Nancy Pelosi and her Democrats are heading to the U.S.-Mexico border next week to draw a sharp and distinctive contrast between them and House Republicans. While GOP Speaker Paul Ryan works diligently to kill any real chance of passing a fix for Dreamers, Pelosi and 15 of her colleagues are making clear they will not stand silently by while Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions execute a brutal policy of separating kids from their parents at any cost. Politico writes:
The group will visit at least one facility housing migrant children who have been separated from their families — the effect of a controversial “zero tolerance” prosecution policy blasted by Democrats and human rights advocates. Under the strategy, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security aims to prosecute all suspected border-crossers, including adults traveling with children.
House Democrats’ border trip to San Diego follows on the effort of Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon to raise awareness about kids being stripped from parents who are seeking U.S. asylum and then held in detention centers. Several weeks ago, Merkley attempted to visit two Texas detention facilities, one of which he later described as containing a series of cages that looked "like a dog kennel," only with bigger units.
It's horrific what Trump and Sessions are doing to kids and parents with their so-called"zero tolerance" policy, which they are explicitly using to deter future asylum seekers from seeking protection against violence in their own countries.
As Merkley told MSNBC Tuesday, just think about the administration’s core argument for a moment.
"The argument is: if we inflict trauma on children and word can get to where they came from, other families will not seek to come to the United States," Merkley explained to Beat host Ari Melber.
"There is no moral code in the universe that supports being destructive to children to influence future decisions of other adults."
One hundred percent, Sen. Merkley—>>No moral code in the universe supports that.