By Ramón Del Castillo, PhD
With the separation of church and state always looming over a government’s political consciousness the current administration is using Biblical scripture to rationalize its’ evil intentions. US Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the guardian of the rightwing and law and order buffoon, has ascribed one of the Ten Commandments, “Loving your neighbor as yourself,” to mean “for whites only.” He uses religion to rationalize current immigration policy. His further interpretation that God ordained the current immigration law was also somewhat disingenuous. He shouldn’t confuse a government with its laws that can be used to establish control over the masses. Governments can also become corrupt through the negation of human rights. Those Evangelicals who have criticized Trump and his cronies for such outlandish behavior should order Trump to cease and desist his criminal behavior or accompany him to God’s court where he can plead his case. Jeff Sessions should be prosecuted for allowing Gestapo tactics against families and children to take place in a free society.
Sessions has established a double standard of justice—slowly churning and confusing the question of the separation of church and state. The common person is expected to exercise his or her religious beliefs in private without interference from the government; but a shady politician is allowed to justify the abuse of a sacred book in public to rationalize white supremacy. The government’s religious fanaticism has crossed a line of demarcation. Making the flock believe that somehow, a man by the name of Jesus Christ, would support a political decision to separate children from their parents, is equally preposterous.
The detention and placement of families into quasi concentration camps is a repetition of history. Native Americans, Jews, Japanese and Mexicans can attest to the inhumanity that a society can administer at its whim.
Although, Mexican and Latin American families are being indiscriminately detained, they have broken no laws—the administration has picked out the most vulnerable and powerless in society and is punishing them. They have no voice—but are continuously used as pawns in a game called politics. According to reliable legal experts, those leaving their motherland and seeking asylum must demonstrate that “credible fear” exists in their society to receive asylum from another country. There are at least five categories that are considered for asylum to be granted: race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.
When families seeking asylum are immediately detained and incarcerated at a border and separated from their children, has a law been violated? According to legal experts, parents have a right to a hearing to determine if asylum is justifiable, before they are incarcerated or deported. This is absent in the process. Human rights are being violated–ironically the government has broken the law—an unjust incarceration is a violation of the law. Perhaps, it is the law that is unjust and needs mending. Families crossing the southern borders have become enemies of the state.
Children need human nurturance, affection, love, touching and caring from their mothers to survive. Any government that supports taking young children and babies from their mothers has committed a crime against humanity and should be taken to an international court of justice, not law. It is sadistic and appalling and will cause detachment disorders augmented with a variety of psychological symptomatology from which children may never fully recover. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as the long-term ramifications of separation cause further emotional damage for children who may eventually become wards of the state. Placing children in sterile environments with American toys is not the solution. There is nothing that can replace a mother’s love for her children.
The detention and placement of families into quasi concentration camps is a repetition of history. Native Americans, Jews, Japanese and Mexicans can attest to the inhumanity that a society can administer at its whim. Throughout history Persons of Color have been treated as fungible commodities—inanimate objects whose humanity doesn’t count. The only commodity that counts is their labor.
Colorado is not immune from the vagaries of racism. Eminent scholar Dr. David A. Sandoval in his book, “Spanish/Mexican Legacy of Latinos in Pueblo, Colorado” reminds us of the, “Nativism and racism [that] led to pronounced antagonism against Mexican and Chicano communities in the 1930s. While the policies of Repatriation led to deportations from Colorado, as they did throughout the borderlands. Governor Ed Johnston’s declaration of martial law along the southern border exacerbated inter and intra-ethnic relationships. National guardsmen, highway patrolmen and peace officers were sent to patrol the 360-mile border against a ‘threatened invasion’ of aliens and indigent person. Governor Johnson’s private war against Chicanos and Mexicans had been preceded by his 1935 position of desiring concentration camps for these peoples.”
The Granada War Relocation Center, renamed Camp Amache, located in Southeastern Colorado during World War II, is another example of how racism can play itself out, rationalized by biblical quotes, racists and unjust laws. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 which translated into the development of Japanese internment camps. Camp Amache, which is now a Historic Land Mark, housed at least 7,000 Japanese sent here from Los Angeles in February of 1942. One has to wonder, how far President Donald Trump will stretch his immigration policy. His business acumen has no borders. The tentacles of capitalism continue to penetrate anything that looks or smells like profit. In this case, the privatization of concentration camps and detention centers are becoming normalized.
The reality is that big industrialists love cheap labor, but they hate Mexicans settling in American society. The price for comprehensive immigration policy can be the amassment of immigrant power once immigrants are integrated into society; therefore, a mechanism has to be created to stop this. Deportation is the solution. President Ronald Reagan learned this lesson when he passed the Immigration and Control Act (IRCA) in 1986 as 2.7 million persons became citizens under the amnesty provision of this law and are now official voters—political power ad infinitum.
The fear of losing power is at the core of the immigration debate. Power to the children! Hold them with tenderness as they weep for their losses.
Dr. Ramón Del Castillo is an Independent Journalist. © June 18-2018 Ramón Del Castillo.
