Who is Hurting Kids?

MAGA is the menace

The irony should not be lost on Americans that the MAGA movement and its QAnon cousins made the hunt for pedophiles their obsession. It turns out that those concerned about child sexual predators should have staked out Jeffrey Epstein’s island…not a D.C. pizza restaurant.

The list of those associated with pedophile and child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein from the released files reads like a who’s who of the MAGA/oligarch class. Although the Trump-Epstein files contain reportedly “salacious” allegations against Donald Trump, he continues to deny wrongdoing. Despite ongoing efforts to minimize his ties to Epstein, “the two men bonded over their pursuit of young women,” the New York Times reports. However, no one can dispute that Trump has gone to extreme lengths to prevent the full release of documents revealing the extent of Epstein’s orbit (perpetuating the trauma and injustice for Epstein’s victims).

(Credit: FG Trade)

That stated, the number of children Trump has harmed in his second term exceeds even those victimized by Epstein and his enablers. Beyond delaying justice for Epstein’s victims, Trump and his MAGA crew have inflicted untold trauma and misery on children. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s anti-vaccine fetish has spawned measles outbreaks with serious health consequences for children and their parents. Cuts to SNAP and Medicaid, rollbacks to EPA regulations, slashed life-saving medical trials, and obliteration of USAID have taken their toll on the most vulnerable children here and abroad.

The mass deportation operation, however, is in a class by itself when it comes to cruelty and needless suffering inflicted on innocent children. Trump shock troops used five-year-old Liam Conjes Rojas as “bait” (then detained him and his father for days). They grabbed and whisked out of state a two-year-old. This paramilitary band of thugs have repeatedly left terrified toddlers in cars after their parents were snatched away. They routinely spray tear gas into peaceful crowds with children present and wrestle racially-profiled Hispanic teenagers to the ground (refusing to believe they are citizens). Parents are afraid to send their children to school. And Renee Good’s children will grow up without their mother.

Liam was freed by court order after the judge excoriated the Trump operation. “The case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children,” Judge Fred Biery wrote. “Observing human behavior confirms that for some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency. And the rule of law be damned.” He signed the order “[w]ith a judicial finger in the constitutional dike.”

But hundreds of children like Liam remain locked up like criminals. The Marshall Report found:

The number of children in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention on a given day has skyrocketed, jumping more than sixfold since the start of the second Trump administration. The Marshall Project analyzed data obtained by the Deportation Data Project and found that ICE held around 170 children on an average day under Trump. During the last 16 months of the Biden administration, ICE held around 25 children a day.

That tally does not include those detained in the recent Minneapolis surge or “children in the custody of the Border Patrol or the Office of Refugee Resettlement, where children are held without a guardian.” (Yes, without a guardian.)

Moreover, as the Washington Post reported, “Advocates and attorneys contend that hundreds more youth have been affected in cases where authorities have separated families, which are not comprehensively tracked. Those include instances in which parents have been deported but their children remain in the United States in government custody.”

The Post continued: “Attorney Eric Lee said he saw children all over the facility during a recent visit, some as young as 3 or 4. ‘What is happening in these detention centers is worse than anybody thinks,’ he said.” Tragically, these cases are becoming commonplace:

Kristin Etter, an attorney for some of the new families, recently met with an Ecuadorian mother and her 11-year-old daughter who were arrested in Minneapolis while on their way to school. The fourth-grader spends most of her time in the Dilley facility without opportunities for intellectual stimulation, Etter said…

[A parent of a 3 yr. old] described inadequate medical care for herself and her toddler, who suffered diarrhea, and for the other detainees, who had to wait hours for treatment, even for serious illnesses.

The secret police now openly assault children and their parents. After the weekend tear-gassing incident in Portland, Mayor Keith Wilson decried the attack on a peaceful gathering, where many small children were present:

To those who continue to work for ICE: Resign. To those who control this facility: Leave. Through your use of violence and the trampling of the Constitution, you have lost all legitimacy and replaced it with shame…

To those who continue to make these sickening decisions, go home, look in a mirror, and ask yourselves why you have gassed children.

The first departures should come from the White House, DHS, the Justice Department, and Republican caucuses in the House and Senate (which authorized the money and confirmed leaders of the mass deportation scheme). They are ultimately responsible for the deaths, mayhem, and damage (physical and otherwise) inflicted upon children.

Republicans need to stop inventing bogeymen to scare voters (e.g., Your child’s gender will be changed! Trans people are lurking in bathrooms!) and stand up to the real monsters. If only they recalled the religious (or secular) precepts they rely upon to demonize others, they might act to end this madness.

Academics and pundits spend too much time quibbling over whether the Trump regime is “authoritarian” or “fascist.” What is not debatable: a regime that abuses, terrorizes, and neglects children — and engages in a cover-up of monstrous sex crimes against kids — is evil. Anyone who has participated in or enabled these unforgivable actions should be banished from public life.