Back in the days when Margaret Thatcher was an ambitious up-and-coming politician eager to make her mark as a Conservative cabinet member by cutting benefits and services, she instituted polices that resulted (as I recall) in children having less access to milk. This led to chants of ‘Maggie Thatcher, milk snatcher’. The Department of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen also seems anxious to make her mark in conservative politics by showing how mean she can be with her enthusiastic embrace of Donald Trump’s cruel politics and rhetoric towards immigrants. Those policies have led to 3,700 children already being separated from their parents with no idea of how to reunite them that have led to the slogan “Kirstjen Nielsen, child snatcher!” which does not rhyme but is apt nonetheless.
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Many people would have heard of Tommie Smith and John Carlos, winners of the gold and bronze medals in the 200 meters event at the 1968 Olympics held in Mexico, because of their black-gloved clenched fist salute protesting racism captured in the iconic photograph below. Carlos had left his pair of black gloves back at the Olympic village, which is why he and Smith each wore a single glove on different hands.

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[UPDATE: If you want to get a\look at the deliberate callousness and cruelty of the government’s behavior, read this sad and infuriating account by a public defender assigned to the detained parents who have been separated from their children.]

It turns out that the government has not only been separating immigrant children from their parents, it may have been been drugging and otherwise abusing them up too, according to a news article based on a report by Reveal of the excellent Center for Investigative Reporting from court filings protesting the practices. A lawsuit has been filed that charges that some immigrant children in detention centers who have been separated from their parents have been sent to shelters with long histories of abuse and are being forcibly injected with drugs to make them docile.
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[UPDATE: It appears that Trump is going to sign an executive order to end the child separation policy. Given that he and attorney general Sessions, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Stephen Miller, and Kirstjen Nielsen have been saying for days that this was not their fault and that they were forced to adopt the cruel policy because it was the law that was enacted by the Democrats and that it was up to Congress to change the law, this action would reveal it for the lie that it always was. But being caught in obvious lies does not bother this crew nor their supporters. They have no shame.]

It looks like the Trump administration which, as a matter of policy, tries to ramp up the cruelty of its actions against immigrants of color because it plays well with its base, is surprised that the level of anger against its tactic of forcibly separating immigrant children from their parents is rising. Increasing numbers of Republican elected officials are distancing themselves from the policy and even Trump bootlickers like British prime minister Theresa May are voicing concerns. And how bad must it be when even French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, a Trump soul mate if there ever was one, says that she disagrees with the policy of separating children from parents?
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The forcible separation of children, even those who are toddlers, from their parents at the borders and putting them in cages seems to threaten the Trump administration with being a step too far. The photographs and videos of the grim sight and the newly released heartbreaking audio recordings by ProPublica of children sobbing uncontrollably and calling for their parents seems to be too much to stomach for even some of Trump’s most ardent supporters. Even the evangelical zealot, Trump fan boy, and outright bigot Franklin Graham who had hitherto not allowed any daylight between him and Trump said “It’s disgraceful, and it’s terrible to see families ripped apart, and I don’t support that one bit.” Laura Bush has also come out against it, as have some other conservatives. Big majorities oppose these actions, with the only demographic group supporting it being Republicans.
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