From The Brennan Center for Justice:
This essay is part of the Brennan Center’s series examining the punitive excess that has come to define America’s criminal legal system.
During his confirmation hearing to be attorney general, when asked about the Trump administration’s policy of separating children from their parents at the U.S.–Mexico border, Merrick Garland repudiated the policy, stating “I can’t imagine anything worse.”
Yet, now that he is confirmed, Attorney General Garland presides over an agency that represents the U.S. government in court arguing every day that parents should be separated from their children, brothers from sisters, grandchildren from grandparents. Family separation is baked into our immigration system. It is as much a part of that system as is family unification. Unless our elected officials make significant changes to laws and policies, Garland’s name will appear on thousands of case captions opposite a person facing family separation, often permanent.
Public officials historically have justified their participation in our immigration system’s daily sundering of family ties by invoking the rule of law. We are a nation of immigrants, after all, “but we are also a nation of laws.” People who want to be here, we are repeatedly told, need to do it “the right way.” Those who violate our laws will face consequences. The comfortable invocation of these bromides requires the assumption that the law provides sensible avenues for deserving people, particularly those with strong family ties to the United States, to enter or remain legally. But the reality is much different. In fact, our immigration laws are exceptionally harsh in ways that frequently defy common sense. Continue reading >>>
|
|
|
|
