Separating immigrant families and imprisoning children

[MaxVel]

Or "but- but Obama" if you want to avoid the difficult issues. I wonder what makes you think it makes even the tiniest difference to the moral issues whether Obama did the same thing or not. And Sessions even made a biblical defence of the absurdities. But somehow it seems the Obama past is all you are worried about.

The difference is that many are quite happy to give Obama a pass for doing what they vilify Trump for. And thus many on the right no longer care what their political opponents think of the morality or otherwise of their actions.

[Charles]

The difference is that many are quite happy to give Obama a pass for doing what they vilify Trump for. And thus many on the right no longer care what their political opponents think of the morality or otherwise of their actions.

I hope you realise that this, even if true, still makes no difference to the moral issue and to Sessions' idea that this immoral behaviour finds its justification in the Bible? But it is of course easier to avoid all that...

[Mountain Man]

As the late Paul Harvey use to say, "And now, the rest of the story..."

Source: Inside Shelter for Illegal Alien Children Separated from Parents

The children are separated from their parents — or, to be precise, from the adults accompanying them, who may or may not be their parents — when their parents cross the southern U.S. border illegally and are caught and detained.

[...]

However, families that arrive together at legal ports of entry and apply for asylum status are generally not split up and are permitted to stay in the U.S. pending the adjudication of their applications (which can take several years).

© Copyright Original Source

So the difference here is people who enter the US legally versus those who don't.

So what about the deplorable conditions where the children are kept? Funny you should ask...

Source: Inside Shelter for Illegal Alien Children Separated from Parents

Once the children arrive — usually brought by U.S. Border Patrol agents — they are greeted in the “intake” office, where they receive any urgent medical care, are assigned a case worker, and are given food, a shower, and new clothing. They are also given toiletries and lessons in hygiene — literally how to flush a toilet, brush their teeth, and operate the shower, which some of the children may have never seen in their lives.

The children receive six hours of education daily, which include lessons in English and physical education. The boys interact with girls who are housed offsite and brought to the shelter during the day to access its services.

They have limited access to telephones to call relatives, both in the U.S. and abroad. They receive therapy, both as individuals and in group sessions. They enjoy field trips to local museums, parks, and the zoo, where they can explore the city beyond the shelter. And they also have social activities, including a recent “prom” for which they dressed up.

“Cages,” these are not. What is immediately striking about the facility is the enthusiasm and care of the staff who work there. One administrator greeted the journalists on the tour: “Welcome to our home.” The children at the facility seemed genuinely happy, despite their unfortunate circumstances and the trauma of their long journey.

http://www.breitbart.com/california/...-from-parents/

© Copyright Original Source

Follow the link for all the "grisly" photos of these veritable concentration camps in action.

"The real scandal is how the media have portrayed the shelters. "

[Mountain Man]

The difference is that many are quite happy to give Obama a pass for doing what they vilify Trump for. And thus many on the right no longer care what their political opponents think of the morality or otherwise of their actions.

By all accounts, the current detention centers are far more humane than the ones under Obama.

[MaxVel]

I hope you realise that this, even if true, still makes no difference to the moral issue and to Sessions' idea that this immoral behaviour finds its justification in the Bible? But it is of course easier to avoid all that...

Can you quote Sessions in full context please?



His reference to the Bible is (1) in the context of illegal immigration (Romans 13) and people whop break the law facing prosecution; and (2) a reference to Nehemiah building a wall around Jerusalem to keep bad people out in the context of a defense of the reasonableness of governments having immigration restrictions and not letting anyone and everyone in.

After discussing the use of legal prosecution of illegal immigrants (no mention of asylum seekers) where he cited Romans 13; Sessions goes on to talk about children being separated from their parents. His comments on this topic are that 'it's for a short period of time' and that it's not unusual, it's something that other governments do.

Sessions cited a chapter in Romans while defending the Trump administration's policy of separating parents from their children at the border. The policy has been widely denounced by both religious leaders and immigration advocates, among others.

“I would cite you to the apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13 to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order,” said Sessions, who is also a Sunday school teacher at a United Methodist Church in Mobile, Alabama.

{from the USA Today article you cited}

The above is technically correct, but gives the false impression that Sessions used Romans 13 to defend separating children from their parents. He didn't, he used it to defend prosecuting people who break the immigration laws.


