Trump Offers Kids $2,500 to Leave; US Offers Billions to Keep Wars Going
Donald Trump's suggestion of a $2,500 'bonus' for unaccompanied minors to leave the US, as reported by The Hill, elicits an eyebrow raise. It’s hard to ignore the stark contrast: a meager sum to incentivize self-deportation for vulnerable children, while the US annually channels billions in aid, often military, to other nations. For instance, the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act included
$3.8 billion in annual military aid to Israel, a commitment often championed by politicians like Senator Lindsey Graham, who received $10,000 from AIPAC in 2022. He's on record advocating for robust foreign military assistance (OpenSecrets.org). So, we can offer children a pittance to abandon their asylum claims, but there's a bottomless fund for military hardware and strategic partnerships
abroad. One might wonder: where was this 'cost-effective' bonus approach when the US sent over $75 billion to Ukraine since 2022, or facilitated massive arms sales to Saudi Arabia? Is the human dignity of a child crossing a border truly less valuable than securing a distant conflict or maintaining lucrative defense contracts? The priorities, it appears, are blindingly clear, and children are
certainly not at the top of the list unless they serve a narrative of 'border crisis,' not 'humanitarian crisis.'