OPINION:
Children may be our closest brush with heaven this side of eternity. Their innocent vulnerability reaches out to the rest of us for compassion and protection. That’s why the cynical and the conniving wield them as the perfect tool to enhance political machinations. We’re watching now the use of immigrant children from Central America to tug at heartstrings and break down common-sense respect for the secure borders that comprise the central pillar of national sovereignty. Compassion for the suffering of others, especially children, is a virtue. But irresponsibility posing as compassion for the plight of young illegal migrants eventually undermines the goodwill of millions of Americans.
The photograph of a Salvadoran father and his young daughter, drowning in the Rio Grande, broke the hearts of millions and rubbed raw concerns for bedraggled young migrants on the U.S. border with Mexico. Seizing tragedy, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other cynical politicians have spread tales, some taller than others, that migrants, many of them women and children, are held by U.S. immigration officials in unsanitary conditions and told when thirsty to drink water from toilets.
Such incendiary hearsay becomes angry accusations of inhumanity against overwhelmed Americans in uniform who are tasked with the duty of dealing with incursions of unexpected strangers with undeclared intent. The long history of political dysfunction in Central America is put aside and the endless caravan is laid, like an abandoned baby in a basket, on the doorsteps of the United States.
At the United Nations, where problems are identified from a supranational perspective, any scarcity of the milk of human kindness is always the fault of the gringos on the mean side of the Rio Grande. “As a pediatrician, but also as a mother and a former head of State, I am deeply shocked that children are forced to sleep on the floor in overcrowded facilities, without access to adequate healthcare or food, and with poor sanitation conditions,” says Michelle Bachelet, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Predictably, congressional Democrats resisting President Trump’s management of the nation find cause for outrage at the inadequacy of accommodations for unaccompanied children and families, vowing to find those responsible for holding thousands in overcrowded, ill-provisioned conditions. “No matter your political affiliation or views on border security, seeing families and children, including very young children, in overcrowded and unsafe conditions should shock the conscience,” says Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi Democrat.
Some consciences are more shock-resistant than others, and it took Mr. Thompson’s fellow Democrats months to agree to a $4.6 billion appropriation to improve the housing for the uninvited guests. Mr. Trump, exasperated by feckless shrieks from congressional critics, tweeted: “If Illegal Immigrants are unhappy with the conditions in the quickly built or refitted detention centers, just tell them not to come. All problems solved!”
Two weeks ago, the president said the government would begin deporting illegal migrants who had been ordered by U.S. courts to leave the country, but agreed, at the request of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to give legislators more time to close loopholes exempting families with children from expulsion. With no legislation yet law, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) still faces the task of sending a million illegals home.
How is that Mr. Trump hates foreign kids in particular are refuted by the numbers. In two-and-a-half years, according to government statistics, he has deported fewer than 800,000 illegal migrants. George W. Bush sent home 2 million over his eight years in office, and Barack Obama expelled 3 million migrants during his two terms.
Waves of illegal migrants with children in tow have crested at around 100,000 a month, mobilized by the call of open-borders advocates who are determined to redeem Barack Obama’s promise to “fundamentally transform” the United States. Even Jeh Johnson, Mr. Obama’s director of homeland security, has complained that when Democratic presidential candidates goose the immigrant influx by vowing not to deport illegals unless they commit a crime, the necessary balance between compassion for the alien and security for the citizen is upended.
If the United States is unable to preserve its borders, the constitutional guarantees that set the United States apart from other nations will disappear. The electoral gain sought by politicians encouraging runaway migration would come at the cost of the goodwill of the 330 million men, women and children who already live here. There’s no compassion in deporting the American Dream.
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