Your honor, we believe plaintiffs need to bring these families back together.

What?

ACLU has to find lost parents. If plaintiffs are so agitated about our immigration policy, why should they not be responsible?

Look, we’ve already determined your so-called separation policy is illegal. That’s why the district court ordered you to find the parents and reunite them with their children, as fast as you can.

But we deported the parents as fast as we could! We never intended to reunite these families. So how do you think we can find family members scattered everywhere?

Try to show some more respect, counselor. You know where the chldren are. Why don’t you know where the parents are, too?

We make parents prime targets of zero tolerance. If we send them back home without their children, we make them lose hope. How will they find their children in a country this big?

So the whole policy was designed to ensure permanent separation?

Obviously. It was permanent until busybodies at the ACLU insisted we stop. So if the ACLU doesn’t like the policy, they should fix it.

That’s probably the most cruel, absurd argument I’ve ever heard in my courtroom.

We make parents prime targets of zero tolerance. If we send them back home without their children, we make them lose hope. How will they find their children in a country this big?

I don’t make this stuff up. I just say what they tell me to say.

You mean you take no responsibility for what you’re doing here?

I’m just an attorney. I present the best arguments I can for my client.

But you work for the federal government! You don’t have a client.

I work for ICE, and the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Don’t you think they care we get this right?

No, I don’t.

Well, we do. That’s why we’re asking the ACLU to take the lead with reunification of immigrant families. They have resources required for the task.

You don’t?

Look, we just capture people, take their children away, and send them back where they came from. That’s not so hard.

And reunification?

That’s a lot harder! It’s no easier for us to find parents, than it is for parents to find their children.

We just capture people, take their children away, and send them back where they came from. That’s not so hard.

So we come back to the policy again. Once apart, always apart.

That’s how deterrence works. That’s how zero tolerance works. What’s the point of family separation if it’s only temporary?

So you want to make children into orphans in order to get rid of their parents.

I object to that, your honor. The children receive the best medical care, foster care, good food, educational resources, access to games and sporting equipment, religious instruction, plenty of everything they need for a good life. They’re not orphans.

You think all that makes up for no parents?

We just look after the best interests of the child.

Best interests? I’ve heard a lot about mistreatment. The children lose their protection when they lose their mothers and fathers. They’re vulnerable.

A little mistreatment, as you call it, keeps people in line, keeps them submissive and out of trouble.

We make sure the adolescent girls are raped no more than once or maybe twice a week. That way they can recover. As for the boys, we put them in the secure housing unit only when necessary.

Secure housing unit?

Solitary.

So the children – I understand they’re not orphans, because they still have parents somewhere – aren’t treated so well after all.

As I said, we do the best we can. A little mistreatment, as you call it, keeps people in line, keeps them submissive and out of trouble.

Honestly, the more you talk, the more cruel your program sounds.

Again, I would not describe our best efforts as cruel. But I have to emphasize we are not set up for reunification. If we do that, we won’t have resources to capture people.

You still want to capture people? What are you going to do with them?

Deport them.

With their children?

You leave us no choice.

Thank God. Court dismissed.

Your honor.