‘Separated’ Director Errol Morris Says Ultimate Goal Of Trump Border Policy Was Meanness, Not Deterrence – Guest Column

Editors note: Errol Morris is the documentary filmmaker behind features including the Oscar-winning The Fog of War and The Thin Blue Line, works renowned for their investigative style. His latest film, Separated, which premiered at the Telluride Film Festival, played in theaters nationwide and aired on MSNBC, is available digitally December 17.

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Does anyone know what family separations are really about? Do I? There was a confrontation at the Republican National Convention between Donald Trump, Jr. and Jacob Soboroff. That is, the son of the President-elect and the NBC News reporter who covered the story and subsequently wrote a book, Separated, about the policies. It was this book — more specifically, my enthusiasm for it — that convinced me to make a movie about the issue.

But back to the confrontation.

Jacob Soboroff: I know immigration is important to him. I covered the family separation crisis closely. Will we continue to see policies like separating 5,000 children deliberately from their parents?

Don Jr.: You mean, during the Obama administration…?

Jacob Soboroff: You know they didn’t so that, sir.

Don Jr.: Sure.

Jacob Soboroff: Will there be second family separation policy?

Don Jr.: It’s MSDNC, so I expect nothing less from you clowns…

And yet, despite harsh immigration policies from previous administrations, there was never a policy of separating families at the border. Obama’s Director of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, explicitly rejected it. So, who was responsible? Who can be blamed?

My candidates? Trump, his attorney general Jeff Sessions, his senior advisor Stephen Miller, and his director of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) Tom Homan. They played their cards at first close to the chest. They may have had this policy in mind from the very beginnings of Trump’s term and started to implement it almost immediately, but it was not until May 7, 2018 when the Department of Justice announced a “zero-tolerance” policy.

Like most draconian policies, “the final solution” included, the actual policy was cloaked in euphemisms. What did “zero-tolerance” mean? Quite simply, 8 USC 1325 was invoked. It addresses border crossings — specifically, improper entry by an alien. But it is a misdemeanor not a felony. During previous administrations, migrants crossing the southern border were arrested and released after getting a date to appear in court in the United States. The policy was derogatorily referred to as “catch and release” — does this term come from fishing?

Trump changed all of it.

In the words of Sessions, announcing the zero-tolerance policy, “If you cross this border unlawfully, then we will prosecute you, it’s that simple… If you’re smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you and that child will be separated from you as a required by law.” Significantly, Sessions did not address families crossing the border — they were lumped in with smugglers. And as we now know, these policies justified the separation of nursing infants from their mothers, among other family separations.

How could this be?

My explanation? Part of it has to be the racist rhetoric of Trump and many of his administrators. If most immigrants are drug dealers, murderers, smugglers, criminals of one stripe or another, then whatever we do is justified.

But wait one second. Isn’t this a country of immigrants? Doesn’t the Statue of Liberty stand at the entrance to New York harbor?

Those charged with carrying out these policies couldn’t seem to keep the story straight either. Kirstjen Nielsen bristled at the suggestion that these policies were designed to deter immigrants from leaving Central America and beginning a journey north to the southern border of the U.S. The law was the law and it needed no explanation — even though these enforcement policies were new. Immigrants were simply law breakers and when you prosecute anyone, you separate their families.

This does little, preciously little to explain what was actually going on. Forcibly separating families; keeping no records of which families were separated making it all but impossible to reunite them; incarcerating children, even infants.

Here is why I don’t think the ultimate goal was deterrence, why I believe the ultimate goal was meanness. Pragmatically speaking, these policies did little or nothing to discourage immigration. People kept coming — probably because the same conditions that had caused them to flee Central America hadn’t changed. The policies weren’t aimed at immigrants but at Trump’s base. It was an infernal combination of the disingenuous and self-deceived. Were separations really about discouraging immigration or just a dog-whistle to Trump’s immigrant-hating base? “Hey, look Dad, we can be racist, too.”

Although commentators like to focus on the specific issue at hand (as well they should), there is a larger issue at stake — the issue of racism. J.D. Vance, challenged about the truthfulness of claims that Haitians were eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, argued the claims might not be truthful, but they all called attention to an underlying problem. He could have been right there. But the underlying problem is race and using race to stir up anger and resentment.