Donald Trump’s no-tolerance immigration policy has caused irreparable societal damage and the needless emotional abuse of innocent children, simply for political grandstanding. No matter one’s views on our failed system, all but a morally bankrupt president would agree that harming children is out of bounds. Only public outrage has halted (we think) the separation of children from parents. But the unresolved trauma continues.

My decades of experience as a licensed clinical social worker have led me to believe that the worst emotional problems adults suffer have their origins in childhood trauma. No greater societal mandate exists above the careful nurture of children.

I’m further appalled to hear the U.S. Attorney General and the president’s press secretary quote scripture to justify this disgraceful policy. It is the very scripture used by their Southern forebears to defend slavery and, later, segregation. I’m certainly no “Bible thumper,” but my sentiments toward these people more closely align with Jesus in Luke 17:2: “It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.”

Don R Austin, Salt Lake City