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Comment by DoreenMichele | Hacker News Reader

For context, in case anyone has missed it, I imagine this is at least part of why this is being discussed on Reddit under the title in question:

The organization also says that in some cases, the children were taken away under the pretense that they would be getting a bath.

From an article about the current US practice of separating children, including infants, from their parents at the border:

https://www.npr.org/2018/06/19/621065383/what-we-know-family...

View on HN

This is actually US policy for anyone who goes to jail for any reason, not just people whose specific crimes are illegally crossing the border. If you go to jail, and you have a dependent child with no other care giver - the child will go into the custody of the state.

Also, keep in mind that it isn't all asylum applicants who get separated. If you show up at a valid port of entry into the US and request asylum, then no crime has been committed and no one is separated from their families. Only people who sneak across the border illegally(which is a crime) are processed from their criminal behavior.

Going to a valid port of entry also happens to be a much cheaper and safer way of getting to America, considering it doesn't require the use of human mules, paying exorbitant fees and coordinating with drug cartels, and performing dangerous desert crossings where you may get abandoned if your mule gets spooked.

edit: alasdair_, I can't comment on your post thanks to HN aggressively preventing a poster responding to numerous comments on a post, but I would imagine the reason that she couldn't file an asylum claim is right in the article: Because she lied about being a US citizen in the past, and that bars you from presenting for asylum. And finally, the father separated himself from his children before he even entered the US, because he knew he couldn't enter the US because he was already deported from the US in the past.

> Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials say Maria made a false claim of US citizenship in 1999 and served a 75-day sentence in a federal prison before being deported back to Guatemala at that time. In a statement provided to CNN, ICE says that lying about citizenship status "results in a permanent bar from being able to legally enter the United States."

I wonder how long we have had what is politely being called a "tent city"[1] for children in Texas. I mean, they aren't gassing them, but last year our esteemed president had a cow about the psychological damage that Kathy Griffin was doing to all of his children, not just his actually still-a-child offspring, but including his adult offspring in his assessment that she had gone too far and was sick.

Yet, somehow, having what is essentially a concentration camp of kids isn't the president going too far and being sick.

There is in my mind zero justification for the current state of things and I don't care what argument is used to try to claim there is.

I don't plan to participate further in this discussion. I think I have made all the comments I can make while complying with HN guidelines. This situation is just beyond the pale for me.

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/06/photos-a-tent-city...

"It's the law" never justified anything.

When did I try to argue that? My point was that 'separating families' is the norm for all people in the US when they go to jail, not just some extra punishment that is tacked on for people who illegally cross the border.

> 'separating families' is the norm for all people in the US when they go to jail

However, arresting and prosecuting every single person who crosses the border in a nominally illegal way[1] is not a norm, and neither is deporting parents while their children are still being held in the US.

[1]: "Nominally" because many of the current cases involve asylum seekers who have been cut off from actually seeking asylum.

Illegally crossing the border is a misdemeanor, not a felony.

Besides, ethics are more important than laws.

Having laws that we selectively enforce is also unethical and despotic. The laws should be changed if there is no will to enforce them.

It was never argued it was a felony, and even misdemeanors can land you in jail. For illegal entry, that can be up 6 months in jail(or, 2 years if you've done it more than once).

Source: http://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/us-immigration/crime-ent...

Not all crimes are equivalent. You also neglect to mention the low percentage of actually successfully receiving asylum.

What does low percentage of successful asylum claims have to do with anything? I would imagine that is because most people don't have valid asylum claims. You can't just say 'I want a better life for my children', or 'the economy sucks in my home country' and expect that you will get a successful asylum application. There are very specific rules for who gets granted asylum and in what circumstances.

I'm guessing the downvotes are coming because you are defending a policy which is objectively cruel. To say "this is official policy" doesn't stop the reality of the cruelty.

Generally people don't support this. Therefore, downvotes.

I didn't read his comment to be a defense so much as a pointing out of the hypocrisy of only being outraged about this now, when it applies to illegal immigrants, but not when it applies to the US's own citizens.

Then why aren't people up in arms about the orders of magnitude more people who are separated from their children during normal (non-illegal-immigration) police or judicial events?

This only works if valid ports of entry are open. In practice they haven't been for a while. I mean, there are places where refugees are supposed to apply but they haven't been taking any applications recently - always saying "come back tomorrow". If it were me I might very well give up eventually and cross the border if I was in these refugees shoes.

Sneaking across the border is a crime but its a misdemeanor like driving without a seatbelt or ignoring a "No Trespassing" sign. It's very rare for people to be thrown in jail while awaiting trials for misdemeanors and generally the consequence of committing a single one isn't jail time.

So US policy at the border, while legal, is horribly unreasonable and maliciously cruel.

Laws have been used for thousands of years to enshrine in legal codes the prejudice and bias of superior classes. Ancient Mesopotomians in the Code of Hammurabi assigned silver shekel values of fines for killing a slave woman, killing a slave woman with child, killing a superior woman with child, killing a superior man, etc. etc. This legalistic attack of aliens/others/immigrants is another in a long string of bureaucratic masks for base human instincts.

I love your point about sneaking across the border. Those supporters of the current regime's policy, some 25-30% of the polled US population, will often simply state that these are law-breakers and criminals for breaking our laws. And yet, is the same opprobrium applied to those who speed, shoot off fireworks illegally, or dodge taxes (like many of the rich today)? If they were truly about law and order, rather than about an othering/discriminatory scheme, surely they would decry these other violations of the law?

> the child will go into the custody of the state.

The child will end up in a temporary foster home or similar housing. They will not be kept in locked chain-link areas for weeks on end.

>Also, keep in mind that it isn't all asylum applicants who get separated. If you show up at a valid port of entry into the US and request asylum, then no crime has been committed and no one is separated from their families.

This is flat out wrong.

See (for example - there are many other documented cases) https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/05/us/guatemalan-immigrant-famil...

"After the rest of the family took their chances by presenting themselves to US immigration authorities, the possibility of forced separation became reality. The 20-year-old son was sent to a detention center in San Diego. Maria and her three youngest children were shipped to a family detention center in Dilley, Texas -- about 70 miles southwest of San Antonio."

"The two youngest members of the Villatoro family are now at a detention center in New York state while their mom remains detained in Texas."

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