Migrant Children

De Joy of Child Detainment

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There is a difference between Donald Trump throwing kids into cages and Joe Biden keeping them in “shelters.” Donald Trump had a policy of separating families. That may not be the Biden policy, but what is Biden’s excuse for the thousands of children being held in these “shelters?”

Friday, White House Spokesperson, Jen Psaki said about the places where children are being held, “I would describe it as a place where we keep kids — who are under the age of 18 and taking a treacherous journey into this country — safe.”

Florida Senators, Marco Rubio and Rick Scott both chastised the Biden administration since one of these shelters is in Miami-Dade County. Rubio said, “Now it’s the Democrats who are putting kids in cages.” Marco, being one the dumbest senators in the Senate didn’t realize he admitted Trump was putting kids in cages. Rick Scott, who never criticized the Trump administration’s family separation policy, said, “What a bunch of hypocrites these Democrats are.”

The facility in Homestead, Florida was closed by the Trump administration in 2019, but is now being reopened by the Biden administration. It’s also a for-profit facility. Someone is making a profit off child detainment during the Biden administration. A facility in Texas closed by the Trump administration will also be reopening soon.

These shelters are designed to be temporary, but the children usually end up staying longer than policy or the law allows. These facilities are often unsanitary and are major health risks.

Didn’t we vote against this?

The number of unaccompanied minors arriving in this nation has increased in recent weeks. After arriving, mostly from Central America, they are quarantined for ten days because of the coronavirus pandemic, then shuttled to shelters around the country. Border Patrol says they intercepted more than 2,000 last week alone. There are fears the record set in May 2019, when over 11,000 arrived, will be broken this month.

The goal is to send these children to relatives in this country, but many will be fostered after being detained for months. A lot of these children arrive with names, addresses, and phone numbers of relatives in the United States. Even though they have contact information and a place to go, they’re still held for months in these “temporary” shelters. And often during this time, the contact information is lost and the government can’t find the child’s relatives.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez said, “This is not okay, never has been okay, never will be okay — no matter the administration or party.”

The main problem here is that children are being kept in “temporary” shelters longer than legally allowed. Many of the shelters are tents. Remember when the racist Arizona sheriff, Joe Arpaio (before he was arrested himself, charged, then pardoned by Trump because it was a great way to appeal to racists), was keeping prisoners in tents that human rights organizations said were inhumane? If keeping prisoners in tents in the desert is inhumane, then maybe we shouldn’t do it to kids. Also, Border Patrol is NOT the agency that is supposed to be keeping these children for long periods of time.

Neha Desai, director of immigration at the National Center for Youth Law in Oakland, California said, “Children must be swiftly transferred to state-licensed shelters for children, as required by law, and not detained for weeks in Border Patrol facilities that are fundamentally inappropriate and unsafe for children.”

Two things the Trump administration was good at losing: Migrant children and your mail. Joe Biden needs to fix both. As it is now, he’s still stuck with some Trump fuckery.

Louis DeJoy, the idiot Donald Trump had placed in charge of the Post Office, said he’s not leaving and Biden can’t fire him. Only the board can fire DeJoy, which is currently controlled by Trump appointees. Get this: During the Obama years, the Republican Senate refused to fill open seats on the board nominated by President Obama, then after Trump because president, they jammed all his appointees in. Now, Louis DeJoy, a fucknut Trump campaign donor who probably doesn’t know which side of a stamp to lick, is doing everything he can to demolish the United States Post Office.

President Joe Biden needs to do everything he can to demolish all remnants of the Trump legacy, including within the postal service and immigration.

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Childish Drawings

cjones07082019

When asked to express themselves over being detained by Donald Trump, the first thing that comes from migrant children are cages.

A charitable humanitarian respite center in Texas asked three children, ages 10 and 11, to depict their time in the custody of Trump’s US Customs and Border Protection agency. They didn’t draw sunshine, unicorns, and rainbows. All three children drew people in cages. After the traumatizing experience of leaving their homes to seek asylum in the United States, the Trump administration compounded their trauma by ripping them apart from their families and imprisoning them in cages. This is torture and will leave these children with scars they’ll carry for the rest of their lives.

