Okay. I call shenanigans on this one.
It’s one thing to hold adults of foreign (read: Brown) descent in dirty detention centres in Texas without giving them proper access to lawyers, working beds, contact with one another … etc. After all, 9/11 changed everything right. Plus … they’re brown. So they just might be the enemy. So, y’know, every precaution must be taken, we can’t afford to take chances, everything changed on 9/11, we never know where the enemy will strike next or what form he will take…
But wait! I do know one form the enemy will not take. The enemy will not take the form of a nine0year-old Canadian boy, scared out of his ever-loving (Maple) tree and stuck in the same dirty detention centre as his parents, because his parents are not full Canadian citizens. The enemy just won’t take that form, Dubya, I promise. Why not? Well, call it a hunch.
Never in my most dirty and fearful dreams about the coming terrorist apocalypse and the collapse of Western civilization under the boot of militant Islamist radicals have I seen the newest commandments written out in different coloured text using a selection of Crayolas. The list of terrorist demands never seems to look like this for some reason:
Of course, you never know what sort of ugly tricks those terrorist bastards will get up to, so it’s only right that you detain a nine-year-old child (a full Canadian citizen, as I believe I mentioned already) indefinitely, and not let him return home to Canada, where he might conceivably plot a massive attack on Buffalo, involving loading up a ship full of Playdoh, backed up by several forms of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers and aided and abetted by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that would cripple the Northeastern United States and deliver his parents from their captivity in Texas by the treat of sending all the DinoBots on a search and destroy mission to the Bush ranch in Crawford.
And again, his demands would be made so politely, and in so many different colours, that the United States would have no choice but to comply. Thereby allowing the terrorists (in this case, the DinoBots) to emerge victorious.
We CANNOT LET THIS HAPPEN, DAMMIT! LOCK THAT CHILD UP. MAKE HIM SLEEP NEXT TO THE WALL! IT’S THE WAR ON TERROR FOR GODSAKES! PROTECT AMERICA FROM THE IMAGINATION OF NINE-YEAR-OLDS EVERYWHERE!
(I can’t imagine this kid growing up to hate America after this … that’ll never happen.)
8 Comments
March 4, 2007 at 7:36 pm
Is this a real story? Is it in the news? What is the boy’s name?
March 4, 2007 at 7:41 pm
Click on the link in the first sentence of the story. It is most definitely real.
Here:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070302.wtexas02/BNStory/National/home
March 5, 2007 at 4:52 am
//cynical asshole ON//
I smell a rat. The whole thing is just so dang saccharine. A nine year old kid writes in multiple colors to Steven Harper, “please give visa for my family”? Look, they came to Canada once already, fugee status was denied. They had a kid while waiting, little Kevin ain’t a get out of jail free card. His parents were never recognized as legit Canadian residents, so to my mind the kid shouldn’t have citizenship, let alone his parents by popular demand. Everybody’s got a story that could break your heart. Tortured in prison the whole time he was there. Then where did they get the $40k to pay the human smugglers this time around?
//cynical asshole OFF//
You’re right, this is a crying shame!!!11! On the basis of one 400-word story in the Globe and Mail, I intend to post semiliterate cries de coeur on my blog or similar organ until those callous fat-cats in Ottawa blah blah blah. Sorry, could have sworn I turned that switch to OFF.
March 5, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Yeah … you know what … now that I think about it, his parents were never recognized as Canadian, so even if little Kevin WAS born on our soil, what does that make him? A Bastard child without a country and with terrorists for parents? Who wants to stick up for a kid like that?! He’s not even a kid, he’s an undersized illegal immigrant, basically.
I mean, the parents must be terrorists, right? Where else would brown people get $40,000? Osama must have ponied up for these guys! Everybody knows you don’t make that kind of money selling falaffel…
And … geez, y’know … I mean how bad could a detention centre be for a nine-year-old? I mean, look how many different colours of crayons they gave him! That’s like a 12-colour (sorry kevin, it’s ‘color’ now, little buddy) set.
Awwww, shit, sorry. I must have left my naivete switch ON when I wrote that story. I’ll fix that and get right back to believing that children should be punished for the (potentially suspected) sins of the parents…
Of course you smell a rat … you’re writing this from NYC. Lookout, it’s right behind you! Stay away from the Taco Bell!
March 5, 2007 at 8:16 pm
http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2007/02/detention_center.html
What about all THOSE kids at the same concentration camp in Texas?
March 5, 2007 at 9:14 pm
“What about all THOSE kids at the same concentration camp in Texas?”
I think that’s wrong, too. As inconvenient as it might be, adults have to be held on immigration charges sometimes, and while it may seem like keeping the family together (though Dad is often seperated) is the thing to do, detention centres aren’t a good place for children who aren’t juvenile delinquints.
If you gotta keep the parents locked up — and sometimes you do — surely a seperate, less jail-like facility could be found for the kids. Especially during long-term situations. I am assuming the state has temporary foster care programs for kids who are removed from their parents for other reasons.
Clearly, the centres aren’t helping the kids, and you’d be hard pressed to find someone who thinks the KIDS are at fault here, so….
March 7, 2007 at 5:13 am
“…A Bastard child without a country and with terrorists for parents?…”
No, he’s a Canadian citizen whose parents are Iranian citizens. If the world made sense, a kid’s citizenship and travel rights would default to those of the parents until the kid reached the age of majority and could live on their own.
“…children should be punished for the (potentially suspected) sins of the parents…”
They were caught travelling to Canada with false passports, which is a violation of international law. The U.S. will therefore jail and deport them. Tens of thousands of people enter the U.S. and Canada every year via the legal channels. Every dollar and minute spent on this poor family is not spent getting legal immigrants and legitimate refugees through the door.
“…surely a seperate, less jail-like facility could be found for the kids…”
Now THAT’s naivete! Kids should always stay with the parents unless the parents are abusive, incapable or actual criminals in actual jail. To do otherwise would be unimaginably cruel and damaging to the family. Ask Kevin if he wants to go live in a foster home while this is sorted out.
March 8, 2007 at 12:01 am
I am so tempted to give you the last word. This being my blog, it seems like it’s only fair.
But one more bone-picking and then I’m done…
If it’s in the kid’s best interest and he should “always stay with the parents” … then why did the pop get in trouble for trying to enter the kid’s cell to fix a broken bed?
Most of what you are saying is sad, but accurate. I would encourage you to have a heart, but beyond that I won’t really argue.
I could tell you — and you would already know — that the system ain’t perfect. And when the system is flawed enough that a little Canadian kid ends up writing the ‘Priminister’ (sic) in multi-coloured crayon begging his leader for help … well, it makes me madder than a policy story detailing far more significant and widespread problems with immigration law.
It’s called ‘empathy’, cockface. I know that translates to ’sucker’ in NYC, but I don’t live there yet.