Six on Refugees/Immigration: "Children don’t belong in jail at all, even with their parents, under any set of circumstances";
philip panaritis
"Trump’s reversal also creates a series of new headaches for the administration, as it wrestles with where to house families that are detained together, possibly for long periods, and how to reunite families that already have been separated.
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"THE PRESIDENT OF the United States told a blatant lie about Germany on Monday, claiming that the nation’s crime rate — which is at its lowest level in 25 years — has gone “way up” since Europe granted asylum to hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the wars in Syria and Iraq.
The lie, posted on Twitter by Donald Trump, was an attempt to justify the exceedingly cruel measures he ordered to deter unauthorized immigration, including the arrest of asylum-seekers at the southern border and the removal of their children for detention in cages.
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It was widely debunked and criticized by Germans, like the political scientist Marcel Dirsus.
We will not be lectured on immigration by a man who locks up children in cages.
As Mathieu von Rohr of the German magazine Der Spiegel pointed out, Trump’s false claim about crime in Germany — which is down 5.1 percent overall since last year and 2.4 percent for violent offenses — also misled readers about the continued popularity of Chancellor Angela Merkel, even as she resists calls for a crackdown on asylum-seekers from allied conservatives in the state of Bavaria"
The Bible’s message on separating immigrant children from parents is a lot different from what Jeff Sessions thinks
"As a scholar whose research is on Christian ethics, human rights and obligations to the poor, I would dispute this interpretation. Scripture commands Christians to help the poor, to recognize the importance of the family, and to criticize unjust laws.
Loving thy neighbor
The Bible. JamesNichols, CC BYIn the Gospels, Jesus repeatedly teaches that Christians should love their neighbors. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Later in Matthew, Jesus explains what loving your neighbor involves: feeding the hungry, slaking the thirsty, inviting in the stranger, clothing the naked, and visiting the sick and imprisoned. “Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these,” Jesus says, “you did not do for me.”
And in the very passage that Sessions cites, Romans 13, the Apostle Paul mirrors Jesus’ teaching. “Whatever other command there may be,” he writes, “[they] are summed up in this one command: "Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.“
Given the scriptural emphasis on acts of mercy and love of neighbor, Sessions’ claim that Paul’s command is clear is at best dubious. It is at worst indefensible.
Loving thy neighbor
The Bible. JamesNichols, CC BY
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