To the editor:
What Mr. Trump and Mr. Sessions are doing is in violation of international law, and our law, protecting asylum seekers and refugees. It is also a violation of the eighth and 14th Amendments to our Constitution. The inhumane policy of separating young children from their parents will result in irreparable psychological harm.
Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) was denied access to the immigration center where children are being held. He did tour a processing center where children were being held in cages with nets over them to prevent escape.
Some of these children are as young as a year old. This is needless, intentional cruelty for cruelty’s sake. The world is watching, and the United Nations has stated that the United States is in violation of these children’s rights.
Mr. Trump would have everyone believe that this was a law passed by the Obama Administration. Not so. It is Mr. Trump’s idea.
What had been a policy of protecting unaccompanied minors is now a costly punitive policy of deterrence. It violates the Constitution our leaders swore to uphold and simple human decency. Enough is enough.
Alice J. Hessenauer, Janesville