Many Americans deplore the forced separation of children from their parents when they attempt an unauthorized entry into the USA. The recorded crying of children traumatized from having their parents taken away is terrible to hear for anyone with empathy. Administrations excuse this by claiming that they are only enforcing a legally mandated zero tolerance, that this separation acts as a useful deterrent to immigration, and that the law is ordained by God.

The claim by those opposing this policy is that this cruel separation is un-American. But in fact, the forced separation of children is an American tradition. Under slavery prior to the end of the Civil War, children were sold separately from their parents. This action too was presumably a law ordained by God.

The separation of children from their parents was also imposed on native American Indians. Children were forcibly removed from their homes and put into boarding schools, the aim being the assimilation of Indians into Euro-American culture. Indian children were not allowed to speak in their native languages. Rather than being un-American, this physical and cultural separation was seen as an Americanization. Canada had a similar program for its Indians.

This separation continued the genocide of Indians by having a high rate of death. The misery that children felt in their familial and cultural separation was compounded by abusive treatment and a high mortality rate.

Since the current child separation is a continuation of past policies, we can expect similar outcomes: abuse, death, and suicides. Feeling no hope of ever seeing their parents again, confined to small cages, suffering from boredom, and constantly hearing other children crying, there could be substantial illness and even suicide in these detention camps. It would at first be covered up, and then exposed, and denied as “fake news.”

This anti-family policy is supported by many Republicans and conservatives. The conservative claim of supporting “family values” has now been shown to be fake. The real conservative stance is the imposition of traditional European culture and supremacy. Most of the migrants from Central America and Mexico are of native Indian ancestry. When they are rejected and sent back to their home countries to get killed by the violence from which they fled, this is in accord with the American tradition of European racial supremacy over native American Indians. If those seeking to immigrate were Norwegians, those families would not be split up.

Indeed, those subjected to forced family separation were races that were conquered and regarded as inferior. A large immigration from Mexico and Central America would repopulate the USA with native Indian “blood,” unacceptable to Euro-American supremacists.

Therefore the forced separation of native Indians from their parents and the rejection of further immigration is as American as one could get.