A Texan with a large ranch bordering Mexico said he supported Trump's policy of separating migrant children from their parents: "These people are criminals," he said. "In the United States, citizens who commit crimes are separated from their children." He said he wept for those children--American children--not those who cross American borders illegally. Democrats, the argument continues, care more about these migrants than they do about Americans.
What would the Texan rancher do if he found himself suddenly unable to feed his family or pay his bills? If his children were crying from hunger, if rats were invading the baby's crib, if a drug lord put a price on his head? Would he steal food and fuel for his family? Poverty makes criminals of us all. Australia, the noted historian Niall Ferguson has observed, was a nation founded by shoplifters. British persons convicted of stealing stockings or food got put on ships and deported there--at a time when most transportees initially regarded the region as alien as the planet Mars is to us.
I live in a nation with great health care and reasonable food prices. I'm easily able to feed my family well-balanced, nutritious meals and I don't have to worry about robbery or crime in my neighborhood. Once in a while everything stops while a bomb from the Second World War is found and defused--that happened at our local main train station today--but otherwise, life goes on, with the many, many refugees Germany has absorbed.
The realities--that the vast majority, if not all, migrants coming across the border are both harmless and easy to help, that the richest of nations can easily afford to help these poor people, is not something the Trump administration cares about. Might I persuade the Texan rancher? Somebody tell me how.
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