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Anti-immigrant rhetoric and lies have led the U.S. to hurt innocent children.

The world watches in horror as the U.S. enacts state-sanctioned cruelty toward children at the U.S. border.

No matter our stances on immigration, we should all agree that there are moral lines we won't cross. Cruelty to innocent children goes far over that line, and separating children from their parents with no reassurance or hope that they’ll see them again is cruel. A Washington Post op-ed by a professor of developmental psychology at UCLA likens the effect of such forced separation to torture.


How did we get to a place where the U.S. government decided separating kids from their parents at the border was morally sound?

Photo via John Moore/Getty Images.

That’s easy: anti-immigrant propaganda, lies, fear-mongering, and more lies — most of it coming straight from the highest levels of our government.

President Donald Trump's lie-laced tweets are a perfect example of the kind of propaganda that allows human cruelty to flourish.

Fear is a powerful human motivator. That’s why marketers — and con artists — make liberal use of it to influence people, truth be damned.

And that's what the Trump administration has done, and continues to do, with anti-immigration rhetoric. It's designed to convince Americans not just to condemn undocumented immigration, but to be afraid of it.

Take the president's tweets as Exhibit A:

"Crime in Germany is way up." No, it's not. That's a lie. Just last month, Germany's Interior Minister (who happens to be anti-immigration) released data showing that Germany's crime rate is at its lowest since 1992.

And despite persistent falsehoods about no-go zones (they don't exist, folks) and despite zeroing in on a few specific crimes committed by migrants in Europe (statistically, a group of hundreds of thousands of people will have some crime, but that does not make that group more likely to commit crime), Europe has not fallen into violent chaos. It just hasn't.

The president followed that tweet up with "We don't want what is happening in Europe with immigration to happen to us!" Fear-mongering at its best.

The problem with fear-based propaganda is that it works really, really well.

Since we have a primal instinct to protect ourselves and our loved ones, and our brains like to make generalizations, we're susceptible to rhetoric that fuels fear and prejudice.

Screenshot via Donald J. Trump/Twitter.

"Children are being used by some of the worst criminals on earth as a means to enter our country," Trump tweeted, before pointing to the danger these families are trying to escape. The president is using fear of children to justify cruelty to those same children. It's unreasonable. But fear and reason rarely go hand in hand.

Screenshot via Donald J. Trump/Twitter.

Even the erroneous capitalization of  "border security" (yes, I'm ignoring the misspelling) and "crime" in this tweet seem designed to drive home the lie. It's not just "crime," it's "Crime." Big Scary Stuff.  Be So Scared.

These tweets are just from one day, and they're just the tip of the iceberg.

Anti-immigration rhetoric has led directly to hurting children. What's next?

Saying that Mexico is sending us rapists. Setting up and promoting a hotline specifically for people to report crimes they think were committed by illegal aliens. Ranting about immigration increasing crime rates when it doesn't. Insinuating that undocumented immigrants are more likely to commit crimes when they're not. Highlighting specific crimes to make it look like immigrants commit more or worse crimes than native-born Americans. This anti-immigrant rhetoric makes it easier to swallow inhumane immigration policy.

The constant drip, drip, drip of fear-based propaganda has brought us to where we are now — a nation publicly and purposefully inflicting anguish upon innocent children.

Words matter. People with power have wielded words to foment fear and promote prejudice throughout history, leaving heinous atrocities in their wake. Ignoring or brushing off rhetoric as "just words" is dangerous, as we find ourselves flirting with atrocity right now, on our soil, in our name.

A Korean mother and her son

A recently posted story on Reddit shows a mother confidently standing up for her family after being bullied by a teacher for her culture. Reddit user Flowergardens0 posted the story to the AITA forum, where people ask whether they are wrong in a specific situation.

Over 5,600 people commented on the story, and an overwhelming majority thought the mother was right. Here’s what went down:

“I (34F) have a (5M) son who attends preschool. A few hours after I picked him up from school today, I got a phone call from his teacher,” Flowergardens0 wrote. “She made absolutely no effort to sound kind when she, in an extremely rude and annoyed tone, told me to stop packing my son such ‘disgusting and inappropriate’ lunches."

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The Tonight Show/ Youtube

Jennifer Aniston appearing on "The Tonight show"

Let’s face it, platonic relationships between men and women rarely get the same amount of attention as romantic ones, to the point where we debate whether or not they can actually exist in the first place.

That’s what makes a clip of Jennifer Aniston gushing about her decades-long friendship with Adam Sandler so cool to watch. There’s no Harry-Met-Sally-ing here, just one pal talking about another pal.

Aniston sat down with Jimmy Fallon to promote the film “Murder Mystery 2,” starring both Aniston and Sandler, but the conversation quickly veered into several anecdotes about “The Sand Man,” including how the two first met at a deli in their 20s.

As with any healthy friendship, there’s plenty of ragging on each other.

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Ring doorbell video captures what it's like to be the default parent.

Kids, man. I'm not sure of the scientific way audacity is distributed, but kids have a lot of it and somehow make it cute. That audacity overload is especially interesting when you're the default parent—you know, the parent kids go to for literally everything as if there's not another fully capable adult in the house. Chances are if your children haven't sought you out while you were taking a shower so you could open up a pack of fruit snacks, then you're not the default parental unit.

One parent captured exactly what it's like to be the default parent and shared it to TikTok, where the video has over 4 million views. Toniann Marchese went on a quick grocery run and *gasp* did not inform her children. Don't you fret, they're modern kids who know how to use modern means to get much-needed answers when mom is nowhere to be found. They went outside and rang the doorbell.

Back when we were children, this would've done nothing but make the dogs bark, but for Marchese's kids, who are 3 and 6 years old, it's as good as a phone call.

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A size 21 Nike shoe made for Tacko Fall.

A local reporter at Hometown Life shared a unique and heartfelt story on March 16 about a mother struggling to find shoes that fit her 14-year-old son. The story resonated with parents everywhere; now, her son is getting the help he desperately needs. It's a wonderful example of people helping a family that thought they had nowhere to turn.

When Eric Kilburn Jr. was born, his mother, Rebecca’s OBGYN, told her that he had the “biggest feet I’ve ever seen in my life. Do not go out and buy baby shoes because they’re not gonna fit,’” Rebecca told Today.com. Fourteen years later, it’s almost impossible to find shoes that fit the 6’10” freshman—he needs a size 23.

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Education

Former teacher shares the funny 'secret code' she used when talking to parents

“Your son is going to make a great lawyer" is code for: "Your kid won’t stop arguing with me."

Miss Smith shares the "secret code" teachers use in emails to parents.

There are many things that teachers think but cannot say aloud. Teachers have to have a certain sense of decorum and often have strict rules about the things they can or can’t say about children, especially to their parents.

Plus, it’s a teacher’s job to educate, not judge. So, they find ways to kindly say what’s on their minds without having to resort to name-calling or talking disparagingly of a student.

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It's incredible what a double-sided magnet can do.


A new trend in treasure hunting called magnet fishing has blown up over the past two years, evidenced by an explosion of YouTube channels covering the hobby. Magnet fishing is a pretty simple activity. Hobbyists attach high-powered magnets to strong ropes, drop them into waterways and see what they attract.

The hobby has caught the attention of law enforcement and government agencies because urban waterways are a popular place for criminals to drop weapons and stolen items after committing a crime. In 2019, a magnet fisherman in Michigan pulled up an antique World War I mortar grenade and the bomb squad had to be called out to investigate.


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