Crisis on the Border by Matt C. Pinsker

Author:Matt C. Pinsker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Regnery Publishing
Published: 2020-03-09T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10 FAMILY SEPARATION

My time in Laredo coincided with one of the biggest political firestorms of the Trump presidency: a media backlash over the separation of families at the border.

It began when a photo surfaced online of what appeared to be two children in a cage. Stories rippled through the news media about President Trump’s alleged brutality. After just a few days, however, it was revealed that the photo had been taken in 2014—when Barack Obama was president. After that, the firestorm over the photo mostly died out.

But a week after that story tamped down, there was another media firestorm. Media outlets reported that illegal immigrant parents and children were being separated after the parents were arrested. The adults were sent to detention facilities while the children were placed with relatives in the United States, in foster care, or in youth homes.

Unlike the “children in cages” story, there was a basis of truth to this one, but not for the reasons spun by politicians and the media. I don’t like families being separated, but in America—along with every other civilized country on the planet—when adults are arrested, their children do not go to jail with them. No sane or moral nation locks up children in jails with their parents when their parents are charged or convicted of crimes. Instead, when an adult is arrested (anywhere in the United States) and a child is present, children are sent to live with family members or go to Child Protective Services, which places them in foster homes or in group homes while the parent is in custody. This is the standard procedure across the United States, regardless of whether a person is arrested for a DUI in New York City or an illegal border crossing in Texas.

One of my biggest criticisms of the United States criminal justice system is the long-term damage done to families because of the incarceration of non-violent criminals. As a defense attorney back in Virginia, I witnessed numerous examples of families torn apart over non-violent crimes. In one case, a client received a mandatory minimum sentence of ten days in jail for his third charge of driving with a suspended license. On the day he was arrested, my client had been driving to work (with his license still suspended) to pay the fines and court costs from his previous two convictions so that he could get a license. Because he was jailed and unable to work, he ended up being fired from his job and couldn’t pay his rent, which forced him, his son, and his disabled girlfriend into homelessness.

I’m all for punishing misconduct and locking away people who pose a danger to society, but there must be a better and less destructive way of dealing with non-dangerous criminals.

Still, family separation, which is clearly destructive to many innocent people, has long been commonplace in the U.S. justice system. For that reason, I couldn’t comprehend the outrage when the news broke of family separations under President Trump. After all, this had been happening in America for years and was an ordinary and accepted practice.

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