The phrase “the cruelty is the point” has been around a long time, but I’m not sure people realize just how literal and explicit it has gotten.
For instance, the UK Home Office policy on refugees seeking asylum is called “The Hostile Environment Policy”. That’s the actual name for it. The policy is based on the theory that if you’re as cruel as possible to refugees (holding them in hotel rooms for years, rounding some up and shipping them to Rwanda, denying them basic safety and care…) then they’ll either “voluntarily" go home, or they’ll stop coming.
The actual result is of course that refugees get raped, abused and killed, or try to go underground and get trafficked. And the workers and volunteers who deal with refugees suffer massive burnout and mental health problems.
Because there is no way, short of shooting refugees on sight, that the UK can make the odds worse than what asylum seekers have suffered in their home countries and in their journey to the UK.
But conservatives don’t care, because if nothing else, they’ve punished the people who came.
Keep that in mind when you look at US Republican policies on refugees. The cruelty is absolutely the point. The policies themselves don’t work at all.