A social worker at the center gave the drawings to the American Academy of Pediatrics, who then gave them to CNN. Dr. Colleen Kraft, immediate past president of the AAP said, “When a child draws this, it’s telling us that child felt like he or she was in jail.”

The pediatrician group was asked for advice from Kevin McAleenan, who is now the acting secretary of the Homeland Security, who then ignored their advice.

Kraft said, “we made recommendations and our government didn’t follow through with them.” They believe training CBP agents in identifying illnesses will prevent future deaths at the centers, where two children have already died.

The AAP visited one of the centers and didn’t find any pediatricians, but what they did find disgusted them. Dr. Sara Goza, president of the AAP said when visiting two CBP facilities, “The first thing that hit me when we walked in the door was the smell. It was the smell of sweat, urine, and feces. No amount of time spent in these facilities is safe for children.”

Donald Trump disagrees. He claimed in a tweet that many of “these illegal aliens are living better now than where they came from, and in safer conditions.” He also tweeted, “If illegal immigrants are unhappy with the conditions in the quickly built or refitted detention centers, just tell them not to come. All problems solved!” The rest of his tirade was blaming Democrats.

You know, it’s like Trump wants the conditions of these centers to be leaked out, despite barring the press, health and child care professionals, and elected representatives from visiting. Just like the child-separation policy was designed to discourage immigrants from seeking asylum, they’re hoping the horrid and traumatizing conditions at these facilities will do the same.

Senator and presidential candidate Kamala Harris called Donald Trump a “predator” yesterday. Some people are saying she took it too far. I don’t think she took it far enough. Donald Trump is a predator and has even boasted about it. But, he’s so much more. The man is a child abuser. What he’s doing is traumatizing children for life. His detention centers are torture chambers and concentration camps. Call Trump and the centers for what they are.

Hopefully, someday, I’ll get to draw Trump in a cage.

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What kind of person would want to be part of something that disparages, slanders, and disrespects Dear Leader and his sycophantic followers? Hopefully, you. 
Making a contribution supports my work and keeps the cartoons, columns, and videos coming. My income is from newspapers that subscribe to my work and small contributors. George Soros hasn’t sent me a million dollar check in weeks. Making a contribution of any amount, or buying a print for $40.00, makes you part of this specific resistance, and a member of Team Claytoonz (we’re still working on the name). You are complicit, an accomplice, and in cahoots (and whatever gangster terms we can think of) with this political satire pointing out that the stupid emperor has no clothes. Contributions can be made through PayPal, checks, and wads of cash exchanged in back alleys.
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Welcome To Trump’s America

cjones06302019

I’ve been a cartoonist since 1990 and this might be the hardest cartoon I’ve ever had to draw.

Shame on Donald Trump. Shame on Republicans. Shame on each and every single one of you who supports this.

This cartoon was hard to draw but right now, it’s even harder to be a proud American.

Be Complicit

What kind of person would want to be part of something that disparages, slanders, and disrespects Dear Leader and his sycophantic followers? Hopefully, you. 
Making a contribution supports my work and keeps the cartoons, columns, and videos coming. My income is from newspapers that subscribe to my work and small contributors. George Soros hasn’t sent me a million dollar check in weeks. Making a contribution of any amount, or buying a print for $40.00, makes you part of this specific resistance, and a member of Team Claytoonz (we’re still working on the name). You are complicit, an accomplice, and in cahoots (and whatever gangster terms we can think of) with this political satire pointing out that the stupid emperor has no clothes. Contributions can be made through PayPal, checks, and wads of cash exchanged in back alleys.
Whether you can help support, can’t, or just choose not to, please continue to enjoy and keep reading my work. Thank you!!! 

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No Soap For you

cjones06262019

The accusation that detention centers holding migrant children are concentration camps doesn’t necessarily mean they’re being compared to Nazi death camps. But, there are definitely some soap Nazis among Customs and Border Protection.

