Perspective: Can the United States retain its humanity even in crisis?
Central American migrants waited for food in a pen erected by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to process a surge of migrant families and unaccompanied minors in El Paso in March. By Fitz Brundage Fitz Brundage is the William B. Umstead professor of history at UNC-Chapel Hill and the author of"Civilizing Torture," which was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in History.
Threats to our safety, perceived or real, have long justified the kind of “tougher policies” that President Trump has demanded for the southern border. He may not be well versed in history, but the president is joining a long line of elected officials who found that rights and basic norms are easily jettisoned when they collide with demands for greater security.
As early as 2014, immigrants-rights advocates appealed to the Department of Homeland Security to investigate more than 100 instances of Customs and Border Patrol agents abusing child immigrants. A quarter of the children reported physical abuse, including sexual assault, the use of stress positions and beatings. Many more suffered verbal abuse, including death threats.
We’re seeing a replay of that ugly history unfold along our southern border. If the Trump administration codifies its get-tough rhetoric into harsher policies, we will see far more allegations of human rights abuses against the men and women charged with securing our border. And we probably will rationalize it by claiming that those responsible are just a few bad apples rather than reckoning with the ways cruelty has been embedded in the policy itself.
France Dernières Nouvelles, France Actualités
Similar News:Vous pouvez également lire des articles d'actualité similaires à celui-ci que nous avons collectés auprès d'autres sources d'information.
States weigh banning a widely used pesticide even though EPA won’tSome state and federal lawmakers want the pesticide, chlorpyrifos, banned, but federal regulators are fighting to keep it on the market.
Lire la suite »
Problems and Prospects for 5G Deployment in the United StatesVirtual networks are well worth exploring before the U.S. gets locked into the slow-moving rollout of a solution which extends reliance on the currently installed base.
Lire la suite »
Daimler will pull Smart mini-cars out of United States, CanadaThe tiny, two-person Smart cars once pitched as the next big thing in urban mobi...
Lire la suite »
Julian Assange says he does not want to be extradited to the United StatesWikileaks founder Julian Assange told a London court on Thursday he did not want...
Lire la suite »
United States is on the way to becoming a non-white majority by 2045Non-white Americans are now the majority of the population in four states, as well as in the most prosperous and powerful US cities.
Lire la suite »
Subway closed more than 1,000 stores in the United States last yearSubway, the world's largest fast-food chain, is struggling to adapt to more health-conscious, tech-savvy customers. So it's rapidly downsizing.
Lire la suite »
Analysis | Why is Russia clashing with the United States over Venezuela?Analysis: Why is Russia clashing with the United States over Venezuela?
Lire la suite »
Burger King plans to roll out Impossible Whopper across the United StatesBurger King plans to roll out its Impossible Whopper — a vegetarian version of its signature burger — across the United States
Lire la suite »
Government squaring off with Burning Man organizers over barriers, lasers and trash cansA standoff with the federal government is putting the future of Burning Man at risk. The problems started when the event's organizer, Burning Man Project, applied for a permit from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to hold the event in northern Nevada's Black Rock Desert for another 10
Lire la suite »
The 25 humanities majors with the highest salariesUsing data from Payscale and OneClass, we found the 25 humanities majors with the highest average salaries.
Lire la suite »