Image credit: Natasha Varner\/The World<\/p>\n
By Eleanor Baldenweck\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Following a dictator or other authoritative government, new democracies are often faced with the task of accounting for state crimes committed by the preceding administration.\u00a0 This process of transitional justice is always complicated as new leaders try to balance<\/a> justice with the needs of their constituents, available judicial powers, moral flavor of their new regime, and international pressures to follow punitive norms<\/a>.<\/p>\n At some point, the US will need to address crimes committed by the Trump administration.\u00a0 Hopefully, the transition to the next American leadership will be significantly less dramatic than normal situations wherein countries must exact transitional justice, (meaning the US will enjoy a functioning judicial system and other state structures without interference from outgoing authorities) but the need to confront state misdeeds will nevertheless remain a potent obligation.\u00a0 While procedures are ongoing to investigate individual misconduct<\/a> by multiple<\/a> members<\/a> of the administration (including the president himself<\/a>), the issue of crimes committed by the state<\/em> as a system will also compel a reckoning.\u00a0 This piece first examines the Trump administration\u2019s current immigrant detention policies, specifically the family separation polity and conditions under which detained immigrants are imprisoned and then asks \u201cwhat next?\u201d<\/p>\n Much has been said<\/a> about the notoriously<\/a> inhumane<\/a> conditions<\/a> at American immigration detention centers.\u00a0 From systemic failures such as lack of hygiene items to lack of medical care resulting in twenty-four deaths<\/a> of immigrants in ICE custody under President Trump, including six children<\/a>.\u00a0 Congress<\/a> and other agencies have expressed concerns about the legitimacy of the \u201czero tolerance<\/a>\u201d detention policy and its resulting policy of separating parents from their children.\u00a0 Certainly current operations fall outside international standards<\/a> for detention and have drawn international condemnation<\/a>, degrading the US\u2019s moral authority to enforce human rights across the globe.<\/p>\n How will the next administration apply justice to the architects and executors of the policy, achieve justice for its victims, and demonstrate to Americans and the world a renewed commitment against such abhorrent policies? \u00a0First, congress must<\/a> pass new laws to ensure future executive branches cannot reinstate current detention policies.\u00a0 This should include a renovation of the immigration system as a whole to set conditions to better address refugee surges in the future.\u00a0 This includes an expansion of the US Code\u2019s definition<\/a> of a \u201crefugee\u201d to include those fleeing from general unrest or other widespread violence in their home of origin.\u00a0 Following Japanese-American internment during WWII, no laws were approved to bar future lawmakers from repeating the sins of the past.\u00a0 Only in the last three years have members of congress introduced legislation<\/a> to prevent such incarceration policies against US citizens.\u00a0 This bill must be amended to include language addressing incarceration of those under state power, regardless of their citizenship, and congress must approve it.<\/p>\n Next, congress must finalize investigations into the legality of the Trump policy in the first place, followed by investigations into individual misconduct and abuses<\/a> at detention sites.\u00a0 Attempts to investigate the legality of the order authorizing such detention, including which laws were broken and by whom, as the policy was published and executed have been repeatedly blocked<\/a>.\u00a0 A full investigation will finalize which public leaders have earned censure for their actions and lay groundwork for potential trials.\u00a0 Prosecution or other punishment against those responsible for abuses and abusive policy are essential to correcting the country\u2019s moral transgression on human rights.\u00a0 After removing powerful protectors, investigations into individual abuses should move smoothly, especially in venues where jurisdiction of individual states applies.<\/p>\n Third and least politically popular, the US must look at reparations for those who have been victimized by the Trump policy. This must first include aggressive action to reunite severed families, followed by full medical support to all former inmates. Medical attention needs to include both attention to malnutrition, hygiene issues include delousing and dental attention, as well as mental and post-traumatic stress support. Children traumatized<\/a> by inhumane treatment following separation especially need professional support to process their experiences.\u00a0 Finally, these immigrants\u2019 requests for entrance into the US, regardless of their original method at attempt to enter the US, must be reviewed without delay with an eye to fast-tracking their petitions.\u00a0 Many of these people left violence in their home countries to travel to a country they believed held itself to higher standards.\u00a0 We owe it to them and to ourselves to renew and uphold that trust.<\/p>\n Admittedly, these are all expensive courses of action.\u00a0 However, I argue they are necessary for our next administration to reestablish America\u2019s dedication to human rights and demonstrate a repudiation of behavior which strays from those virtues.\u00a0 There can be no price on human dignity if we are to retain it, and unlike many post-conflict or developing countries trying to institute reparative justice, the United States has the purse to actually enact these gestures of penance.\u00a0 Doing so would not only work to restore dignity to American institutions, but enrich our society through the inclusion of new residents and confirm our commitment to the defense of human dignity on the international stage.<\/p>\n Following an investigation into the legitimacy of the US\u2019s misguided Japanese Internment program during WWII, in 1988 President Reagan authorized reparations<\/a> paid to survivors of resettlement.\u00a0 Let us now resoundingly confirm our obligations to all those who are in our care, citizens or not.\u00a0 Let us exorcise those responsible from power (whichever level of power they hold), let us validate our country as one governed by laws protecting humans from this kind of mistreatment, and let us apologize and ask forgiveness from not only those we have wronged, but to future generations of Americans.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n