In its recent ruling on Jennings v. Rodriguez, the Supreme Court ruled that “immigrants can be detained without bond hearings, and with no restriction on the length of time they are detained.” Couple the ruling with the vague laws on how to best deal with children of immigrants, and what you have is a separation of children from parents for an indeterminate period of time.
The Trump administration’s disdain for immigrants (legal or otherwise) has been well documented and may be the underlying motivation leading to the “zero policy” mandate that caused the explosion of this tragedy — but it was the Supreme Court’s decision coupled with the vague policies on how to deal with children of immigrants that lit the fuse.
As the president and Congress try to extinguish an already-lit fuse by crafting some legislation to prohibit removing children from their parents, the reality is the fuse has been lit, and while we can limit the casualties of this explosion, one can only wonder what bomb will drop next, and who will be in its path when it does.
Jason S. Taylor, North Salt Lake