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Welcome to Thugland: Migrant Children Edition [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-05-26
Maybe people have always been nothing more than props for some politicians. Maybe them caring for others is nothing more than a myth. Maybe the instinct to protect defenseless children has never really existed in them.
Now, for many these qualities do exist. They’re part of our everyday humanity. So, when we see them abandoned for political gain, the sating of our racism, or whatever, it can really jar the senses.
We see that now with the administration of four-time indicted, twice-impeached, sexual assaulter, tax fraudster, insurrection inspirer, convicted felon, Russian puppet, mob boss, President Donald Trump when it comes to anyone who isn’t a white male.
This hatred is never more jarring than in its cruelty to children. The tens of thousands who’ll die from starvation because of his cutting off of foreign aid, for instance.
Now let’s look at another group Trump and his allies couldn’t care less about: the children of undocumented immigrants. He’s called their parents “vermin” who are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
In Trump’s America these poor kids are nothing more than the offspring of animals. The instincts to protect them, to limit their suffering, to keep them safe, don’t exist with these people. To our government they’re leverage. Something to be used to intimidate and coerce their parents.
We saw that again recently when the Trump administration sought to end court-ordered protections for immigrant children in federal custody. Nothing surprising here. It’s how they do things in Thugland.
The Flores Settlement Agreement came about in 1997 as the result of a court case. It basically limited the amount of time that child migrants traveling alone or with family could be detained by the government to 72 hours. It also sought to make sure these children are kept in safe and sanitary conditions.
Now, the Trump administration is back in court seeking to have it terminated, something it tried unsuccessfully to do in his first term. They claim it removes some of the disincentives for families to enter the United States illegally, and it has “prevented the federal government from effectively detaining and removing families,” the Guardian reported.
They also contend it’s no longer necessary because Congress has passed legislation regarding how these children are to be treated, and that other government agencies have been enforcing them, according to the Associated Press.
That sounds good until you look at our reality: The Trump administration has shown no inclination that it has any empathy or humanity towards illegal immigrants – any immigrants, for that matter – and their children.
In no rational world can you trust people with this history of hatred – remember how they thought child separation was a great idea to scare the hell out of people coming to this country seeking a better life?
“Children who seek refuse in our country should be met with open arms – not imprisonment, deprivation, and abuse,” said Sergio Perez, executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law.
He’s right.
History doesn’t give any indication that the government under Trump has any interest in protecting these children. Even with the agreement in place, it hasn’t always fulfilled its obligations toward them.
In 2019, almost 300 kids had to be moved from a Border Patrol facility in Texas after it was reported they weren’t receiving adequate food, water, and sanitation, the AP reported.
In 2020, a monitor called on the government to stop detaining children as young as a year old in hotels before shipping them back to their home counties. Other monitors found children were held in conditions that exposed them to the COVID-19 virus during the pandemic.
Advocates have successfully sued the government to end the mistreatment of immigrant children several times. In 2018, attorneys sued after discovering unaccompanied children had been administered psychotropic medication without informed consent, the Guardian reported.
Want more recent proof? The Trump administration has restarted the practice of locking up children along with their parents in family detention, and has cut off unaccompanied children’s access to legal services, the Guardian said.
Just this month immigration advocacy groups filed a class-action lawsuit claiming that unaccompanied children are languishing in government facilities after the administration’s policies made it difficult for family members in the United States to take custody of them, the Guardian said.
In 2024 – when Trump wasn’t in office -- a court found that the government violated the agreement when it detained children and families at open-air detention sites at the U.S. southern border without adequate access to sanitation, medical care, food, water, or blankets, the Guardian said. In some cases, children were forced to seek refuge in portable toilets from the searing heat and bitter cold.
Old habits die hard.
If you want more examples of the Trump administration’s history of abusing these children, here are some posts from his first term:
A Litany of Hate and Disgrace in Trump’s America
Do These Kids Matter To the Pro-Life Crowd
No Soap: Trump Administration Shows Its Depravity Again
A Little Girl Is Dead and We Better Demand Answers
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It’s be one thing if the Trump administration had shown it had cleaned up its act and now wants the Flores agreement to be terminated, but that’s not the case. We see almost every day in its mass deportation efforts that the welfare of non-citizens doesn’t matter to them.
Ending the agreement would mean no more court-appointed monitors and less supervision over the proven cruelty of this administration toward immigrant children and their parents.
That cruelty now includes legal immigrants, and it certainly would be no surprise if the unconstitutional methods being employed to deal with immigrants eventually are used against American citizens.
This corrupt administration needs more oversight, not less. That’s not hysteria talking, it’s history. It’s current events. It’s the unescapable reality of how far our country has fallen and apparently will continue to fall.
The government shouldn’t have to be told to protect kids. It shouldn’t be going out of its way to find methods of making their lives worse because of its hatred of immigrants. Why are we punishing children for the sins of their parents? What kind of monsters do these things?
Sadly, in today’s America, they’re not hard to find.
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