In fact, this week, the Trump administration went to court to argue that migrant children detained at the U.S.-Mexico border do not require basic hygiene products like soap and toothbrushes in order to be held in “safe and sanitary” conditions. Hell, they even argued that forcing minors to sleep on cold concrete floors in crowded cells, CELLS, with low temperatures also fulfilled the “safe and sanitary” requirement.

News broke this week that there are not enough diapers for the babies currently held by the Trump administration (which would make sense if the big orange baby requires them all). Also, children are being forced to care for toddlers. There are toddlers sitting around in urine-soaked onesies. There is a lack of toothbrushes, toothpaste, and soap. Showers and baths are extremely rare for the children detained by Donald Trump.

In addition to all that, the government is doing all it can to prevent the public from discovering what it’s like inside these detention centers. The press and even elected representatives have been barred from entering many of the facilities.

But, we’re not supposed to call them “concentration camps.” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the GOP’s current favorite punching bag because she’s liberal, young, smarter than them, female, brown and from New York City, is catching a lot of heat for describing the detention centers as “concentration camps.” She’s not backing down. She shouldn’t.

Not all concentration camps were death camps. During World War II, the term “Internment” was used for the camps holding American citizens of Japanese descent, but they were concentration camps.

Many of Trump’s defenders argue that these detention centers don’t meet the requirement for the tag of “concentration.” They argue that most concentration camps are under dictatorships, meanwhile, Trump threatened to jail a reporter yesterday for taking a picture.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines “concentration camp” as “a camp where persons are confined, usually without hearings and typically under harsh conditions, often as a result of their membership in a group the government has identified as dangerous or undesirable.”

If that description doesn’t fit these centers, then I don’t know what does.

The fact is, they are concentration camps. The problem is, most Americans don’t want to live in a country that allows them, so they will never admit they exist. Problem. The United States of America under Donald Trump has concentration camps and they’re full of babies.

For what it’s worth, the Nazis never told their citizens about their concentration camps either. They just handed them the soap.

Update: The rough. This was the original idea, which I came up with a few days ago. It was included with all the other roughs for this week’s CNN cartoon. After the story came out about the conditions at the centers, I gave up on it and went with the above idea. I like the new one much better.

CNNrough150

Be Complicit

What kind of person would want to be part of something that disparages, slanders, and disrespects Dear Leader and his sycophantic followers? Hopefully, you. 
Making a contribution supports my work and keeps the cartoons, columns, and videos coming. My income is from newspapers that subscribe to my work and small contributors. George Soros hasn’t sent me a million dollar check in weeks. Making a contribution of any amount, or buying a print for $40.00, makes you part of this specific resistance, and a member of Team Claytoonz (we’re still working on the name). You are complicit, an accomplice, and in cahoots (and whatever gangster terms we can think of) with this political satire pointing out that the stupid emperor has no clothes. Contributions can be made through PayPal, checks, and wads of cash exchanged in back alleys.
Whether you can help support, can’t, or just choose not to, please continue to enjoy and keep reading my work. Thank you!!! 

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A Grim Welcome

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For the second time in December, a child has died in Border Patrol custody. For the second time in December, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen deflected blame from her department and placed it on immigrants.

An eight-year-old Guatemalan boy, who Trump would say was at a “marginal age” for believing in Santa Claus, was detained with his father after illegally crossing the border near El Paso, Texas on December 18. DHS said he was transferred to a hospital the morning of December 24 after coughing and exhibiting flu-like symptoms. The child had a high fever, was diagnosed with a cold and released back to border agents with prescriptions for antibiotics and Tylenol. Later that night, Border Patrol agents rushed him back to the hospital after he appeared nauseous and lethargic. There was no emergency medical technician on site, officials said. The child lost consciousness on the way and was pronounced dead at the hospital just before midnight. He died on Christmas day.

DHS won’t say whether staffing in the El Paso facility was affected by the federal government shutdown.

