Via our favorite legal blog (the Volokh Conspiracy), our friend and colleague Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University (and a prolific blogger), explains why “enforcing the law doesn’t justify separating migrant children from their parents” in this excellent blog post. We agree with Professor Somin’s analysis, especially his argument based on natural law: laws cannot trump basic human decency. Here is an excerpt:

Even in the case of otherwise just laws, there must be moral limits to the means used to enforce them. The child-separation policy crosses any reasonable line. It inflicts harm grossly disproportionate to any offense. And most of that harm is suffered by children–people themselves innocent of wrongdoing. Even if their parents acted wrongly in trying to enter the United States, the children had little choice in the matter.