Opinion

A cruelty from which this nation should recoil

A group of immigrants, including children, walk along a road minutes after smugglers rafted them across the Rio Grande into the U.S. at a site called El Rincon, in Hidalgo County, Texas, May 11. Separating children from such parents now appears to be official policy. less A group of immigrants, including children, walk along a road minutes after smugglers rafted them across the Rio Grande into the U.S. at a site called El Rincon, in Hidalgo County, Texas, May 11. Separating ... more Photo: JERRY LARA /San Antonio Express-News Photo: JERRY LARA /San Antonio Express-News Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close A cruelty from which this nation should recoil 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

No, the administration didn’t “lose” nearly 1,500 children after separating them from their immigrant parents. But, yes, the administration is separating children from their immigrant parents, a barbaric practice that has no place in this country.

First, the “missing” children. These are minors who crossed the border by and large unaccompanied, who turned themselves in to border agents, or were apprehended and then released to sponsors for care outside of detention facilities. They weren’t separated from their parents because they didn’t travel with them. And they aren’t necessarily “missing.”

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services followed up by phone on the 7,635 children it had placed with sponsors between October and the end of December last year, and found that 6,075 could be accounted for. According to a report by the Washington Post, 28 had run away, five had left the United States, 52 went to live with nonsponsors, and 1,475 were unaccounted for. HHS disclosed these numbers in a congressional hearing recently.

Yes, this is a large number and regrettable (because, among other concerns, it can’t be ascertained if the children were trafficked). But it it could be that they can’t be found because they or their sponsors don’t want to be — to avoid deportation, for them and their sponsors if they, too, are undocumented. Faith in our asylum process is not running high at the moment.

And yet none of this means that the administration’s new enforcement policies on immigrants caught crossing the border without documents isn’t a tragedy unfolding before the nation’s eyes. And it doesn’t mean that the administration isn’t playing fast and loose with facts in defending this new policy.

The Trump administration recently announced it would criminally prosecute all illegal crossers, a so-called zero tolerance policy. This means that even immigrants traveling with children (and, reportedly, even those seeking asylum) will be arrested. And because their children can’t be arrested with them and can’t be detained in identical fashion, they will be separated from their parents, with indications that this separation persists even after parents are released.

In a weekend tweet, President Donald Trump wrote that this separation is required by laws that Democrats refuse to change. Wrong. There is no such law. The separation occurs because of the administration’s own new policy of arresting illegal crossers, a sharp departure from general practice previously. This had been treated as a civil violation. Moreover, administration officials have been blunt about separating children from parents as a matter of deterrence. This is cruelty on purpose and with malice aforethought.

And there’s this: On the theory that asylum-seekers are scamming the system, even those seeking that kind of legal refuge are reportedly being arrested.

This is wrong on a number of fronts.

In all cases, asylum-should be accorded a process to pursue their claims — a matter of protections built into the law. They shouldn’t be arrested. And under no circumstances should children who already have undergone arduous travels be further traumatized by being forcibly removed from their parents, who then have no idea what has become of them.

This zero tolerance policy has resulted in a 21 percent increase in the number of migrant children held in custody without their parents, the Washington Post also reports. And this means available space is quickly being consumed.

But aside from the logistics of this new policy — an already overburdened system buried under an avalanche of arrests, prosecutions and deportations — there is the blatant cruelty from which all Americans should recoil. That cruelty is represented in children being forcibly removed from parents coming here — mostly from Central America — to protect their children from the well-reported violence in their own countries.

Got it? To deter these immigrants, the administration is reportedly denying some adults due process under our asylum laws, punishing both them and their children by separating them, and then claiming that nonexistent law, not its own policy, is requiring this.

Even if this works in deterring migration, the ends won’t ever justify these cruel means.

The administration hasn’t “lost” nearly 1,500 children, but it is telling the world that this country is in danger of losing its soul.