Damn it reddit. Ok I'll bite. Regardless of where you fall on the issue, this is a bad analogy. CPS is taking away kids from parents who unjustifiably put the kids in danger. I don't think anybody on either side of the agrument can claim that the parents at border crossings are UNJUSTIFIABLY putting their kids in danger. A central argument on the conservative side of separations is that we need to remove the incentives for illegal immigration. Conservatives also argue that we need to refuse refugees. These principles by definition assume that things are much worse in the immigrants' home nations. So - the parents taking their kids to border crossings are doing so in the hope of finding better lives in the US, though they are doing so in violation of US law. Now, we can question the logic there - is the risk of injury/arrest/death of illegally crossing the border outweighed by the benefits of being in the US illegally? Maybe/maybe not, I certainly don't have abough info to know the answer, but it's a calculation being made by the parents to hopefully benefit the kids in the long run. I don't think you can analogize that kind of parent to the parent that smokes crack and beats his kids.