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Gehrke: Congress must stop Trump’s monstrously inhumane immigration policy, and keep families together

Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune The Salt Lake Tribune staff portraits. Robert Gehrke.

Is America great again yet?

Now that our explicit national policy is to take children from parents seeking asylum and lock them in chainlink cages in a warehouse, are we finally living up to our national aspirations?

Clearly, we aren’t.

Instead, we’re being led down a monstrously inhumane path by a president so callous and xenophobic that he has no compunction about ripping apart families and then has the temerity — or perhaps delusion is a better word — to blame Democrats for a policy his own Justice Department said is implemented at the discretion of the president.

The blame for this nightmare rests solely and exclusively with one person: Donald Trump.

Keep that in mind every time you see images of mothers flailing to hold on to their youngsters. Let it sear into your brain when you look at the photos of children huddled in cages like dogs.

“It is the Democrats fault for being weak and ineffective with Boarder [sic] Security and Crime,” Trump tweeted (which is a lie). “Tell them to start thinking about the people devastated by Crime coming from illegal immigration. Change the laws!”

Read the president’s callous, politicized words and think of his smug grin while you listen to the audio obtained by ProPublica of terrified Guatemalan children in a detention center crying so hard they can barely breathe.

This is not who we are — and it is never who we should be.

Gratefully, opposition to this national disgrace is coming from across the political, religious and cultural spectrum.

On Monday, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints followed numerous other faith leaders in condemning the policy.

“We are deeply troubled by the aggressive and insensitive treatment of these families,” the church’s statement read, and “we encourage our national leaders to take swift action to correct this situation and seek for rational, compassionate solutions.”

Utah’s all-Republican congressional delegation has roundly condemned the mistreatment — with the exception of Rep. Rob Bishop, who didn’t respond (Side note: C’mon, Rob).

“A policy that leads to separating children from their parents is wrong,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch.

"The policy of catch-and-release was not the answer. This administration’s policy of zero-tolerance certainly is not the answer,” said Rep. Chris Stewart.

Rep. Mia Love, herself the children of Haitian immigrants, called the policy “horrible” and said, “I firmly oppose it.”

“This is not a partisan issue — it’s an issue of right or wrong,” she said. “The administration should change its policy immediately.”

And Rep. John Curtis said that, “I do not believe that separating families is consistent with who we are as a country—and it most certainly doesn’t reflect the Utah values I was elected to represent.”

The governor of Massachusetts has said the state will not send National Guard troops to help patrol the border until the policy is changed. Utah has not been asked to send troops and Gov. Gary Herbert has not considered a similar refusal (he should), but he wants to see a change, his spokesman, Paul Edwards, told me.

“The governor is very concerned about this idea of breaking up families,” Edwards said. “He can’t see any good reason for ordinary families to be separated in this way. It seems very cruel.”

Two-thirds of Americans oppose the policy (although just more than a third of Republicans do).

Again, it is important to remember that this is Trump’s policy and he can right his wrong as easily as snapping his fingers. But given his depraved indifference to the human suffering he is causing and his defiance to the criticism, there is little chance he has the humanity or compassion to do the right thing.

So it falls to Congress to act, and it should move immediately to do so, without trying to exploit the human tragedy the president has created to squeeze out some border funding or another petty victory.

This should be about Congress doing what is moral and humane, even when our president won’t. Because we can’t make America great again until we make America good again.