In some years in the United States, politics churn over abortion, and sometimes they boil continuously around firearm laws. This last year has been a wild ride, though honestly, with some confidence, I can say that the two political issues that stand out to the American people the most are immigration and the Epstein files. The importance of those two over the rest of everything which has happened can be supported by the fact that there are still anti-ICE protests, and even on many social media pages under articles for the Iran conflict, you will see a bevy of upvoted comments which say something along the lines of Iran being a cover by the current administration to distract from the Epstein files. 

Which, strangely, there has still not been a single arrest or indictment since the release of millions of pages, nor has the director of the FBI walked back his statements that there was “no credible information – none,” that children were sexually trafficked to individuals other than Epstein. This is most certainly false due to the high-profile individuals from other countries who were in the files, resigning from office, and then investigations from those countries were promptly opened against them. Also, literally anyone can read the files and see the names of the abusers inked out. 

This administration and president say they are “tough on crime,” but I suppose if abusers have their names protected in the files, but the children who were assaulted did not always have their names blackened out (along with no prosecutions of old, rich men), then I suppose they might not consider what happened to the children a crime. Sure, they can say that it was horrendous, but what do their actions say? This path of logic is so self-evident that no corpse of a stoic philosopher is needed to embellish it. 

What people consider important is also self-evident in how they spend their money. Throughout my own life, I have had acquaintances who were from greater levels of poverty than I who would spend their paycheck at the bar on alcohol, rather than new clothes that didn’t have holes in them, or even rent. Logically, clearly, they have priorities. When looking at where our current administration places its money you can see the importance by the funding they give in regards to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which was about $10 billion for general operating costs for a year, and $45 billion for detention costs over the next few years, as well as a general catch-all $170 billion dollars across multiple agencies in regards to enforcing immigration. 

There was, however, recently an extreme, absolutely inane cost which the Trump Administration had to cut from the budget this year: a massive, gigantic, deplorable, stupendous $11 million dollars for a charity in Florida which directly supported and kept safe migrant children who enter the United States alone. Who could possibly think to aid runaway kids? The Trump Administration claimed that the ‘Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami’ is supporting far fewer orphan children than they did under the Biden administration (from 22,000, down to 1900), and has given the Miami Archdiocese three months to (paraphrasing here), 

“Find somewhere else to send 1,900 orphans.” 

Just think about what $11 million could buy the federal government. That yearly budget for orphans is a whole one-twentieth of the cost of a single super-commercial by Kristi Noem to get rid of immigrants. Housing orphans for a year at $11 million is 0.0275% of the $40 billion the federal government uses to detain its own immigrants. Originally, the Miami Charity aided Cuban refugee children, and had been funded by the federal government for more than sixty years, which also has a proven track record of excellence for all those six decades. 

Over the course of both of his terms, President Donald Trump has spent $290 million of taxpayer money on golf outings; the $11 million of yearly operating costs for the Catholic orphanage could buy about three days of golfing for the President. How dare the United States Federal Government take golfing days away from President Trump in support of unsupported, parentless kiddos? It’s only one thousand, nine hundred orphaned children, anyway. Plus, this presidency has been all about the separation of church and state –err, well, no, that isn't right either. This presidency is all about evangelicalism, so it must be the reason they are defending this organization, not just due to needing funds for golf, but as per the Epstein files, the prosecution of rich old men who abuse little kids is seemingly not any sort of priority or importance for President Trump’s Administration.

Not a single person in the U.S. after Epstein and Maxwell has faced any sort of jail time. President Trump – tough on crime? Or tough on children? 

Though there is the recent ‘spat’ between the Trump Administration and the Catholic Pope, because he dared to say things like, “war is bad. Jesus do hate war, tho.” (Paraphrasing, heh). So, is defending the charity, which the government has been funding for 60 years, retaliation for Pope Leo’s anti-war stance? 

People can talk all day about what is important to them, but to find out what is really important to them? 

Just look at where they spend money, and where they don’t. 

Placing the satire of this article aside, I find it abhorrent that our current American administration would give a charity three months to find somewhere to dispose of almost two thousand orphans in just three months due to what amounts to them as “political differences" with the Pope. Who is getting punished here? The Pope? Who is technically a dictator of his own country – the Vatican? Is it the state of Florida that now has to worry about two thousand children being dumped onto the streets or to other, less developed and equipped social organizations, which themselves are like every other aid organization, stretched to their limits? 

Or is it the two thousand children who are suffering for the small egos of greedy, geriatric vampires – and all the future children who will be in need, who could have been aided by that funding to that established organization? 

Austin Petak is an aspiring novelist and freelance journalist who loves seeking stories and the quiet passions of the soul. If you are interested in reaching out to him to cover a story, you may find him at austinpetak@gmail.com.

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