PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE:  This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

President Joe Biden is set to take an action today that illustrates his commitment to undo one of the most egregious actions by Trump and his acolytes.

It was, intentionally, to separate children from their immigrant parents at U.S. borders.  Call it what is was – kidnapping.

Undoing the damage cannot come soon enough.

Under this headline, the Wall Street Journal reported this morning on Biden’s planned action:

BIDEN TO SET UP TASK FORCE TO REUNITE FAMILIES SEPARATED AT THE BORDER

Here is more of the Journal’s story:

“President Biden plans to form a task force to reunite immigrant families separated at the southern border under the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy, one of several executive orders on immigration Biden is expected to sign Tuesday.

“The orders will set in motion a process that the new administration hopes will reverse a number of border policies and restrictions on legal immigration.

“But the orders themselves will make no immediate changes to immigration policy.  Instead, the actions signal a desire to balance competing pressures: immigration advocates hoping for swift action to undo Trump’s policies and the danger that undoing too many restrictions at once could trigger a surge of migrants attempting to enter the U.S.

“The reunification task force, which Biden pledged to create during his campaign, will charge the government with identifying all of the children who remain separated from their parents and locating those parents across Latin America, where they were likely deported.

“The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the separated children in a continuing class-action lawsuit against the U.S. government, and other nonprofit organizations have been placing advertisements and making trips across the region to help locate deported parents. The ACLU has said in court filings it has identified more than 600 children who remain separated from their parents.”

Again, this cannot happen quickly enough.

Just imagine the isolation for children separated from their parents for months.

Just imagine the agony for parents separated from their children for months.

How many children and parents are caught in this intolerable predicament?  Estimates range between 500 and 1,000.

But, whatever the overall numbers, this paragraph from a Washington Post story this morning puts the issue in graphic and emotional detail:

“It’s a daily horror for us who are living without our children. It’s an endless sadness,” said Maria, a Guatemalan mother of a 10-year-old girl who was separated on the Arizona-Mexico border in July 2017. “All we want is the opportunity to see our kids, to be with them again.”

Meanwhile, what we are witnessing now in Washington, D.C. is a process related to whether Trump will be convicted in the Senate’s second impeachment trial.  Incredibly, he chances appear good Republicans will not vote to convict.

But, for me, the “child separation” policy would be enough, on its own, to warrant Trump’s conviction, though the policy is not part of the impeachment process.  Trump and his enablers should go to jail as their offenses should stand on their own as kidnapping.