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Comment by burfog | Hacker News Reader

In the USA, it simply isn't normal for any kind of criminal to bring family to jail. This is nothing special. It's the same thing that happens when you go to jail for stealing a car, raping, or getting in a bar fight. Even for a DUI, the USA will separate a mom from a baby. Family jail is not a thing in the USA, even for newborns.

In the USA, it is also normal to take children away from abusers. It is child abuse to walk a kid across a hot desert, through cartel territory, and over a river or fast-moving canal. Any of the adults should consider themselves lucky if the USA doesn't file charges for felony child abuse.

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The families being separated here include legal asylum seekers, so the analogy to criminals is pretty miserable. An example of this is a current lawsuit filed by the ACLU on behalf of a refugee mother fleeing persecution from the Republic of Congo who applied for asylum at a legal port of entry and had her seven year old daughter forcibly taken from her. https://www.aclu.org/cases/ms-l-v-ice

The ACLU has a pretty good breakdown for questions about this here, and specifically answers whether or not family separation is legally mandated (it is not, in fact courts have ruled the opposite). It also contrasts the punishment of illegally crossing the border (a misdemeanor with a sentence of a few days in jail) with the many-months long periods where children are kept and not returned. https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/immigrants-right...

This is not normal, and all of the victims are not criminals. The alternative was a family program that helped would-be immigrants navigate the system and either get temporary visas or be denied entry as a family unit. This program was shut down by the administration despite meeting it's success metrics. https://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2017/06/ice-shuts-d...

When John Kelly was the head of the DHS he said this child separation policy was intentionally designed to deter immigration. This is cruel punishment to keep legal asylum seekers away. https://thehill.com/latino/322608-dhs-head-confirms-hes-cons...

That goes for the rest of the world too, except in most countries, if children are separated from their parents the police is responsible to keep track of the kids to make sure they can reunite after being released.

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