Attorney General Jeff Sessions continues to be pleased with the outcome of his “zero tolerance” immigration policy, which has resulted in the forcible separation of children—some only a few months old—from their parents, who often do not know where they’ve been taken. The psychological repercussions of these forced separations, particularly for extremely young children, are massive. One Honduran woman told CNN that her infant daughter was taken from her in a detention center while she was breastfeeding; a father from Honduras died by suicide in his cell after being separated from his wife and 3-year-old. Due to overcrowding, some minors will evidently be detained in “tent cities,” forced to sleep outdoors, somehow, in a 100-degree desert.
But the Bible says this is okay, Sessions assures us. We certainly have heard that one before, haven’t we?
In a speech given on Thursday in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Sessions defended the Trump administration’s immigration policies, quoting a useful little passage from Romans that suggests that any law is inherently good because it is a law:
First- illegal entry into the United States is a crime—as it should be. Persons who violate the law of our nation are subject to prosecution. I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order.
Over at the White House, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders concurred that it is “very biblical to enforce the law”:
Obviously, the Bible has been used to justify any number of oppressive and violent actions taken throughout U.S. history, including, let’s see: slavery, lynchings, dropping nuclear weapons on Japan (in fact, Nagasaki’s Urakami cathedral was a target), Jim Crow, conversion therapy, and other atrocities.
“I’m not ashamed of the United States of America,” Jeff Sessions said today, somehow. I am!