HOW TO WIN* EVERY FACEBOOK ARGUMENT** ABOUT #ENDFAMILYSEPARATION (WITH JOKES)
Hello, it’s your friendly neighborhood immigration attorney here to give you what you need to win all of your social media debates with the 1/3 of the U.S. population which continues to actively agree that their government should be spending their tax dollars on the kidnap, torture, and legal orphaning of small children.
1/ “THEIR PARENTS BROKE THE LAW!”
(A) Like every federal statute, illegal entry has *never* been criminally enforced 100% against everyone all of the time. (Until last month)
(B) First-time border crossing has almost always been treated as a civil violation, not a criminal one
(B) Per international law, asylum seekers are not supposed to be criminally prosecuted
(C) Even if they cross an invisible line on a map
(D) So did Paul Manafort, who engaged in actual witness tampering *while out on bail,* and didn’t I just see you posting last week that he got a raw deal?
(E) You are a sociopath***
2/ “WE DON’T LET OTHER KINDS OF LAWBREAKERS STAY WITH THEIR CHILDREN”
A) Our carceral state imprisons everyone as the unisized solution to everything from drug addiction to homicide.
B) That’s not a *good* thing
C) There are alternatives to detention for immigrants in deportation proceedings, and they were working just fine before this
D) You are a sociopath
3/ “OBAMA DID IT TOO”
A) No, he didn’t
B) No, he didn’t
C) No, he didn’t
D) No, he didn’t
E) No, he didn’t
F) No, he didn’t
G) No, he didn’t
H) No, he didn’t
I) No, he didn’t
J) No, he didn’t
K) No, he didn’t
L) No, he didn’t
M) Yes, he did some pretty bad things (even to migrant children, but really only when they were already unaccompanied) and there’s a universe of possibility to his left on immigration issues
(N) Seriously, I promise he didn’t
(P) Also, it couldn’t be more obvious that you don’t care if *anyone* has ever done this objectively awful thing and that you’re just going in for a particularly sociopathic round of whataboutism here, which reminds me did I ever mention that
Q) You are a sociopath
4/ “THE DEMOCRATS MADE THE LAW, TRUMP HAS NO CHOICE BUT TO ENFORCE IT”
A) Cool. What law?
B) How does it work?
C) Are you talking about Flores v. Reno, because that’s a judicial order to *keep families together*
D) Are you talking about the TVPRA, because that was Bush and also you’re wrong
E) What we’re actually talking about is 8 USC 1325(b), the misdemeanor illegal entry statute which Jeff Sessions has now required all federal prosecutors to charge in 100% of cases, and that’s been around for going on 100 years
F) You are a sociopath
5/ “DEMOCRATS COULD STOP TRUMP WITH NEW LAW”
A) That’s abuser logic
B) You’re standing behind an intentional negotiation tactic which is causing permanent trauma to thousands of children for life for political gain
C) Not one Congressional Republican will agree to sign off on a simple fix which would keep these families together
D) Trump wants to blow up the entire immigration system
E) You are a sociopath
6/ “HEY, WE ALL REMEMBER THAT PICTURE OF ELIAN GONZALEZ IN A CLOSET WITH A GUN TO HIS HEAD DON’T WE? WASN’T THAT YOUR BOY BILL CLINTON?”
A) That was awful
B) But at least it was done in the name of *keeping a family together*
C) Bill Clinton was bad; Janet Reno was worse
D) You are a sociopath
7/ “THE GOVERNMENT DOES OTHER THINGS THAT SEPARATE PEOPLE FROM THEIR CHILDREN”
A) Those things are also bad
B) You are a sociopath
8/ JEFF SESSIONS IS CARRYING OUT GOD’S LAW
A) So it turns out we don’t live in a theocracy (yet)
B) Sessions specifically cited Romans 13:1, which was also used by German Nazi-sympathizing Christians against Nazi-opposing Christians
C) And slaveowners
D) The rest of Romans 13 isn’t so good for your argument, have you ever actually read it or
E) You are a sociopath
9/ “WE HAVE ENOUGH PROBLEMS OF OUR OWN”
A) We sure do!
B) Trump is actively doing everything possible to make every one of them worse
C) They’re fleeing for their lives
D) US has a moral debt to #CentralAmerica after 150 yrs of political, economic, & military interference
E) Turns out we can aid refugee kids and homeless vets, what a country
F) You are a sociopath
10/ “THEY SHOULD HAVE COME THE RIGHT WAY”
A) Tell me more, how does that work
B) Very cool, you’re wrong
C) No, for real: learn how our system works
D) THERE IS NO LINE
E) What would you do if you had to choose between watching your kids die & crossing a border
F) You are a sociopath
11/”THEY SHOULD COME AT PORTS OF ENTRY OR OTHER LOCATIONS DESIGNATED BY THE ATTORNEY GENERAL”
A) Did you know the phrase “port of entry” before last week?
B) Asylum claims at POEs are being intentionally turned away and limited to a point that people are now being forced over the border
C) This is an intentional tactic to create a crisis and declare war on asylum seekers, Jeff Sessions really couldn’t have been more clear about this in October
D) The hard-right “populist” government in Hungary did exactly the same thing
E) You are a sociopath
12/ “100% OF PARENTS WHO STAY IN THEIR HOME COUNTRIES GET TO STAY WITH THEIR KIDS”
A) Might want to check your math there
B) El Salvador & Honduras trade off each year as the world’s murder capitals
C) Being murdered separates parents from kids
D) You are a sociopath
13/ “WHY DON’T THEY CLAIM ASYLUM IN MEXICO?”
A) Mexico is not legally a “safe third country” for asylum purposes
B) Same gangs operate with impunity there, easy to find anyone they want
C) Mexican asylum system overloaded right now
D) The US has a moral debt to #CentralAmerica after 150 yrs of interference
E) You are a sociopath
14/ “WHY DON’T THEY STAY AND FIX THEIR OWN COUNTRIES?”
A) You are a sociopath
15/ “BAHAHA!1!! *TRIGGERED* MUCH, SNOWFLAKE?”
A) Knowing that thousands of children are being permanently traumatized & legally orphaned with my tax dollars?
B) Yeah. I’m upset
C) Also angry
D) Don’t *ever* mistake my kindness for weakness
E) You are the *worst* kind of sociopath
*No one really “wins” a Facebook argument and I’d encourage you to consider donating the value of the time you did/would have spent arguing to one of the several local organizations providing direct legal services to families at the border that everyone has been posting about
**That said, these arguments *are* worth having because the only way we can possibly get anything done to stop this is to get people in red states angry enough about it to push their Republican representatives to do something about it. One mind at a time.
***A NOTE ON MY SUBTLE AND NUANCED DEPLOYMENT OF THE WORD “SOCIOPATH” HEREIN: Personal attacks are low and pointless and I never go there unless very seriously provoked. (And on principle — when I go there, I go hard. Try me.) But correctly noting that someone who is completely unmoved by the sights and sounds and stories we’ve all been seeing from the border over the past few weeks is objectively displaying strong indicators of sociopathy seems… fair game? (And not for nothing, but Trump ran and now governs on the purest kind of sociopathic bullying.) IDK. I’m just tired and frustrated and angry and just so sad to learn how many people within a social degree or two of me are total sociopaths and I guess I just have to call it when I see it.
Adapted and expanded from this Twitter thread I did over the weekend:
