was finally provided a tour of the kid jail.

Those are children in those cages. Ripped from their parents.

Many qualify to stay in the US. There is *no* reason to separate them from their parents.

Unless cruelty has become policy.

#ThisIsUs
#ThisIsAmerica

To clarify for those who might think, wrongly, that this is new.

Kids have been detained - incarcerated- for years. Family detention is a blight on our national consciousness.

What's new is separating children from parents.

But both are evil and we must do better.

I will not give Obama a pass for letting this happen even while he did DACA and provisional waivers.

He bought the xenophobic narrative of the parasitic immigrant.

They're refugees. He blew it. Hard.

Trump has added a new level of cruelty.

I want to thank @SenJeffMerkley for helping bring this to national attention.

The picture of kids in cages is iconically representative of the nativist nonsense peddled by the anti-immigrant movement (FAIR, CIS, and NumbersUSA) for decades.

This picture is iconic too. The parents. Shackled, charged with a mere misdemeanor, subjected to mass trials that mock norms of due process.

When they plead for lenience, their words often qualify them for asylum.

Asylum. That's LEGAL IMMIGRATION.

Take a good look. Burn it into your mind.

Remember the officials voted in who allowed this to happen.

This is mass incarceration, immigration style. Different laws, same result.

Hard not to notice all the brown faces.

Every black leader and influencer I listen to sees this going on and immediately calls it for what it is: legislated white supremacy.

We could learn a few things from our black brothers and sisters.

As I told @julito77 earlier today, so many of these policies are easily explained (even predicted) if we just assume white supremacy is driving it.

School to prison pipeline?
Debtor prison?
Felon disenfranchisement?

Flip side:
Deportation triggers.
Expanded enforcement.
Denial.

There is a common enemy. @TalibKweli gets it, I know.

We can't resist one policy at a time.

You don't put out fires, you take out the flamethrower.