The Trump administration continues its barbaric policy of caging migrants and their children, separating parents and their children, holding them under appalling conditions. With each new move from the administration, shades of how Nazi Germany began are tainting our nation. The gratuitous cruelty is not worthy of a civilized society.

The Trump administration recently decided not to give flu shots to the migrants and the children we’re holding. Reportedly, people in our so-called care have died in custody from infectious diseases.

Imagine a flu epidemic spreading quickly in our crowded concentration camps. Withholding flu shots, with the inevitable resulting deaths, does not even rise to the level of “negligent homicide,” since it is with malice aforethought. All those responsible for this policy should be held accountable and charged with murder for any deaths resulting from the withholding of medicine.

Now the administration wants the authority to hold migrant families crossing the border for longer periods of time. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan says: “This rule allows the federal government to enforce immigration laws as passed by Congress and ensures that all children in U.S. government custody are treated with dignity, respect, and special concern for their particular vulnerability.”

Given the nature of this policy, and the utter disregard for the dignity and health of the migrants being held, how cynical and duplicitous can you get in passing this policy off with the specious assurance that “all children in U.S. government custody are treated with dignity, respect, and special concern for their particular vulnerability”? This is “1984” doublespeak!

I urge you, and our elected senators and representatives, to speak out strongly against the president and his policies. It’s past time to restore a sense of decency and caring in our nation.

The Rev. Glenn H. Turner

retired Unitarian Universalist minister

Portland