What kind of monsters put children in cages?

Latest


 
“What kind of monsters put children in cages?” reads a woman’s sign, protesting the mass forced separation of thousands of children from their parents seeking asylum at the US/Mexican border, and their incarceration in crowded, filthy, lice and disease-ridden concentration camps. According to witnesses, they are forced to sleep on concrete, are hungry, terrified and traumatized, and subjected to physical and sexual abuse. A doctor who visited one of these camps, full of sick and malnourished babies, compared it to a ‘torture facility’.
Many babies and toddlers are left in the care of also traumatized older children, who don’t know if they will ever see their parents; and their parents are living the worst nightmare, having their children ripped from their arms. Eight children have already died. The youngest of these stolen children was four months old. A mother watched in anguish her young husband and 1 year-old daughter drown trying to swim across the river into Texas.
This horrifying mass crime is being perpetrated by the Trump administration and forces around him, with many others in government complicit, although some are speaking out against this monstrosity. Many have financial interests in the private corporations that are running the camps. One of these makes $750 a night to cage, torture and starve these children.
These families are fleeing conditions of severe drought and of poverty, violence and oppression, much of the violence supported by the US government in the interests of corporate plunder, which in countries such as Honduras and many others bankrolls and trains death squads to murder anyone who organizes for their rights. Hoping to come to safety, they are met with this added terror, family separation and concentration camps.
This horror is sparking outrage all across the country, across divisions of politics and background: the separation of families and kidnapping and torture of children is appalling to anyone with a human heart! Protests and mass mobilizations are being organized.
Concentration camps are nothing new in the U.S. Native American children were forcibly taken from their families and placed into prison-like government schools. The separation of families under chattel slavery was practiced for hundreds of years; and the slave-catchers of today, the police, can shoot down an unarmed Black or brown child, or any poor or homeless person, and get away with murder. Japanese citizens were rounded up and put into concentration camps during World War II. The ‘welfare’ system has long broken apart families for the crime of being poor. The ‘school to prison pipeline’ guarantees fodder for the corporations of the private prison industry. At each of these times, at least some Americans have stood up to challenge the policy, and today more than ever are standing up.
This kind of isolating and dehumanizing of certain groups is one of the strategies used by fascist states (such as under the Nazis) to scapegoat and blame its victims for its economic failings. The ruling class of billionaires are beginning to resort to fascist measures because the economy is collapsing, and this is their desperate attempt to hold onto power. People who understand this are uniting in moral outrage in defense of those directly under attack, and must continue to do so. If we don’t the rest of us are next, in a fascist state where no one has rights, and children are tortured in cages instead of cherished as our future and our hope.

PT Logo collage
+ Articles by this author

Free to republish but please credit the People's Tribune. Visit us at www.peoplestribune.org, email peoplestribune@gmail.com, or call 773-486-3551.

The People’s Tribune brings you articles written by individuals or organizations, along with our own reporting. Bylined articles reflect the views of the authors. Unsigned articles reflect the views of the editorial board. Please credit the source when sharing: ©2024 peoplestribune.org. Please donate to help us keep bringing you voices of the movement. Click here. We’re all volunteer, no paid staff.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Featured

Pushing People into a Really Bad System Will End Really Badly

President Trump's executive order fuses drug use and homelessness, ignoring that homelessness can cause or exacerbate substance use because people use drugs to cope with pain. Forced institutional settings rather than housing will not help the ill or unhoused.

Chicago Resistance Speaks: ‘Until All Are Free, None Are Free’

An uprising is growing as the government tries to impose a dictatorship. Chicago resistance leaders recently offered their thoughts in public remarks made at demonstrations and press conferences.

Los Angeles Continues to Rebuild and Resist

Angelinos, suffering from the profit over people economy, continue to rebuild after the fires and to protest immigration raids, while also experiencing joy in such difficult times.

Chicago Teachers Union Says: Trump, Stay Out of Our City

Chicago Teachers Union rejects any unlawful federal occupation of their city, while welcoming federal leadership that fully funds public education, restores SNAP, and expands Medicaid to healthcare for all.

Journalist Says Why ‘I Can No Longer Work With Reuters’

A photojournalist says why it is impossible for her to maintain a relationship with Reuters "given its role in justifying and enabling the systematic assassination of 245 journalists in Gaza."

More from the People's Tribune