Confederate monument Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III has had time to reflect during his well-deserved unemployment. Sessions, who was the other guy's first attorney general, admitted during an interview with Reuters that maybe the previous administration's war on children wasn't a great idea.
"It was unfortunate, very unfortunate, that somehow the government was not able to manage those children in a way that they could be reunited properly," Sessions said. "It turned out to be more of a problem than I think any of us imagined it would be."
Sure, we'll go with "somehow," why not. Somehow Sessions brought sadistic bigot Stephen Miller to the White House. Miller was the architect of the family separation scheme, and cruelty was the only point. Miller reportedly considered family separation and the obscene Muslim ban examples of what he called “constructive controversy" — the government kicks marginalized people in the teeth and this somehow “enlightens" real Americans.
Sessions couldn't imagine that a draconian policy involving goddamn children would somehow have “unfortunate" results? GTFOH.
Top Department of Justice officials were "deeply concerned" about the welfare of children separated from their parents as a result of the previous administration's "zero tolerance" policy. The twice-impeached thug didn't give AF because he's a monster, but if Sessions had reservations, he didn't make them known at the time. In fact, he gathered southern border prosecutors and told them, “We need to take away children," no matter how young. Sessions's deputy, Rod J. Rosenstein, later chastised government lawyers who'd "refused to prosecute two cases simply because the children were barely more than infants."
This is how Sessions announced the policy in May 2018:
If you cross the border unlawfully ... then we will prosecute you. If you smuggle an illegal alien across the border, then we'll prosecute you. ... If you're smuggling a child, then we're going to prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you, probably, as required by law
Note how Sessions dehumanizes desperate families crossing the border. The parents are just “smuggling" minors, like they're contraband goods and not defenseless children.
Here's Attorney General Jeff Sessions making a joke today about separating families (to laughter and applause) https://t.co/j38Oyhd313— Robert Maguire (@Robert Maguire) 1530049859.0
Sessions wasn't reluctantly enforcing the mad king's edict. He gleefully mocked human concerns about family separation at a 2018 conservative event. He was a regular Don Rickles.
Many critics, he said, are people who "live in gated communities" and "are featured at events where you have to have an ID to even come in and hear them speak ... And if you scale the fence, believe me, they'll be only too happy to have you arrested and separated from your children!"
This “bit" aged especially poorly considering violent white supremacists broke into the Capitol and most weren't arrested until days or weeks later. They weren't separated from their families for long, as most received bail. One lady even got to attend a pre-paid work retreat in Mexico!
The kids Sessions helped torture were locked up in abandoned Walmarts. Their meals probably weren't fully organic like that fake QAnon shaman. Jacob Soboroff toured one such facility in Brownsville, Texas, and reported: "Kids here get only two hours a day to be outside in fresh air. One hour of structured time. One hour of free time." That was the same month as Sessions's open-mic night performance.
Elaina Plott interviewed Sessions last June for a profile in the New York Times.
[Sessions] recounted the outrage over his use of Scripture to defend border agents separating migrant children from their families, calling it "totally ridiculous." "I was right about that," he said. "I wish I'd fought it." Then, in a disturbing, guttural voice, he mocked much of the nation's reaction: "Nooooo, this is a poor child! They just want a job!"
Thirty-eight percent of the minors separated from their families were under the age of 10. They didn't want a job or even an unpaid internship. They wanted to stay with their parents or guardians.
Sessions can miss me with his regrets. He never cared about the kids whose humanity he failed to recognize. He deserves to end his days as the man who lost a Republican Senate primary to Tommy Tuberville.
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Stephen Robinson is a writer and social kibbitzer based in Portland, Oregon. He writes make believe for Cafe Nordo, an immersive theatre space in Seattle. Once, he wrote a novel called “Mahogany Slade,” which you should read or at least buy. He's also on the board of the Portland Playhouse theatre. His son describes him as a “play typer guy."
