Trump's Orphans: 528 children still separated, 'severe attachment injuries' observed in migrant kids

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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/08/28/trumps-orphans-528-children.html

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Outrage over the entire child abduction/concentration camp/ransom thing is not something which will go away any time soon.

Even Evangelical Pigfuckers like Tony Perkins found new ways to forgo any pretense of “family values” to support Trump on this subject.

This was a line which once crossed takes any “both sides do it” arguments and throws them right in the dumpster. Conservatives supported (still support) something which was an unqualified evil. I can’t even pretend they should be treated with civility and respect for their opposing views.

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Trump figured out a way to torture children. He is nothing but a scumbag criminal.

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There is nothing surprising here, the principle has been well known, Romania’s orphans are hardly secret… So anyone who helped carry out these draconian policies cannot claim they were only following orders.

I am so ready to be done with this fashist fire drill!

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I am once again consumed by impotent rage while crying.

I’m going to have to stop reading these articles.

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These kids are Exhibit A for why I have very little patience for the “Hillary would have been just as bad” crowd.

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Please keep in mind: For ⊥rumpists, this is a feature, not a bug.

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Just as bad? No.

Bad? Yes.

And another reminder that mass deportation and detention camps were a well-established feature of the Obama administration.

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And whatabout her emails? Amirite?

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I don’t give a fuck about her emails.

I do, however, care about the bipartisan nature of the American empire.

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What is meant, exactly, by “severe attachment injuries”? Google wasn’t very helpful here, as there seems to be a range of conditions with similar names - some of which the psychology/child development community view as legit, others that look like crap science. A Google Scholar search only turns up 5 results for “severe attachment injury”, none of which have anything to do with infants/toddlers being separated from their parents

I don’t doubt that they are suffering pretty severe psychological trauma, but I think reporters and medical professionals need to be precise about what they are observing - otherwise it makes it difficult to hold the perpetrators accountable.

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Reactive Attachment Disorder is a well-recognized and much studied condition; the literature goes back at least to the 40’s. RAD gained a certain public prominence in the early 90’s when Americans began adopting chiildren out of Eastern European orphanages.The Wikipedia entry has plenty of references if you’re interested… Here’s an NIH paper to get you started.

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For me, one of the most Orwellian aspects of this crisis is how we have decided that only special places along the border can be used for asylum seekers. Anyone who comes here expecting us to uphold our obligations under our treaties or the Refugee Act of 1980 will be detained and denied asylum for crossing at the wrong spot. If they do go to one of the official ports of entry, they are blockaded and prevented from accessing the inspection area for asylum seekers. In other words, we made it illegal to legally seek asylum from a normal border crossing and are preventing people from using the legal ones.

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rant/

The child separation policy was doomed to end up this way because the people at the top lacked the proper conceptual framework:

  • Ⱦrump doesn’t see anything wrong with taking away someone’s kids because, based on his own experience, he can’t imagine anyone actually wanting their children. He seems to have a certain feeling about Ivanka, but I wouldn’t describe it as paternal.

  • Stephen Miller doesn’t have kids and can’t imagine having any because, well look at him- I’m pretty sure he was ripped from a clay womb underneath Orthanc. No one’s breeding with that any time soon, not if they have a choice.

  • Jeff Sessions has hated kids ever since one caught him pissing into a Christmas tree stand while Santa’s back was turned. I mean, that kid shouldn’t have even been awake, but Santa’s all like “Bad elf! Bad elf!” and who gets punished? Newsflash, not the kid; no, little Jeffy Egg-Nog loses his gig managing the Nice and Naughty list and spends the next 50 years trying to recreate the dream.

  • I don’t know what’s wrong with Kristjen Nielsen, maybe she went in to get her wisdom teeth taken out and they removed her soul instead.

  • To the other thousands who made this atrocity happen, what can anyone say other than “Wow, look at all the Good Americans, following orders, and playing so nicely!” That’s right, Americans, not Germans. We’re there, it’s time to update.

In recognition of the continuing damage being done, and with the expectation that the Ⱦrump administration will never make any attempt at reparations, I’d like to offer a few suggestions to Donnie Nibletfingers on where he might look in the future to find Americans with experience in borrowing things and then giving them back:

  • Dry Cleaners- these folks are wicked good at cleaning the pate-de-foie-gras off your incredibly long brick red tie and returning it to you on time. They use an innovation called the receipt. Granted Donnie, you probably don’t eat foie gras, but dry cleaners are good with ketchup too.

  • The Coat Check at Mar-aLago - these guys also use reciepts. Sure they expect a tip, but you can stiff 'em 'cause you’re the president.

  • The Valet Service at Mar-a Lago - they borrow your car, park it, return it, all without any problem. If they dent it, you can have them disappeared in the Sonoran desert- most of them are in the country illegally anyway. I know, you don’t know how to drive. Just take my word for it.

  • The Service Department at every Auto Dealership - you drop your car off, they change your oil and air filter, overcharge the fuck out of you, and return to you the exact same car you came in with. Fucking amazing.

  • Libraries - Librarians (people that work in libraries) are amazeballs pros. Every day (except Sunday- does γοδ hate books or something?), nice librarians lend books and CDs and DVDs to people and people bring them back, mostly on time. They keep a record of what you borrow and they print a copy for you so that you can remember what you have. You might not know about this whole scene since you don’t read, but let me tell you , it’s pretty cool. There are even libraries in some of the medieval backwaters that voted for you.

  • Fucking Everybody That Has Ever Used Any One of The Services Listed Above - which is… fucking everybody. You know how I mentioned that American citizens are all the time borrowing stuff from libraries and then returning it? And how they get things dry cleaned, and stash their coats before sitting down to a fancy meal, and get their cars serviced? Yeah well, that makes FUCKING EVERYBODY BETTER THAN YOU AND YOUR BAND OF EVIL INCOMPETENTS AT BORROWING THINGS AND RETURNING THEM.

Seriously Donnie, unfuck yourself. You’ve failed the most basic test there is- behaving like a human being. I’d suggest that it would be justice for you to take responsibility for the care and upkeep of the 528 kids whose lives you’ve broken, but they’ve suffered enough, and γοδ knows, one Don jr. is more than enough. If you want to do something nice for the country- you know, pay down the butcher’s bill a bit- when the time comes, just say “Guilty” and let them put the shiny bracelets on you (they’re steel, but we can look into gold plating if you want) and lead you away to the last home you’ll ever need. It’s a little smaller than your current digs, but it has all the amenities in one place.

Sincerely,
Faffenreffer

/rant

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Thanks for this - reactive attachment disorder is one of the things that came up in my searches, but it wasn’t clear to me it was an “attachment injury”. I really think the reporters (and medical professionals) need to use the correct terms when communicating with the public about this.

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“Attachment” is the two-dollar psych word for “love.” These kids have lost the loving company of their family & caretakers, with no warning, without understanding why. Further, they’ve been subjected to all kinds of abuse & neglect in the camps. As their unformed minds try to make sense of trauma, they will conclude that there’s something wrong with the caretakers, &/or something wrong with them, &/or something wrong with love.

Kids who are traumatized this early often end up unable to give or accept love. The joy & comfort of love, having been interrupted in such a terrible way, can no longer be trusted or relied on not to go away. Better not to try, is the conclusion such children draw.

They, & we, will be paying the price for a long time. Believe me, I know.

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well, if you wanted to create a bunch of murderers and rapists for some sort of sick self fulfilling prophecy about your public comments on a particular group of brown people, then this is probably one of the better ways to go about it…

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