"Or whatever"

Jim Morin on the democratic underground

From today's NY Times:

To the Editor:

I have been reading with an increasingly heavy heart news articles about the Trump administration’s separation of children from their parents at the border.

But I was stopped cold by a quote in Nicholas Kristof’s column “ ‘My Babies Started Crying’ as ICE Took Them Away” (May 31): “White House Chief of Staff John Kelly hails family separation as a ‘tough deterrent’ and shrugs that ‘the children will be taken care of — put into foster care or whatever.’ ”

“Or whatever” — that most dismissive phrase! So, it has come to this: We have weaponized the callous traumatization of children in the name of the promised immigration reform. Children have become acceptable collateral damage in a policy war.

Are there no parents in this administration? Are there no parents in the Border Patrol? Are there no Trump supporters who are parents? How can anyone who has children justify this?

Anita Moran

San Francisco