On Wednesday, Donald Trump finally acknowledged he’s been lying to the American people for weeks….sort of.
After repeatedly (and falsely) insisting that he had no authority to end the separation of children and parents at U.S. border detention centers, Trump signed an executive order Wednesday afternoon to keep families together, in jail, as his administration prosecutes them for seeking a better life. But here’s the thing — while keeping children with their parents is certainly the right thing to do, incarcerating families still means you’re putting innocent children in jail.
How do you explain to the President of the United States that he should care about other humans? How do you show him that the thought of jailing children should break his heart? How do you get him to see that what he is doing is wrong….when he just doesn’t seem to care?
We may never know the answer to that. We may never be able to teach Donald Trump empathy.
But the fact is that Donald Trump doesn’t come up with these hateful policies on his own. To stop the hate, you have to identify the sources, and eliminate them. The Trump administration’s most despicable immigration policies all share a common source — Stephen Miller, who serves as Trump’s top policy adviser. Miller has made it his life’s work to push for things like separating immigrant children from their parents, building a border wall, and instituting a Muslim ban.
Since Donald Trump took office, Stephen Miller has used his position in the White House to stoke hatred toward immigrants and people of color. His continued presence in the administration is dangerous and it lends legitimacy to the white nationalist movement.
Removing one man from the administration won’t singlehandedly solve the insidious hatred and bigotry that has poisoned our nation’s highest office. But fighting back against scenes like we’ve seen at the border over the last few days means committing to do everything we can to dismantle the grip white nationalists and the far right have on our nation. It means finding the places where we can have real impact and then putting in the work each and every day to make that change happen.