disproportionate, however inhumane it might be.
And one needn't be a historian to see how "a person like you deserves what you get" escalates. It's playing out before our eyes.
If you think (certain kind of) people crossing the border justifies taking their children? Caging them? Coercing them into giving the kids up? What more? Where's the line? Is there one? For the answer, one need only turn to "should've obeyed the law" applied to POC shot by cops.
