All presidents break promises, so it’s no surprise that President Trump is keeping up with that ignoble tradition. However, this broken promise has especially harsh and cruel ramifications for the people impacted by it.
After winning last November, Donald Trump sat down for in interview with “60 Minutes.” In that interview, he said he was going to focus first on deporting illegal immigrants with criminal records, then turn his focus to how to address the situation for millions of others who, though here illegally, are not committing crimes, but are almost always contributing to our communities in positive ways.
In that interview, Trump said, “What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers, where a lot of these people, probably 2 million, it could be even 3 million, we are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate.” According to the article on the “Politico” website linked below, “Only then, Trump said, will he figure out a plan to deal with the ‘terrific people’ who are in the U. S. illegally but have otherwise clean criminal histories.”
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/donald-trump-immigrants-criminals-231293
Trump has broken that promise. He first broke the promise by turning immigration officials against immigrants who have been here for years, sometimes decades, and have contributed a great deal to their communities, but have minor offenses well in their past. He then broke that promise by going after Chaldean Catholics and Iraqi Kurds, most of whom have minor offenses well in the past, but who face serious persecution if not death if returned to their “home” countries. I’ve written on these matters before on this blog.
Now, Trump’s immigration officials have gone to an even more repugnant extreme.
Rosa Maria Hernandez is a ten-year old girl who suffers from cerebral palsy. She recently entered the hospital for gall bladder surgery. After surgery, immigration officers waiting outside her hospital room while she recovered. The moment she was discharged from the hospital, she was taken into custody and transferred her to an immigration detention facility to await processing for her deportation. During this time, she is separated from her mother, from whom she’s never been separated before.
There are no words for this kind of cruelty. There is no policy, no law, no “immigration status” that justifies placing a ten-year old girl with a chronic disability in danger of being deported to a country she barely knows, from a family who loves her and is capable of caring for her and her special needs.
President Trump has proven himself a man of little self-control, little integrity, and virtually no character. Apparently, he is trying to make the United States into a country in his image. Shame on him, and shame on the United States!
Be Christ for all. Bring Christ to all. See Christ in all.
Thoughts and Prayers for the Faithful 