What would you do if you and your family were being threatened by a violent drug cartel and had nowhere to turn to? What if you knew these threats would result in certain death if you simply tried to go on with your daily life and ignore them? If you’re a parent who loves your children, you know exactly what you’d do: you’d do everything in your power to save the life of your family and seek refuge. For many people living in Mexico and Central America, gathering up their children and escaping to the US to seek asylum is the only option. But according to conservative commentator Tomi Lahren, these people are simply bad parents — criminally bad parents at that.
Lahren thinks these kinds of life choices are simple.
“If you traipse your kid 2,000 miles in dangerous conditions you’re not only a criminal, you’re a sh*tty parent,” she tweeted this Tuesday.
If you traipse your kid 2,000 miles in dangerous conditions you're not only a criminal, you're a shitty parent.
— Tomi Lahren (@TomiLahren) July 31, 2019
What can one say about this sort of blanket dismissal of the suffering of fellow human beings? A criminal? What are these parents to do? Simply stay in their current situations as cartels rule their towns with the same genocidal brutality as ISIS? While immigration is a nuanced debate for sure, the tragic reality is that many parents are ‘traipsing’ their kids 2,000 miles because they’re escaping death. It’s a human thing to do.
In the comment thread beneath Lahren’s tweet, most people agreed that her take was as oblivious as it is cruel.
So all the European immigrants who traveled by boat across the Atlantic to Ellis Island were shitty parents? B/c those boats weren’t cruise liners & the journey was far from safe. Your hypocrisy shines through so brightly.
— 📢 TheWreninator 🏳️🌈 (@TWreninator) July 31, 2019
On behalf of my awesome, courageous & loving refugee parents + your ancestors who sacrificed everything and travelled more than 2k miles to give you the life you have, eat shit, Tomi.
— (((Anna Elman))) (@anna_elman) July 31, 2019
Tomi is a shitty person. Heartless.
— Milquetoast (@BlueRobotDesign) July 31, 2019
Hi Tomi. Meet Nilda. Born in Honduras. Forced to escape sex, domestic, & gang violence w/ her 2 y/o. 17 hrs on side of a train. Faced violence in Mexico. Thought U.S. would protect her. Instead border agents stole her son & detained her. She’s the truth: pic.twitter.com/SfbKJpRv0z
— Scott Hechinger (@ScottHech) July 31, 2019
If you would do anything for your child to have a chance to survive, not only are you a compassionate parent, but brave.
Fuck you. You don’t have kids so you have no idea what it’s like to do anything for them to survive and you have no idea of the conditions they are leaving.
— Tony Posnanski (@tonyposnanski) July 31, 2019
I sincerely pray that you (or anyone, really) never have to be in such a state of despair that doing something risky like that is your only option as a parent.
— Hufsa Kamal (@hufkat) July 31, 2019
Have a kid and then get back to me.
— Linz DeFranco (@LinzDeFranco) July 31, 2019
This comment stood out to me:
“These conservatives don’t realize what these parents know. The certainty of what they left behind is more terrifying than the uncertainty of what they may arrive towards. People who make these journeys are heroes.”
Grow a soul, Tomi.
Featured image via screen grab/Fox Nation