If you can find or supply a transcript of his remarks, I'd happily go through them with you.

[Charles]

Can you quote Sessions in full context please?



His reference to the Bible is (1) in the context of illegal immigration (Romans 13) and people whop break the law facing prosecution; and (2) a reference to Nehemiah building a wall around Jerusalem to keep bad people out in the context of a defense of the reasonableness of governments having immigration restrictions and not letting anyone and everyone in.

After discussing the use of legal prosecution of illegal immigrants (no mention of asylum seekers) where he cited Romans 13; Sessions goes on to talk about children being separated from their parents. His comments on this topic are that 'it's for a short period of time' and that it's not unusual, it's something that other governments do.





{from the USA Today article you cited}

The above is technically correct, but gives the false impression that Sessions used Romans 13 to defend separating children from their parents. He didn't, he used it to defend prosecuting people who break the immigration laws.


If you can find or supply a transcript of his remarks, I'd happily go through them with you.

I note that you are still trying to avoid the moral issue.

I am a bit baffled by your comment that he is not using Romans 13 to defend the policy of separating children from their families. You are playing a bit around with the words when you say: “The above is technically correct, but gives the false impression that Sessions used Romans 13 to defend separating children from their parents. He didn't, he used it to defend prosecuting people who break the immigration laws.”

Sessions defends the fact that prosecuting people who break the immigration laws are prosecuted and thus their children are separated from them. You can see it in context and easily hear that he is using it to defend the separation of children from their families since this is the obvious consequence that you are trying to avoid confronting yourself with. I have seen many Christians express their disagreements with Sessions and while there generally is a lot of discussion the discussion is whether he was right or wrong. Not whether he used Romans to defend the separation of children from their parents. So I certainly donÂ’t need you to go through the statements. I have gone through them several times and read a lot of comments on them. It is quite obvious what the man is trying to do.

And he goes on to defend it with rather weak arguments. A week or two may be a short period for a grown up but it is an eternity for a fearful child in a foreign country who has already suffered more than most of us have. He goes on to mention that other countries are also doing it as if it makes it better.

The way Christians on tweb are so silent or provide useless inputs on an issue of such moral importance is duly noted.

Se Sessions’ defence here: https://www.nbcnews.com/video/attorn...-1255988803632

[KingsGambit]

The way Christians on tweb are so silent or provide useless inputs on an issue of such moral importance is duly noted.

https://www.nbcnews.com/video/attorn...-1255988803632

Outside of this thread, the reaction I've seen from my fellow Christians is almost universal horror at the policy. Mostly from friends of mine, but even the conservative stalwarts at the Babylon Bee aren't impressed: https://babylonbee.com/news/jeff-ses...ration-policy/

[Starlight]

Outside of this thread, the reaction I've seen from my fellow Christians is almost universal horror at the policy.

Does your sample include any Trump cultists though? Cos the ones on this forum don't seem to have all that much of a problem with it.

[KingsGambit]

Does your sample include any Trump cultists though? Cos the ones on this forum don't seem to have all that much of a problem with it.

I don't know that many enthusiastic Trump supporters, no. Those I do know aren't necessarily any more religious than the non Trump supporters I know.

[Mountain Man]

I wonder, do liberals also recoil in horror at the thought that children of incarcerated drug dealers, or prostitutes, or thieves, or anybody else who breaks the law are also separated from their parents? Note the article I cited earlier: families who enter legally are allowed to stay together, but those who break our laws suffer the consequences. Unfortunately, when parents break the law, their children also suffer the consequences, but not holding the parents accountable is simply not an option.

That said, the detention centers are more like summer camps and are not even close to being the gulags that the left is making them out to be.

[KingsGambit]

I wonder, do liberals also recoil in horror at the thought that children of incarcerated drug dealers, or prostitutes, or thieves, or anybody else who breaks the law are also separated from their parents? Note the article I cited earlier: families who enter legally are allowed to stay together, but those who break our laws suffer the consequences. Unfortunately, when parents break the law, their children also suffer the consequences, but not holding the parents accountable is simply not an option.
.

Apologist Clinton Wilcox addressed this the other day and found it to be a bad argument. The gist of his argument was that separating children from their families in the case of abuse and the like was for their immediate protection, whereas that doesn't apply here. (I'd also add that even in cases where parents are arrested normally, the state will try to put the kids in with family members if possible, or at the very least in a foster home, certainly not in a mass detention center.)

