When Toto the dog pulls back the curtain that will reveal the Wizard of Oz, the Wizard says, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”

Indeed, pulling back the curtain reveals the end of the suspension of disbelief, for only then do we see the failings that can no longer be concealed. Only when the curtain is pulled back must we forever live again in reality, with all its warts and flaws.

President Donald Trump’s curtain was pulled back this week, and it will be impossible to pull it back into its original position. It happened over the Trump administrations’ decision to be detain children, even infants, separated from their parents, when families attempted to cross the border illegally or to seek asylum from life threatening dangers in their home country.

The policy change, called Zero Tolerance, resulted in the arrest of all adults detained, and may have wrongly included those seeking asylum, who are to be afforded a hearing, not an arrest. In any case, once the parents were arrested (in previous administrations they were simply returned across the border, family intact), the children were left alone. So, the Trump administration decided this problem would be solved by shipping the children all over the country, wherever a warm space could be located and converted to housing. Like a tent city, or an abandoned Walmart.

The children, often pulled forcibly away from their parents, were not told where they would be taken, how long they would be held, how they could find their parents again, or if they could talk to their parents. Many were taken with just the clothes on their back into buildings with hundreds of strange children and provided a pad or a cot to sleep on.

The parents were, at least in some cases, told that ICE was taking their children for baths, only to have the children never return and the parents given no means to contact their children.

Within less than two months, at least 2,000 children have gone into these non-prison, but prison-like facilities where they are not free to come and go, not able to contact anyone, and where they do not know their disposition or even the language spoken. While this would be challenging for a 13-year-old, experts have described it as child abuse for the younger children, perhaps affecting the children for life.

The Trump people, including the president, took a deny, defer and delay strategy to explain their cruel and inhumane actions. The president said it was the fault of the Democrats who made the laws in the 1990s. However, as U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, quickly noted, the president imposed the policy and the president could end it in a phone call.

The president also moved to delay acting by arguing Congress would have to pass the immigration law he wanted to end the separation of the families, suggesting if democrats will just do exactly what he wants, the children, otherwise known as the hostages, could be freed.

But the reactions to all of this have been extreme. World leaders, the Pope, the UN, our allies, Republicans, Democrats and independents, and the religious community have all called for an end to the cruelty.

As this article goes to press, there is some indication the administration is about to retreat and stop separating families, and that is good news.

This president, one whose empathy has been difficult to locate, has now pulled back the curtain on himself, and there is no empathy there, no compassion, not even for children. The curtain can never be closed again. Mr. Trump, we know you now.

 

Jim Crawford is a retired educator, political enthusiast and award-winning columnist living here in the Tri-State.