A seven-year-old girl, also from Guatemala, died earlier this month from dehydration, shock, and liver failure after being in Border Patrol’s custody for eight hours. She was buried on Christmas day.

In a written statement, Nielsen said, “Our system has been pushed to a breaking point by those who seek open borders. Smugglers, traffickers, and their own parents put these minors at risk by embarking on the dangerous and arduous journey north.”

Nielsen is blaming the children’s deaths on their parents and Democrats. She definitely fits in Trump’s heartless administration. You’d have a better chance of finding a salad in Trump’s White House than compassion and empathy.

Trump’s get-tough policies on immigrants are the worst our nation has to offer the world. In addition to traumatizing children by separating them from their families, now they’re dying in Border Patrol custody. The buck does not stop at this president’s desk, especially when it comes to the deaths of brown people, whether they’re American citizens in Puerto Rico or immigrants crossing our southern border.

For the past several months, the Trump administration has been routinely turning asylum seekers away from ports of entry and telling them to wait, a practice called “metering” that the administration claims is based on a lack of capacity at ports. What Trump’s defenders, and fans of harsh treatment of immigrants don’t seem to understand, is that it’s legal to ask for asylum. Not accepting immigrants at the port of entry is forcing them to cross illegally, which can be much more dangerous. The Trump administration should be blamed for creating conditions that kill people.

Texas Representative Joaquín Castro said, “There is no reason that President Trump should be asking to fund a border wall when we are missing basic humanitarian pieces.”

What we’re missing is a humanitarian as president.

Be Complicit

What kind of person would want to be part of something that disparages, slanders, and disrespects Dear Leader and his sycophantic followers? Hopefully, you. 
Making a contribution supports my work and keeps the cartoons, columns, and videos coming. My income is from newspapers that subscribe to my work and small contributors. George Soros hasn’t sent me a million dollar check in weeks. Making a contribution of any amount, or buying a print for $40.00, makes you part of this specific resistance, and a member of Team Claytoonz (we’re still working on the name). You are complicit, an accomplice, and in cahoots (and whatever gangster terms we can think of) with this political satire pointing out that the stupid emperor has no clothes. Contributions can be made through PayPal, checks, and wads of cash exchanged in back alleys.
Whether you can help support, can’t, or just choose not to, please continue to enjoy and keep reading my work. Thank you!!! 

You can purchase a signed print of this cartoon.

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Feliz Dia De La Independencia

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I find today very ironic and hypocritical. We celebrate a holiday that commemorates our freedom and Independence while our nation separates families, throws children in detention centers, and holds them hostage for the parents to choose between their legal rights to seek asylum or being reunited.

I’m a glass-is-a-little-less-than-half-empty kind of person. It’s really hard for me to feel optimism and pride in my nation while we engage in policies that will make future readers of history books shake their heads. While a majority of Americans believe the president of the United States is a racist and bases his policies on his racism, a large contingent still support him.

President Obama said with Trump’s presidency, “we’re about to find out just how resilient our institutions are, at home and around the world.” But, what if they’re not really that resilient? Our institutions lie within the people, but what if the people support a racist madman who cares more about crowd sizes, ratings, and who gets the most scoops of ice cream than he does about policy or people?

I have an inability to refrain from pointing out the negative while people celebrate the positive. Instead of joining with the shiny happy people, I tend to focus on the serious, like the Supreme Court influenced by Trump for decades, to his baby prisons, to the petty stuff, like I’m going to see someone put ketchup on a hot dog today. Turbulent times, indeed.

It’s probably why I’m not invited to a lot of holiday parties.

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Thank you for your support. Reader contributions really do help and are appreciated in a time of dwindling revenue for political cartoonists. You will also be supporting free speech and the First Amendment, and independent journalism while those in power are doing all they can to suppress it. You can also support by purchasing a signed print for $40.00. Just look at the right of this page and click the PayPal button, or you can email and make other arrangements. Thank you!

Touched By A President

cjones07042018

I looked up pictures of anatomically correct dolls that are used for victims of child abuse to identify where their attackers touched them. I immediately regretted it.

