In this op-ed, writer Mekita Rivas discusses how America has co-opted her Mexican culture but dehumanized the people.

Over the past few weeks, more and more news has emerged about migrant children being ripped from their parents and placed in detention centers as a result of the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy. It took President Donald Trump 76 days to put a stop to the separations that were his own administration's doing. But that was little comfort for many Americans, especially given that there are no demonstrable provisions for reuniting separated children with their families. For a majority of the Latinx community, especially those of us who are immigrants or children of immigrants, it’s been downright devastating.

But intermixed with the sadness and helplessness is a lot of anger. I’m angry that babies don’t know where their parents are, and that parents have to threaten legal recourse in order to possibly get answers about their child's whereabouts. I’m angry that many won’t be reunited for months, if not years, and that some may never be reunited at all. I’m angry that this humanitarian crisis is completely manufactured by the government. I'm angry that we keep getting fed straight-up lies about what’s really happening to these children and families.

The United States seems to be working overtime to keep immigrants out. The zero-tolerance policy and the recent Supreme Court ruling that legitimizes Trump’s Muslim ban illustrate just how far this administration will go to silo the U.S. from the rest of the world. What’s less clear to me, however, is why proponents of such policies will complain about immigrants while partaking in and even co-opting from their cultures. Take, for example, Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, who was confronted by a group of protestors while eating dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Washington, D.C. Just two days earlier, she had proclaimed on Twitter, “We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period.”

The irony, of course, wasn’t lost on millions of Americans.

"Secretary Nielsen, how dare you spend your evening here eating dinner as you are complicit in the separation and deportation of over 10,000 children separated from their parents," one of the protestors says in the video of the confrontation. "How can you enjoy a Mexican dinner as you are deporting and imprisoning tens of thousands of people seeking asylum here in the United States?"