Jeff Sessions Threatens Undocumented Families

[Content Note: Nativism; child endangerment.]

Here is Attorney General Jeff Sessions at a law enforcement conference in Scottsdale, Arizona, yesterday:

“If you don’t want your child to be separated, then don’t bring them across the border illegally. It’s not our fault that somebody does that,” AG Jeff Sessions says at event in Arizona pic.twitter.com/IIvVS8vSsj

— Matthew Keys (@MatthewKeysLive) May 7, 2018

So, if you cross the border unlawfully, even a first offense, we're going to prosecute you. Those cases are up about double last year, and we're gonna go higher this year. [Note from Liss: That's a lie.] It's an offense to enter the country unlawfully!

[edit] If you're smuggling a child, then we're going to prosecute you. And that child will be separated from you, probably, as required by law. If you don't want your child to be separated, then don't bring 'em across the border illegally! It's not our fault that somebody does that!

[edit] It's an important matter nationally. It's not just one case; it's whether or not we have a border of integrity or lawlessness. And we inter— We want integrity in our border.

The judges represent a fifty percent increase in the number of immigration judges at the border. [???]

So we're sending a message to the...world, really! The border is not open! The border is not open! Don't come unlawfully!

At another point in his speech, Sessions also said: "If you don't like that, then don't smuggle children over our border."

Sure. Except for a couple of things, like how large swaths of the U.S. economy have long been based around undocumented migrant workers, many of whom bring their children with them for obvious reasons. Or like how many of the people that Sessions dismisses out of hand as lawbreakers who need to be punished are in actuality refugees seeking safety in the United States.

This is, yet again, malice for its own sake. It's also primarily a punishment for the children, who have no control over their parents' decisions. That's the worst part of this policy — and the most revealing. The Trump administration is straight-up threatening children in order to try to control adults' behavior.

And then the highest law enforcement official in the land stands at a podium whining, "It's not our fault!"

Utterly vile.