Commentary: Detaining migrant children at the border echoes WWII internment of Japanese Americans

Zero tolerance is the policy the Trump administration is using to separate children from their parents who cross our border to seek asylum.

Zero tolerance is another way for people not to see, not to hear, not to think!

A zero-tolerance policy is one that imposes strict punishment for infractions of a stated rule, with the intention of eliminating undesirable conduct.

Zero tolerance policies forbid persons in positions of authority from exercising discretion or changing punishments to fit the circumstances subjectively; they are required to impose a pre-determined punishment, regardless of individual culpability, extenuating circumstances or history.

This pre-determined punishment, whether mild or severe, is always meted out.

I have personally seen how destructive this policy can be in our public schools. A zero-tolerance policy requires school officials to hand down specific, consistent and harsh punishment — usually suspension or expulsion — when students break certain rules. Under zero-tolerance policies, harsh punishment applies, regardless of the circumstances.

In 2014, as director of student and community services for the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, I worked to abolish this harmful policy. It was going well until an unfortunate cheating scandal riled the parent community.

Everyone wanted to point fingers without investigating. The easiest solution was to simply return to a zero-tolerance policy and expel everyone who was initially a potential person of interest.

No thought, no investigation, no empathy.

Eleven students were expelled in the aftermath of that scandal. Student involvement ranged from having knowledge of the cheating, receiving test questions in advance and key logging. This was zero tolerance at its finest, and it is, and was, immoral to lump everyone in one pot and punish them equally.

This is now President Trump’s policy, and the results are ugly, immoral and disgusting. Taking children from their parents, whose only crime is seeking asylum.

This is no different than when the United States interned Japanese Americans during World War ll. Our country eventually apologized and vowed to never allow that inhuman internment to happen again.

But here we are and now we are using zero tolerance to harm children, toddlers and babies!

San Clemente resident JANE GARLAND is a former director of student and community services in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District.