The GOP Answer: Suffer the Children

Candidly, I get nauseated hearing Republicans claim to be the protectors of "Christian values" and traditional morality.  Particularly, since of the policies of today's GOP are the antithesis of the Gospel message.  If the GOP supports any biblical values, it seems to be the values of the Pharisees so condemned by Jesus.  The hypocrisy is indeed stunning.  Nowhere does this disconnect make itself more obvious than in the GOP's approach to children.  If one is not born into a white, native born, preferably far right Christian family, the GOP approach is to kick you into the gutter.  This holds true in the GOP's approach to children who came to this country illegally through no fault of their own.  A column in the New York Times looks at the GOP's foul approach to such children.  Here are excerpts:

[T]here are some difficult issues in immigration policy. I like to say that if you don’t feel conflicted about these issues, there’s something wrong with you. But one thing you shouldn’t feel conflicted about is the proposition that we should offer decent treatment to children who are already here — and are already Americans in every sense that matters. And that’s what Mr. Obama’s initiative is about.

Who are we talking about? First, there are more than a million young people in this country who came — yes, illegally — as children and have lived here ever since. Second, there are large numbers of children who were born here — which makes them U.S. citizens, with all the same rights you and I have — but whose parents came illegally, and are legally subject to being deported.

What should we do about these people and their families? There are some forces in our political life who want us to bring out the iron fist — to seek out and deport young residents who weren’t born here but have never known another home, to seek out and deport the undocumented parents of American children and force those children either to go into exile or to fend for themselves.

The real question, then, is how we’re going to treat them. Will we continue our current regime of malign neglect, denying them ordinary rights and leaving them under the constant threat of deportation? Or will we treat them as the fellow Americans they already are?

The truth is that sheer self-interest says that we should do the humane thing. Today’s immigrant children are tomorrow’s workers, taxpayers and neighbors. Condemning them to life in the shadows means that they will have less stable home lives than they should, be denied the opportunity to acquire skills and education, contribute less to the economy, and play a less positive role in society. Failure to act is just self-destructive.

But speaking for myself, I don’t care that much about the money, or even the social aspects. What really matters, or should matter, is the humanity.

My parents were able to have the lives they did because America, despite all the prejudices of the time, was willing to treat them as people. Offering the same kind of treatment to today’s immigrant children is the practical course of action, but it’s also, crucially, the right thing to do. So let’s applaud the president for doing it.

I increasingly find it difficult to be civil to some Republicans when they launch into their anti-immigrant, anti-minority harangues.  I typically bite my tongue at first and then call them out as hypocrites and modern day Pharisees  and force them to admit they are really motivated by greed, hatred, and bigotry.  They claim to cling to "Christian values" and "family values" yet their actions speak volumes, none of it good.