“Leaders who are silent and do nothing are as guilty and do worse than those who commit these horrific attacks” ―George Stamatis
By Glen Reaux
“Crimes against humanity are certain acts that are deliberately committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian or an identifiable part of a civilian population.” {1} Although the United States has strict military guidelines and punishments to prevent and punish such crimes, the U.S. civil and criminal court systems do not. Crimes against humanity are almost always handled by the International Criminal Court. So, there is no system in place to deal with our government’s commission of crimes against humanity within our very borders. What is often forgotten or ignored is the fact that our country was founded on its ability to commit crimes against humanity upon the indigenous populations of this continent, Japanese American Citizens during WWII, the slaves that made this country’s economic power so great and their descendants that still suffer from our nation’s system of institutionalized racism. Shamelessly, the nation to-this-day has refused to offer any type of remediation for its citizens that continue to suffer. Even though America has criticized and taken actions against other country’s guilty of such atrocities, Trump’s Crimes Against Humanity which stem from his brutal immigration policies have degraded America’s world position to a level of shame not seen since the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Judging from his persistence to defy the law and infect the rest of the administration with his immigration madness, the 24 people that have died in ICE custody which includes 6 children will be just the tip of the iceberg as his crimes continue into the foreseeable future.
According to more than a dozen articles published by foreign press outlets and television coverage from the BBC and other allies, this country is hypocritical and obviously has not learned anything from its original deadly sins of genocide and slavery. In the eyes of the world, Trump’s treatment and abuse of innocent children makes America a monster comparable to Nazi Germany. On June 18th, New York Congress Woman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) referred to border detention centers as concentration camps.
The Trump administration has denied these accusations and has attacked AOC as being un-American for her comments. Trump himself has launched racist attacks against AOC and the other freshmen Congresswomen of color known as the “Squad” telling them to go back to where they came from. Such a racist attack only highlights so-called-president Trump’s ignorance because AOC and two of the other “Squad” members were born here in America. And, history has proven AOC to be right. According to the Former German and Nazi Concentration Camp Memorial and Museum, Auschwitz-Birkenau:{2}
“The fate of child and youth prisoners was no different in principle from that of adults (with the exception of the children in the family camps). Just like adults, they suffered from hunger and cold, [A]t the end of 1943; separate barracks were set up for children above the age of 2. These did not differ in any way from the barracks assigned to adults. The camp authorities did not even distribute milk or appropriate food rations.”
In a June 24th Newsweek article {3), several college professors and historians defended AOC’s concentration camp analogy as being accurate. Professors Rachel Ida Bluff of the University f Michigan, sociology professor Richard Lachmann at the University at Albany and associate professor of history at Washington University Anika Walke all defended OAC’s reference to concentration camps. According to Lachmann: “Concentration camps are any place where large numbers of people are held in poor conditions because of their nationality, ethnicity, religion or other characteristics rather than as individuals convicted of crimes.”
After noting that many of the migrant children are to be housed at Fort sill, a site that housed Native Americans followed by Japanese Americans that were forced from their homes during World War II, professor Bluff stated: “The Trauma these children are suffering threatens to disable a generation.”
Associate professor Walke added weight to AOC’s comments: “An initial reaction could easily be to say, no, the detention centers at the U.S. border are not the same as the Nazi camps,'” “But to say the term applies only to camps set up by the Nazi regime is incorrect and only signals “an a-historical understanding of the Holocaust.”
In many ways, what Trump is doing is worse than what happened in German concentration camps. In Germany, the children were placed in barracks. On our southern border, migrant children (including infants) are separated from their parents, placed in dog-pound-like cages and are forced to sleep on concrete floors and not allowed to bathe or shower. They are denied medical attention, bathroom privileges, have to sit and sleep in their own feces and are not given basic sanitary essentials such as toothbrushes and soap. On June 18th in the United States 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, Trump Department of Justice Lawyer, Sarah Fabian defended the administration’s child abuse policies as being safe and sanitary. The lawyer claimed that the lack of sleep, toothbrushes, blankets and soap for the children in custody complied with standards of safe and sanitary. When the Justices stated that the treatment was unconstitutional, attorney Fabian stated that she was not arguing the constitutionality of safe and sanitary as if the standard was irrelevant to the treatment of the children.
During World War II, Nazi soldiers sexually assaulted Jewish women regularly and in some instances, the administrators of the concentration camps operated brothels on-site for German soldiers forcing Jewish women to become sex slaves. While nothing of that magnitude has been reported against Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents or their detention centers, sexual assault of immigrant children by CBP agents has been documented. In February of this year, Congressman Ted Deutch of Florida released documents detailing 200 cases of sexual assault by detention center staff members. Last year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) stated that the agency is not responsible for abuses that take place in their detention centers. In response to a federal court ruling that a sexual assault survivor’s case against a guard at Berks Family Residential Center in Pennsylvania could move forward, representative of the detention center argued that the alleged attack was consensual and that alleged sexual abuse should be assessed differently for immigrants in detention facilities than it is for American inmates in prisons or jails. In other words, immigrants should not have equal protection under the law. This sounds like Nazi Germany.
