The System is Functioning As Intended

The US Border Patrol has been separating children from parents that attempt to enter the United States illegally. There are also large numbers of children (anyone under 18) that attempt to enter the United States alone. US policy is to keep these children in separate 'camps' or 'shelters', for reasons that probably make sense when they do not have parents around, and probably also make sense to whatever bureaucrat thinks it is most efficient to keep all the kids in one place, and all the adults in another.

This cruel policy, instituted by the Trump administration (a collection of nitwits and grifters unlike any in modern US political history) in April, is the perfect distillation of callous racism in America. You can draw a straight line from the oft-used 'if he just' responses to another unarmed black or brown person getting killed by a police officer to this latest Federally-mandated cruelty. Consider such timeworn classics as "if he had just listened to the police it would never have happened", or "if he just had not put his hand near his pocket then it would never have happened", or "if he just had not run away it would never have happened", etc, etc, ad nauseum, until all agency from the other actors is completely abstracted. It is every bit as effective as it is lazy.

People will keep coming to the United States until you either a) give them a reason not to come here, or b) give them a reason to stay where they are. The US is not much interested in giving people a reason to stay where they are, because nation-building is hard, and (more importantly) it has a way of interfering with the profits of meganational corporations. So the only thing left to do is to give them a reason not to come here. Which leads us to this latest policy, and the Trump supporters justifications: 'if they just didn't try to come here, they wouldn't get their children taken away'. Which, broadly speaking, is true. But it obscures the questions of why they want to come here, and why we, the most rich and powerful nation in the history of the world, have to separate children from their parents in order to deter them. These are hard problems to solve. Much easier then to sit back, relax, and tell yourself, 'if they just...'