‘Doing Harm Was the Point’

This article analyses the Trump administration’s policy of forcibly separating thousands of immigrant families at the border. Using a rights-based and childist approach, I explore the policy’s severe consequences for children’s rights to family unity and protection from cruel and degrading treatment. I argue that family separations abandoned the best-interests principle and entailed severe rights violations and due process irregularities. The policy deliberately inflicted suffering and trauma on immigrant families to deter immigrants and coerce asylum-seekers into relinquishing their claims to protection, contrary to treaty obligations and domestic laws. The article also examines the policy’s formulation and implementation, which were characterised by cruelty, chaos and confusion. This case provides incontrovertible evidence of the myriad strategies governments use to exclude immigrant children from the benefits of the global children’s rights regime.