In another case, Homeland Security stated that it was investigating allegations that border agents sexually assaulted children in one migrant detention center and retaliated against children that spoke out against their living conditions. On Tuesday, July 9th, a 15-year-old girl reported that a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent had put his hands inside her bra, pulled down her underwear, and groped her during what was supposedly a “routine pat-down.” The child alleges that the guard laughed with other staff members during the assault at a Yuma, Arizona facility.
The Trump administration’s crimes against humanity have garnered the attention of the United Nations. On July 8th, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Dr. Michelle Bachelet, a pediatrician, condemned the United States for its treatment of migrant children arriving from Mexico: “As a pediatrician, but also as a mother and a former head of state, I am deeply shocked that children are forced to sleep on the floor in overcrowded facilities, without access to adequate health care or food, and with poor sanitation conditions.” Ms. Bachelet, a former President of the nation of Chile continued her rebuke: “Children should never be held in immigration detention and should never be separated from their families. Detaining a child even for short periods under good conditions can have a serious impact on their health and development — consider the damage being done every day by allowing this alarming situation to continue.”
She also noted that several other United Nations human rights bodies had determined that the Trump administration’s separation of children from their families likely constituted the sort of cruel and inhumane treatment prohibited in international law.
Despite the ire expressed by the United Nations’ and many other Heads of State around the world, the Trump Administration has ignored a report on the conditions of these incidents that were explained in the July 2nd Homeland Security Inspector General’s Report {4}.
The opening paragraph of the report from Acting Inspector General Jennifer L. Costello states: “For your action is our final management alert, Management Alert – DHS Needs to Address Dangerous Overcrowding and Prolonged Detention of Children and Adults in, the purpose of which is to notify you of urgent issues that require immediate attention and action. Specifically, we encourage the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to take immediate steps to alleviate dangerous overcrowding and prolonged detention of children and adults in the Rio Grande Valley. Issuance of this management alert is consistent with our duties under the Inspector General Act of 1978, as amended, to conduct inspections and recommend policies to promote economy, efficiency, and effectiveness in DHS programs and operations.”
Homeland Security Office of Inspector General Report
Now under Donald Trump America takes its place alongside Nazi Germany, Russia, China, North Korea and South Africa as perpetrators of crimes against humanity. All of these countries were once rebuked by the United Nations, America and her allies for their inhuman atrocities. China and Russia continue their crimes albeit for Russia on a somewhat smaller scale. North Korea and Russia both have strong dictatorial leaders that Trump has expressed a great deal of admiration for. So the questions must be asked; is Trump’s admiration for Putin and Kim Jong-un the reason for his illegal and inhumane treatment of refugees along our southern border? Is this behavior an expression of his true nature? Are the immigrants coming to our southern border paws in a game to get Trump re-elected? Or, is it all of the above?
Judging from Trump’s behavior which was proven to be racists as far back as the 1980s and has continued to this day, the answer has to be all of the above. Like his idols Putin and Kim, Trump loves to abuse people. It is in the nature of both Putin and Kim and is endemic to so-called-president Donald Trump. What is sickening is the fact that Republican politicians have not only covered for him, they have lied to the American people for him and they continue to aid him in the commission of these crimes. Trump and his Republican minions have no respect for the constitution or our founding fathers whose words are the opening statement of the constitution which they have sworn under oath to defend and protect:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Trump’s crimes against humanity do not form a more perfect union. They are the antithesis of justice. Nor do his crimes ensure domestic tranquility or promote the general welfare. His crimes will not bring the Blessings of Liberty. The words and actions of the founding fathers so inspired the world, that the people of France gifted the Statue of Liberty to us in 1886. The giant sculpture of Libertas the Roman goddess of liberty is made of copper and inscribed on its base is the poem, The New Colossus:
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
This is what America is supposed to be. This is why America has become a land that has prospered due to immigrants. This is why Trump’s border wall is un-American. And, this is why Trump needs to be tried in the International Criminal Court for his abuses of migrant children which truly are Crimes Against Humanity. If not, perhaps we can send him back to where his grandfather came from, Hitler’s homeland of Germany!
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Linked Sources and Documentation
- Crimes against humanity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimes_against_humanity
- Auschwitz- Birkenau: http://auschwitz.org/en/history/fate-of-children/the-fate-of-the-children
- Newsweek Article: https://www.newsweek.com/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-concentration-camps-immigrants-detention-centers-southern-border-experts-1445483
Copyright © 2019, Glen Reaux, all rights reserved
Well written and researched. However it may be a little too late to have awakened the masses . !
Keep hope alive and the message. We just need a few to wake up