When faced with two women who each claimed to be the mother of the same child, King Solomon announced he would slice the child in two and give half to each claimant.
One woman was pleased. The other wailed in sorrow, and begged the king to give the child to her opponent.
Solomon understood that the woman who wanted to save the child even though it meant she’d lose him was the true mother.
There are no Solomons among us today. Children are once again being used as pawns and commodities in our immigration debate, and the adults are fighting to gain philosophical and political advantage at their expense. The battles are waged on social media, on the pages of our newspapers, in our homes and, most regrettably, in the halls of Congress.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., calls the detention centers which hold immigrant children “concentration camps,” evoking the ghosts of millions of dead Jews. While the literal term “concentration camp” could be stretched to include a facility where people are not able to leave and are held in temporary housing until their legal status is established, the congresswoman’s intention was to equate what is going on at the border with Nazi death camps. This was not lost on the United States Holocaust Museum, whose spokesperson noted it “unequivocally rejects efforts to create analogies between the Holocaust and other events, whether historical or contemporary.”
But the fact remains children are being held in places where they’re not getting enough food, water, clean clothing, blankets, hygienic items and — most importantly — contact with caring humans.
President Donald Trump points to the fact that his predecessor was the one who initiated a program that separated children from their parents, which is technically true. But when you dig a little deeper, you realize that Obama’s plan was sporadic, while the Trump administration made a sustained policy decision to separate families as a disincentive to cross the border.
Congress dithers about solving the crisis at the border, with one side insisting on pouring money into a wall and refusing to engage in good-faith solutions for legalization, while the other side calls their opponents racists, evoking imagery of Nazi camps. And then, when the House finally reaches a consensus about funding to provide the detained children with the necessities we regularly give to prisoners and accused terrorists at Guantanamo, only a handful of Republicans voted in favor of the bill because the package didn’t include anything for border security. Then late Thursday, the Senate’s version of the bill was signed onto by a reluctant Nancy Pelosi, guaranteeing some money and support will reach the children.
This controversy is deep and wide and burning, echoing the rift our ancestors confronted over slavery, and it is leaving scars that will not fade even with legislation and reconciliation. The detained children are the canaries in the coal mine of our morality, and seeing them in this state of crisis and neglect says troubling things about who we are content to be.
It is fair to worry about the larger, overarching policy issues when discussing immigration. But this moment is not about partisanship. Our recent historical past shows that there is enough blame to go around. And when we start pointing fingers at one side and give the other a pass, the immigrants are the ones who end up suffering.
There should be no question that a country that turns its back on children for political gamesmanship is not the type of country any of us should be proud to call our own.
Christine M. Flowers is a lawyer and columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News. Readers may send her email at cflowers1961@gmail.com.
