“We are talking about children, we are talking about families, we are talking about suffering.” — Vice President Kamala Harris at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2021.
The policy was as simple as it was cruel. As part of a “zero tolerance” immigration strategy, the Trump administration systematically separated migrant children—including infants and toddlers—from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. The goal, according to internal administration discussions, was to send a message: “to deter illegal immigration”.
In total, more than 5,500 children were taken. Many were housed in overcrowded facilities described as “cages,” with reports of minimal food, no access to bathing, and young girls caring for even younger children. The government’s own records were so poorly kept that officials later admitted they lacked the information to reconnect thousands of children with their parents. By March 2024, an estimated 2,000 children still had not been found.
This is the story of a foundational moral failure in modern American politics. It is a story of a weaponized policy, a catastrophic and ongoing human toll, and a frustrating political response that failed to meet the moment’s gravity.
The Blueprint of Cruelty: Understanding Family Separation
The Trump administration’s family separation policy was not an accident of chaotic enforcement. It was a deliberate and calculated strategy.
· Official Policy: Formally adopted from April to June 2018, the “zero tolerance” policy mandated the criminal prosecution of all adults crossing the border illegally. Since children could not be jailed with their prosecuted parents, they were taken away and classified as “unaccompanied”.
· Human Cost: Children were placed in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services and sent to shelters or foster homes across the country, while parents were held in federal jails or deported. A Department of Justice inspector general report later confirmed that administration leaders knew the policy would result in mass separations.
· Lasting Trauma: The administration made little provision for reuniting families. In 2019, it was revealed the government had sufficient information to reconnect only 60 of the thousands of separated children. The psychological damage of this traumatic severing is profound and enduring.
The Political Response: A Charge Without a Champion
In 2021, President Joe Biden assigned Vice President Kamala Harris a critical but narrowly defined role: address the root causes of migration from Central America, such as poverty, violence, and corruption. She was never the administration’s “Border Czar” tasked with overall immigration enforcement—a frequent point of Republican criticism. Her mission was diplomatic and long-term, focused on improving conditions in countries like Guatemala and Honduras so people would not feel forced to flee.
However, this structural assignment collided with a potent political reality. Harris became the administration’s most visible figure on immigration, yet the tool she was given—foreign diplomacy—was ill-suited to combat the visceral, politically-charged legacy of family separation. When she bluntly told potential migrants, “Do not come,” during a 2021 trip to Guatemala, the message was criticized as tone-deaf and was seized upon by opponents.
The Unused Weapon: Why the Scandal Didn’t Define the Opposition
Your central critique—that Harris and the Democratic opposition failed to “weaponize” the family separation scandal with the ruthless efficiency of a Trump—touches on a fundamental asymmetry in today’s political warfare.
· A Scandal in Search of a Sustained Narrative: While Harris, as a senator, did condemn the policy, calling family separation “irreparable harm”, and cosponsored a bill to expedite reunifications, these actions did not coalesce into a relentless, defining national message. The horror was reported, lawsuits were filed by groups like the ACLU, but it never achieved the ubiquitous, simplified political branding of, for instance, “Lock her up.”
· The Asymmetry of Rules: Trump operates from a playbook where any adverse news is “fake,” any investigation is a “witch hunt,” and any norm can be breached for advantage. Playing “the same game” would require adopting a similar posture of norm-shattering, rule-breaking combativeness. For an institutionalist and former prosecutor like Harris, this is not a natural or easily adopted mode.
· The Clarity of Contrast vs. The Messiness of Governance: The Biden-Harris administration entered office promising to end the cruelty but also to manage a complex border. Their policies, including some restrictive asylum measures, have often disappointed immigrant advocates. This created a muddled message: were they the humane alternative to Trump’s cruelty, or were they continuing a version of deterrence-lite? This lack of a sharp, clear contrast diluted the moral force of their condemnation of past atrocities.
The result was a political failure. A crime against humanity involving thousands of children did not become the indelible, election-defining scandal it should have been. The outrage was episodic, not systemic.
The Legacy of Failure: A Template for Worse
The failure to impose a lasting political cost for family separation did not go unnoticed. It established a dangerous precedent: that such policies could be survived politically.
Today, reports indicate the tactics have evolved and intensified. Under the current Trump administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are reportedly conducting widespread raids, often masked and without visible identification, using unmarked vehicles to detain people. A federal judge, in a ruling against this practice, stated that the purpose is “to terrorize Americans into quiescence”. Human Rights Watch has documented these operations creating a “climate of fear” in immigrant communities.
The lesson learned was not to avoid cruelty, but to refine its execution. The chaos of 2018 has been replaced by a more disciplined, and arguably more terrifying, campaign of enforcement where accountability is deliberately obscured.
A Path Not Taken
What would a true “weaponization” have looked like? It would have required a unified, relentless campaign:
· Naming and Shaming: Relentlessly naming the architects of the policy in every speech, debate, and interview.
· Centering the Victims: Putting the stories of separated families at the core of the campaign’s moral narrative, not as a footnote in the immigration section.
· A Simple, Unforgiving Demand: A mantra as simple and repeatable as the offense: “They stole children. They lost them. They must be held accountable.”
The tragedy is twofold. First, for the thousands of families still living with the scar of separation, some still searching for their children years later. Second, for the health of the republic itself. When a crime of this magnitude fails to fundamentally alter the political landscape, it signals that the guardrails of basic humanity are gone.
The question is no longer whether such things can happen here. They did. The unanswered question is whether we, as a nation, will ever muster the political will to ensure they never happen again.
Centre for Nigeria Progress 