Can you think of anything more horrifying for a child to be put through after the experience of being abused? What probably comes close is being ripped apart from your family and your parents being forced to choose between you and being deported. Add to that, being forced to appear on your own in a court for a deportation proceeding.

According to attorneys in Washington, D.C., Texas, and California, the Trump administration is forcing children as young as three to do just that.

“We were representing a 3-year-old in court recently who had been separated from the parents. And the child — in the middle of the hearing — started climbing up on the table,” said Lindsay Toczylowski, executive director of Immigrant Defenders Law Center in Los Angeles. “It really highlighted the absurdity of what we’re doing with these kids.”

The director also said, “The parent might be the only one who knows why they fled from the home country, and the child is in a disadvantageous position to defend themselves.”

You may get the perception that with this cartoon I am accusing the president of the United States of America of child abuse.

That’s exactly what I’m doing.

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Thank you for your support. Reader contributions really do help and are appreciated in a time of dwindling revenue for political cartoonists. You will also be supporting free speech and the First Amendment, and independent journalism while those in power are doing all they can to suppress it. You can also support by purchasing a signed print for $40.00. Just look at the right of this page and click the PayPal button, or you can email and make other arrangements. Thank you!

This Is MAGA

cjones06242018

A recent Quinnipiac Poll states 65% of American voters oppose the Trump policy of separating migrant children from their parents. The same study finds 55% of Republican voters are heartless, inhumane, unsympathetic, troglodyte, subhuman mongrels you don’t want to be stuck in an elevator with.

And there you have it. The majority of Trump supporters and MAGA heads love the idea of tearing brown families apart. It’s why Attorney General Jeff Sessions is giddy when explaining the hateful policy. It’s why Trump adviser and white supremacist advocate Stephen Miller is taking credit for the idea. It’s why Director of Homeland Security, whose first name is as traditional Native American as Sacagawea and Pocahontas, Kirstjen Nielson can claim she’s totally unaware of pictures, videos, and recordings of these children crying for their mothers. When I was a kid, Jaws scared the hell out of me but I couldn’t forget I saw it.

A racist base is why the President of the United States, who has married two immigrants, can shed all appearances of governing for all the people, and hold migrant children hostage until Congress gives him ten billion dollars to break his campaign promise of Mexico paying for it, and build a wall on the border with Mexico. Hillary was right. These people are deplorable, and they’re proud of it. Trump his holding the children hostage and blaming Democrats for making him do it.  This policy is so heartless and inhumane, that even Ted Cruz is against it and trying to stop it.

The New York Times editorial board asks, “when did caging kids become the art of the deal?”

The thing is, Trump can stop this. He can stop it right now. He doesn’t need legislation to stop ripping families apart. George W. Bush and Barack Obama governed under the same law, and they didn’t go to town ripping families apart, stacking the kids in cages in abandoned box stores, and making plans to place them in tent prisons to share in the desert with Gila Monsters.

Jeff Sessions said it’s unfair to compare this situation to how Jews were treated in Nazi Germany, because “the Nazis were keeping the Jews from leaving the country.” Yes. The Nazis loved the Jews so much, they were begging them not to leave Germany. Please don’t go, Jews. No. That’s not right and someone buy the Attorney General a history book. The Nazis actually shipped them out of Germany in death trains. But he does have a point about the comparison. We’re not gassing these immigrants or tearing out their fillings to melt down and store the gold in Switzerland, so at least there’s that.

Last week, Trump endorsed South Carolina Congressman Mark Sanford’s opponent in the Republican primary because Sanford “wouldn’t help him MAGA,” make America great again. That wasn’t true. Sanford was MAGAing all over the place. Trump just didn’t like Sanford’s public opinion he should release his tax returns.

What is “MAGA?” MAGA is returning America to when white people had full control over government policy (which it never really lost). MAGA is making white people feel like someone is protecting them from being disenfranchised. MAGA is gaslighting and using the Joseph Goebbels method of propaganda. MAGA is emboldening white supremacists and Nazis to crawl out of the sewers where they’ve been hiding and bask in the sunlight. MAGA is being able to listen to children cry for their parents and not want to do anything to help them. MAGA is hearing those cries and continuing to use them as political leverage.

Trump ran a campaign on racism. He accused Mexico of sending their worst people to the U.S. and called them “rapists” and “murderers” minutes after riding slowly down the escalator to announce his candidacy. He said being of Mexican descent was why a judge was unfit to sit on one of his many lawsuits.

Trump said, “I hate the children are being taken away.” He could have stopped at, “I hate the children.”

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Thank you for your support. Reader contributions really do help and are appreciated in a time of dwindling revenue for political cartoonists. You will also be supporting free speech and the First Amendment, and independent journalism while those in power are doing all they can to suppress it. You can also support by purchasing a signed print for $40.00. Just look at the right of this page and click the PayPal button, or you can email and make other arrangements. Thank you!

Yappy Jesus

cjones06202018

Americans love to say America is the greatest country in the world. The new doctrine for our foreign policy is “We’re America, bitch.” But, I’m pretty sure the greatest country in the world wouldn’t separate children from their parents and imprison them in tents in the desert. Maybe there was some confusion, and they were supposed to be in tent prisons with dessert. Spelling is a challenge for this White House.

Obviously inspired by the recently pardoned Joe Arpaio (the racist law-breaking criminal sheriff in Arizona), the Trump administration is looking to place 1,000-5,000 immigrant children in tent cities in the desert. The number of migrant children the government has apprehended has increased by 20% since a “zero-tolerance” policy was initiated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen (who doesn’t know Norway is mostly white but knows a brown kid when she sees one). The new policy ordered the Border Patrol to refer anyone crossing the border illegally for criminal prosecution, no matter the situation. Some people being incarcerated haven’t crossed illegally, as they went to the Border Patrol and requested asylum, which we don’t grant anymore for people whose lives are threatened by gangs or spousal abuse.

The number of children currently held by the government is over 11,200 at some 100 facilities (with Trump murals and re-education classes) to hold them are around 95% full. One solution would be to stop separating children from their parents and throwing them all in jail, which sounds a little better than throwing toddlers to cacti and rattlesnakes. But, maybe the Trump murals will ward off the snakes and Gila Monsters.

Sessions justified this abuse of government policy by quoting the Bible. He cited Romans 13 when he said, “to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained the government for his purposes.” Funny thing. That’s the same verse used by Southerners to justify owning slaves in the 1800s. Scary thing: Sessions probably knows that.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders is a church goer as well. During a White House press briefing Thursday, Sanders was insulting members of the press (they really hate Jim Acosta) and using the Bible defense. She said, “I can say that it is very biblical to enforce the law. That is actually repeated a number of times throughout the Bible. It’s a moral policy to follow and enforce the law.”

I haven’t seen a government use religion to justify policy this much since the Taliban.

There are probably a lot of quotes from the Bible that can be used to defend this administration.

There’s, “Thou shall not grab strange vaginas, unless thou is famous.”

And then there’s, “Thou shall not boast about grabbing strange vaginas to a reality TV host on a bus unless it’s just locker room talk.”

Plus, “Do not shag a porn star unless she’s willing to sign a non-disclosure agreement.”

I think this one was added yesterday: “Thou shall not salute a North Korean General unless his large hat is really spiffy.”

I’m gonna let you in on a secret. I made those up. But, here’s one that’s genuine: From Deuteronomy 10:18-19, “God loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.”

But, maybe I’m doing it wrong, and we’re only supposed to quote Old Testament God and not Hippy God.

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Thank you for your support. Reader contributions really do help and are appreciated in a time of dwindling revenue for political cartoonists. You will also be supporting free speech and the First Amendment, and independent journalism while those in power are doing all they can to suppress it. You can also support by purchasing a signed print for $40.00. Just look at the right of this page and click the PayPal button, or you can email and make other arrangements. Thank you!