Hey Rep. Gonzales, Finish The Thought: What About That Five-Year-Old US Citizen?
from the the-five-year-olds-see-you-as-the-bad-guy dept
Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales from Texas went on Face the Nation on Sunday and said a lot of silly things, doing his best as a loyal Trump foot soldier to defend the indefensible, to make sense of the nonsensical, and to lie about all the rest.
However, I wanted to focus on one bit of the clip that I’ve watched over a dozen times, and still can’t figure out what Rep. Gonzales meant. And I’m writing this in hopes that some DC or Texas reporter asks Gonzales to explain. Here’s the clip:
And here’s the transcript from CBS. I’m including a bit more than is in the clip just to get the full context of what he’s saying:
MARGARET BRENNAN: You have this facility, though, in your district, Dilley, and that is for family detentions. That’s where little five-year-old Liam Ramos from Minnesota was held before a judge, that’s the picture of him there, ordered him released. He was ordered released because his family has a pending asylum claim, a legal process. He had entered with U.S. government permission through a process that the Biden administration had deemed legal. The current administration does not. The CBPOne app. Liam’s father gave an interview to Telemundo and you read the transcript, he’s talking about this five-year-old. He’s not okay. He’s waking up at night crying. He’s worried he’s going to be taken again. It’s psychological trauma, according to the father. And the administration is still trying to deport him. Do you understand why they are so focused on this five-year-old and his dad if they did come in through the front door with U.S. government permission?
REP. GONZALES: Well, the front door was via an app that Biden knew exactly what he was doing, and he created this huge mess, and now President Trump is there to clean up.
MARGARET BRENNAN: –but he came in the front door, he wasn’t–
REP. GONZALES: –through an app–
MARGARET BRENNAN: –across the border–
REP. GONZALES: –through an app that wasn’t vetted. And bottom line is, he’s likely- they’re not going to qualify for asylum. So what do you do with all the people that go through the process and do not qualify for asylum? You deport them. I understand the five-year-old and it, you know, it breaks my heart. I have a five year old at home. I also think, what about that five-year-old U.S. citizen–
MARGARET BRENNAN: –You feel comfortable defending that?
REP. GONZALES: I feel comfortable- we have to have a nation of laws. If we don’t have a nation of laws–
MARGARET BRENNAN: –They were following the- the law that is- that is that’s the rub, is that a new administration deemed the last administration’s regulation not to be legal.
Again, there’s a lot of nonsense in there, including Gonzales trying to pretend that Liam Ramos and his father had not entered the right way and following the laws of the US for those seeking to come here just because it was “through an app.” That app was the legal process. They followed the law. They did it the right way. To magically make that out to be violating the law because the next administration no longer wants to support that path doesn’t change the underlying fact that they were doing things the legal way.
But, again, let’s leave that aside. I simply want to focus in on the question of what the fuck Gonzales meant when he said:
I understand the five-year-old and it, you know, it breaks my heart. I have a five year old at home. I also think, what about that five-year-old U.S. citizen–
What about them? Under what scenario, process, or idea is that hypothetical five-year-old US citizen harmed? I’ve been unable to think or a single possible scenario in which the US citizen five-year-old could be harmed by allowing Liam Ramos to go through the asylum process.
Perhaps Rep. Gonzales can enlighten us by completing his thought and explaining.
Seriously: what is the scenario here? Is pre-kindergarten a zero-sum game now? Does Liam Ramos’s presence in a classroom somehow harm the US citizen in the next seat?
Brennan cut him off before he could finish the thought, and nobody followed up. So we don’t know. But I’d really like someone in the DC or Texas press corps to ask him to complete that sentence. Because I can think of one very obvious way that five-year-old US citizens are being harmed right now—and it’s not by Liam Ramos.
It’s by watching their government kidnap their classmates.
Nicholas Grossman talked about how his own child is distraught because some of his classmates can no longer come to school for fear their parents may be kidnapped by ICE:
Indeed, the NY Times went and actually spoke with Liam Ramos’ classmates, and they seem legitimately distraught that government agents kidnapped their friend and sent him halfway across the country to a dangerous concentration camp. The video on that page is absolutely heartbreaking. I don’t see how anyone with a soul could possibly support or justify what is being done to Ramos. And to claim it’s in the name of his US citizen classmates is even more obnoxious. Just a couple of the quotes from five year olds:
“You are scaring schools, people, and the world. You should be kind, helpful, and caring like normal police. Not dangerous, scary, and stealing people. I think you should make friends with the world.”
“You, right now, you’re making people really sad because you’re just taking them away without them doing anything.”
So, please, Rep. Gonazales, tell us what you were thinking. What about those five-year-olds? What about kidnapping their classmate makes them better off? What about any of this makes sense? They’re not criminals. They followed the official legal process. They came in through “the front door” following the official process of the government at the time.
At no point have they done anything wrong.
So please, Rep. Gonzales: finish the thought. What about that five-year-old US citizen?
Because those five-year-old US citizens have already given their answer. They’re not being harmed by Liam Ramos. They’re being harmed by a government that just taught them their friends can disappear without warning.
That’s “what about” them.
Filed Under: asylum, immigration, liam ramos, margaret brennan, minnesota, tony gonzales
Comments on “Hey Rep. Gonzales, Finish The Thought: What About That Five-Year-Old US Citizen?”
Love is natural. Hate is taught.
You know what he means. These people believe that every non-white person in America is a harm done to white people.
The cruelty is the point.
This is ethnic cleansing, not immigration enforcement.
Don’t fucking @ me with bullshit about laws, I’m here, I see what they’re doing. This isn’t about law and order it is about whiteness and power.
Because them dirty immigrants are why I can’t feed my son! Definitely not because I invested in trump crypto
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The five year old isn’t being deported.
