Readers React: America hits a World War II level of cruelty in separating migrant children from their parents

To the editor: Even Dickensian workhouses and World War II detention camps for Japanese Americans, as terrible as they were, did not dare to separate children from their parents. It took the malevolence of President Trump and Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions to accomplish this.

Trump had previously asked why a drone strike against alleged terrorists was delayed to save innocent family members from being killed as well. Sessions has used the New Testament to link the law to the word of God, notwithstanding that this family separation is a policy, not a law. As a psychotherapist, I know this type of trauma visited on children can have life-long effects.

The cruelty of the Trump administration is endless. It is up to us to put a stop to this horror.

Ken Levy, Los Angeles

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To the editor: My parents were childless when they were removed in 1943 from the Amsterdam ghetto and brought to a holding area. There, they waited as weekly trams and then trains brought people to the Westerbork transit camp and then onward to concentration camps in Poland.

Families with children were separated; the children were brought across the street from the holding area to a makeshift childcare center. My parents were able to escape by climbing through a small window in the attic and then crawling along a narrow wooden plank to the building next door.

If my parents had children at the time, they would never have attempted such a risky act. Instead, they would have tried to get reunited in the childcare area before boarding the tram. Those other families most likely perished in gas chambers with their children.

I see very little difference between those horrific days in Europe and what detained parents who only want better lives for their families are going through today, with a Bible-quoting attorney general justifying separating children from their parents. Those parents and children are not sleeping well tonight.

Ann Lander, Covina

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To the editor: You commit a crime in the United States, and it is likely that you will be separated from your children. Why is the left surprised when people who travel hundreds of miles to illegally cross our border are separated from their children?

Bob Launius, Oxnard

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To the editor: Thank you to Antar Davidson — who quit as a youth worker at a Tucson shelter housing immigrant children and started speaking out about the conditions he saw — for being a compassionate, patriotic, brave American. He is defending our integrity as a nation.

We must collectively condemn these atrocities committed at our border. The unspeakably cruel practice of separating families is not justifiable. Where is our humanity?

Shame on anyone who participates in this terrorist tactic that causes monstrous harm to innocents. Our beloved country is pandering to the most amoral leadership when we condone this appalling policy.

Carla Johnson, Claremont

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To the editor: Of all the shameful, horrible things Trump and his acolytes have done, the separation of children from their parents at the border may be the worst.

No child, undocumented or not, should be separated from his or her parents in such an inhumane manner, and the fact that it’s happening on a daily basis in the U.S. should make anyone with half a heart feel sick.

I, for one, am ashamed to call myself an American.

Steve Fisher, Studio City

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To the editor: I saw Sessions on TV quoting from the Bible to argue in favor of his immigration practices. Perhaps it would have been more helpful if someone had reminded him of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Carol Marshall, Placentia

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