President Trump caved in to enormous public and media pressure today and ordered that immigrant families can stay together rather than confining immigrant kids in makeshift holding facilities away from their parents. Guess that means they all will be in those cages.
After a group grope today with Republican Congressional supplicants and such stalwarts as Vice President Pence and the ice maiden of Homeland Security, Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, Trump signed an executive order that supposedly will bring an end to at least the worst part of this travesty.
Trump's action is a reversal from days of claiming that the administration had no choice but to separate families of migrants trying to cross the border, many of them legitimately seeking asylum.
Trump said that by being "strong" and insisting on separating those kids from their parents in his determination to protect the border, people said he had no "heart". But, if he caved and didn't enforce that policy, he would be viewed as "weak" and the nation would be "overrun" by some "very bad people."
Such a dilemma. Looks like First Lady Melania Trump must have gotten to her husband because he said he didn't like the images of those little children crying and screaming for their parents. The other day she said that while our borders need to be protected, it must be done with "heart." In fact, all five living first ladies let him have it.
Of course, the fact that the United Methodist Church lambasted Attorney General Sessions, a Methodist Sunday School teacher, over his enforcement of these policies, that other right wing evangelists have expressed opposition, and Pope Francis has criticized the policy, all must have had an impact. The wrath of God and all that...
Still, Trump intends to enforce his administration's "zero tolerance" policy, prosecuting anyone who enters the country illegally. And most likely, his decision to drop the child separation policy will face court challenges.
All of this is happening as the House of Representatives is considering immigration reform legislation -- two bills, one worse than the other. However, regardless of what happens, insiders are saying that neither can be passed in the Senate, where 60 of 100 votes are needed to overcome Democratic opposition.
Meanwhile, hardline Trump supporters continue to claim that all of this began a long time ago and that it was even worse under President Obama. Really? If so, where was the outcry?
These kids who have been so badly traumatized by Trump and his GOP pals will live with this experience for the rest of their lives.