His FATHER is being deported, and no one else in the US wants to take care of the boy, so he’s going back with his father. The boy can come back as an adult, or at any time is there’s some legal guardian in the US.
That’s all completely fine. This whole thing is a null, manufactured argument.
Re:
Except you’re actively in favor of revoking his citizenship. This thing where you argue whatever you think sounds good in the moment doesn’t work for an audience with critical analysis or any amount of a memory.
It’s so fine you have to froth at the mouth making sure we know it’s perfectly legal and okay. Very normal. All fine. No trauma inflicted. No intentional cruelty. He’ll fondly look back on this experience and wish he could go through it everyday!
Apparently morals weren’t granted birthright citizenship because conservatives and bigots have deported them too.
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The app was NOT the legal process. The app was what the Biden administration lied and pretended was the legal process. They were breaking the law the whole time.
Re:
Which law says the app is illegal? Oh, right. We don’t cite our claims around here. Citations are for people who actually care about the truth instead of the outrage.
And multiple actually deported 5-year-old US citizens?
Between this, Epstein and his cohorts, being anti-vax and anti-science, doing nothing about gun control, preventing queer kids from learning about themselves and getting support, the abolishment of the Department of Education- when these people “think of the children” it’s in the most cruel and callous way possible.
Re:
If conservatives stopped thinking about children so much, the children would be better off and much safer.
Re: Re:
Their job is the whine about how things are bad and how other people should have fixed them in the first place.
If they start fixing things on their own, and not complaining how hard and difficult it is to do so, they would be out of job in a month, and being replaced by even lazier and stubborn persons that would whine even more, as it is happening for decades.
it's retroactive law enforcement...
It’s retroactive law enforcement, because this Trump administration believes it can change what was once legal, make it illegal, then prosecute and deport people for doing what was legal when they did it.
“Do you have lace-up shoes on right now?”
“Yes.”
“That’s it, you’re deported. Those are now illegal.”
“Wait – they weren’t this morning when I got dressed.”
“Sorry, law changed, you’re now an ‘illegal’, and you’ve got to go.”
“I was wrong, I am wearing slip-on shoes.”
“That’s OK – we’re making those illegal tomorrow.”
The law cannot be arbitrarily changed and then retroactively applied, or else we have no law at all… we have the random whims of a cruel bully, being enforced by brutal thuggery and violence. Are we “great again” yet?
Re:
Actually, retroactivity occurs all the time in the law. Let me give an example: today it’s completely legal for me to own a revolver. Tomorrow it may be illegal. Thus, if I have a revolver today, I must get rid of it before the law becomes effective tomorrow. Otherwise, I risk criminal consequences.
ICE actions are not retroactively applied. They are applied to a state of law as it exists at the moment it is enforced. There is nothing that prohibits our government from changing laws. In fact, there’s an entire section of the US Constitution that sets out the process whereby it may be changed.
No, we’re not great again. And we won’t be for the foreseeable future. Trump is doing everything he can, but the swamp keeps sucking him down.
Re: Re:
Not really, it’s more of an exception than a rule and only for civil law and for federal law ex post facto is explicitly forbidden in the constitution. On top of that, retroactive laws usually run into the little problem of the 5th and 14th amendment, ie the due process clauses. The caveat here is that retroactive laws that ease, reduce penalties or de-criminalize past actions are usually allowed.
Aside from the 5th and 14th amendment, there is the 2nd amendment. I would suggest a better example.
Now, if ICE actually followed the law, internal established procedures and due process we wouldn’t likely have this discussion – would we?
Yes, but any new or changed laws can’t ignore ex post facto and due process because without adherence to those what’s the point of following the law at all?
Re: Re:
There actually is…
The executive branch doesn’t have the power to change laws. The legislative branch does. You would think a motherfucking lawyer would know this, so you’re either a terrible lawyer or a disingenuous liar. Or, you know, probably both!
“My dad… He’s a liar.”
“Oh oh, I’m sure you don’t mean a liar.
“Well, he wears a suit and goes to court and talks to the judge.”
“Oh, I see, you mean he’s a lawyer.”
::Shrug::
Re: Re: Trump is doing everything he can, but the swamp keeps sucking him down.
Sure Jan.
Re: Re: Swamp
Trump IS the swamp, genius.
Re: Re:
Retroactivity is an entire legal concept (ex post facto law) and it’s explicitly banned in the United States constitution at the federal level:
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S9-C3-3-1/ALDE_00013192/
Similarly, state ex post facto laws are also banned in Article 1, Section 10:
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S10-C1-5/ALDE_00001101/
So, no, this doesn’t happen all of the time. When new laws are passed restricting things, they go into effect at a certain time and courts are not to allow charges to be brought for earlier actions. Usually there’s even some allowance for passive non-compliance, too: for example, many old buildings are not fully accessible but the government has not gone around charging every landlord for ADA violations in the absence of a complaint because it’s understood that hundreds of years of precedent doesn’t change overnight.
In cases like this, the idea of retroactivity triggering paramilitary assaults is especially egregious because there’s no harm. If you have a parent and a 5 year old who did exactly what the immigration officials requested they do and caused no harm to anyone else, there’s no justification for the urgency, violent detention before the legal process has been completed.
Re: Retroactive laws
In the example, if the law changed tomorrow to say you couldn’t own a gun, the Government would be able to prosecute you for having a gun today.
That is what is happening in this case. They followed the law as it was at the time, now the Government has decided that law isn’t valid.
In a normal, law respecting country, this would mean only people coming in after the law changed wouldn’t be able to follow the previous process, not people who followed it while it was valid law.
The Guardian: Five-year-old deported to Honduras despite being US citizen is latest child victim of Trump crackdown.