[Starlight]

I wonder, do liberals also recoil in horror at the thought that children of incarcerated drug dealers, or prostitutes, or thieves, or anybody else who breaks the law are also separated from their parents?

I do. I've often noted on these forums that US conservatives are talking out both sides of their mouths when they talk about harsher penalties and getting tough on crime, and then turn around and complain that Black fathers' aren't there for their children enough. If you give people harsh prison sentences you separate families. I've repeatedly noted that US prison sentences are waaaaaaaaaaay too harsh.



In my own country of New Zealand, at the moment, there's a big political discussion about whether our prison population is too high and what we could do to lower it. But the US's numbers are just insane.

I know compassion and empathy are a foreign concept to you conservatives, but if nothing else, think of the taxpayer money being wasted to keep all these people in prison. It costs more to imprison a person per year than to send them to the best university on the best all-expenses-paid scholarship. Not to mention any tax revenues they might be paying if they were out working a job rather than in prison. You complain about welfare queens and people getting too much benefit money from the government, yet looking after them in a prison 24/7 costs the government faaaaaarrrrr more money than any amount of welfare payment to them and their families. Do you really want to spend all your taxpayer money on these criminals, when you could instead be putting it into your military to blow up random brown people in the middle east?

but not holding the parents accountable is simply not an option.

It was an option the Obama administration chose to exercise. I didn't much like Obama, but at least he got that one right.

That said, the detention centers are more like summer camps and are not even close to being the gulags that the left is making them out to be.

From what I have heard of them, the children's physical needs are taken care of fairly satisfactorily, but the amount of care take of their mental needs, especially those stemming from family separation, are between zero and none.

[Mountain Man]

Apologist Clinton Wilcox addressed this the other day and found it to be a bad argument. The gist of his argument was that separating children from their families in the case of abuse and the like was for their immediate protection, whereas that doesn't apply here. (I'd also add that even in cases where parents are arrested normally, the state will try to put the kids in with family members if possible, or at the very least in a foster home, certainly not in a mass detention center.)

Seriously, did you read the article I posted earlier? "Mass detention center"... ooh, scary sounding.

But in reality, the kids are given healthcare, clean clothes, taught basic hygiene and how to use modern conveniences like running water and flushing toilets; they're bunked in large, clean rooms, fed three-squares a day, given an education, one-on-one and group counseling, and engage in social activities like proms and field trips to local zoos and museums. Ironically, they're probably better off than the children of asylum seekers who enter legally.

[rogue06]

I wonder, do liberals also recoil in horror at the thought that children of incarcerated drug dealers, or prostitutes, or thieves, or anybody else who breaks the law are also separated from their parents? Note the article I cited earlier: families who enter legally are allowed to stay together, but those who break our laws suffer the consequences. Unfortunately, when parents break the law, their children also suffer the consequences, but not holding the parents accountable is simply not an option.

That said, the detention centers are more like summer camps and are not even close to being the gulags that the left is making them out to be.

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[rogue06]

Does your sample include any Trump cultists though? Cos the ones on this forum don't seem to have all that much of a problem with it.

Funny how anyone who thinks that Trump isn't the anti-Christ is a "cultist" but those who called Obama a god and the like aren't

Especially if you listened to some of the fawning in the MSM

Like when Newsweek editor Evan Thomas was doing when he declared on MSNBC's "Hardball" to host Chris Matthews (who notoriously once said that he felt a “thrill up his leg” while covering then-Senator Barack Obama): "I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God."

And when Ezra Klein gushed about Obama in The American Prospect that,

"He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair. The other great leaders I’ve heard guide us towards a better politics, but Obama is, at his best, able to call us back to our highest selves, to the place where America exists as a glittering ideal, and where we, its honored inhabitants, seem capable of achieving it, and thus of sharing in its meaning and transcendence.

And of course there's when Mark Morford, columnist and culture critic for the San Francisco Chronicle and SFGate.com, proclaimed that Obama "isn’t really one of us" and how

"many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul."

And let's not forget Barbara Walters

The fact is, the above exemplified the attitude that a substantial portion of his supporters believed. As Michelle Obama put it, "We have an amazing story to tell. This president has brought us out of the dark and into the light" (Matthew 4:16; cf. Micah 7:8)