Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Live,” anchor and executive producer of National Public Radio’s “Latino USA” Maria Hinojosa compared the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy causing the separation of immigrant children from their families to the dehumanization of Jewish people by the Nazis.
Partial transcript as follows:
RUHLE: I want to ask you about all the images we’ve seen of young boys and we haven’t seen any of young girls. what do you make of this?
HINOJOSA: Well, you know, they are controlling the narrative.
RUHLE: But why?
HINOJOSA: Because it’s playing into what the president said yesterday they are all thieves. It plays into the sense that boys, boys of color, young boys who don’t speak english are a threat. That they are, again, to follow their narrative, they’re a potential MS-13 gang members. So what we’re not seeing are the pictures of little girls, right, of their mothers. I mean, I’m just thinking, Stephanie in terms of the logistics of taking care of these people. I’m so worried about how many pedophiles are now signing up to go and work in these places. I mean, just the sheer thought of trying to take care of toddlers and changing diapers.
You know what it’s like to have a 3-year-old. And I guess the bigger context for your viewers is what’s happened now is this administration has created an illegal people overnight. So they keep on saying, ‘Well, we’re just charging them criminally because they are criminals for trying to get into the United States.’ This was always a misdemeanor, right, that’s how it’s been for the longest time. But overnight, they’ve now created criminals. So people are trying to understand what’s happening here. That’s what happened. You know what, Elie Wiesel, may he rest in peace, what he said to me was, ‘You know, the Nazis had it perfectly correct. They declared us an illegal people. That’s how it began. We were declared an illegal people as Jews.That follows — it’s a very horrible thing to make these comparisons but if you think about the level of dehumanization where we are arrived. Where children are being taken, there’s an arc there.
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.