Topic category:  Crime/Gun Control

Should Child Neglect Be Overlooked When Children Are Used as Shields by Parents Entering the United States Illegally?

President Trump has the nerve to enforce the law against entering the United States illegally, so his political opponents and media enemies rail against him because he doesn't want the parents promptly released in the United States with their children for promising to appear in court later on an asylum application and the media shows video of crying children who don't want to be separated from their parents.

History shows that such parents are very unlikely to make the promised court appearance and releasing them because they brought children with them would reward bad behavior and discriminate against parents without children who also enter the United States illegally.

The United States does not have an open borders policy.

When persons enter the United States illegally, they are subject to arrest.

That's because United States laws are supposed to be enforced, not disregarded.

When a parent brings a child along when crossing the border between the United States and Mexico, which happens frequently, that parent is guilty of child neglect as well as illegal entry.

If the parent is arrested, the child is taken into custody, not arrested.

That's what should be expected to happen.

It's not the government's fault.

It's not the child's fault.

It's the parent's fault.

The parent who tries to use the child as a shield has no shame.

Parents are supposed to protect their children, not to use them as shields.

"...the difference between sword and shield is that sword is (weaponry) a long-bladed weapon having a handle and sometimes a hilt and designed to stab, hew, or slice while shield is anything that protects or defends..." (https://wikidiff.com/sword/shield).

If a parent brought a "sword" along to facilitate entering the United States illegally, illegal entry probably would not be the only charge brought against the parent.

Parents are now using children as swords as well as shields to attack border enforcement.

If that parent enters the United States illegally with a child, bringing that child should be an additional legal offense to be charged against the parent.

In 2015, felony child neglect charges were filed against Florida parents.

As reported at Fox New insider (http://insider.foxnews.com/2015/06/14/florida-parents-charged-felony-neglect-after-11-year-old-son-plays-backyard-90-minutes):

"Two Florida parents were hit with felony neglect charges after their 11-year-old son was reportedly playing alone in the backyard for an hour and a half.

"According to his mother, the boy arrived home before his parents and was locked out of the house, so he shot some hoops in the yard until they arrived.

"A neighbor saw the child outside alone and called the local police. When his mother and father arrived home, they were met by a police officer, who arrested them for child negligence."

When Florida parents can be arrested for child negligence under such circumstances, shouldn't parents who bring children across the United States border illegally be prosecutable for child negligence for doing that?

It is readily foreseeable that those parents will be arrested for illegal entry and no longer in a position to care for their children, requiring the United States to care for those children, which is an undeserved cost to United States taxpayers.

What is going on is that parents entering the United States illegally are using children as shields in the hope of deflecting border enforcement and the "progressives" and their media allies are using that pathetic situation to pursue their open borders political agenda by highlighting the children's plight when the parents are arrested for illegal entry and not blaming the parents.

A parent using a child in this way should be prosecutable for child neglect as well as liable for the government's cost of caring for the child.

Michael J. Gaynor

Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.