Sen. Jeff Sessions Makes Kids Cry

At Wednesday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing of the Uniting American Families Act, Shirley Tan plead eloquently against her pending deportation as her 10 year-old son wept behind her. Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions was quite unsympathetic.

As you can see in the video below, one of Tan's children started crying within seconds of the start of her testimony. At the sight of this, Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy stopped the hearing and asked Tan if her son might want to sit in another room, where presumably a Senate staffer would console him for the duration of what was clearly an emotionally fraught experience. For most people, the sight of a 12-year-old boy in tears at the prospect of his mother being deported halfway around the world would invoke some sympathy. Unmoved, however, was Alabama Republican Jeff Sessions, ranking minority member of the Committee and the only Republican to bother to attend the hearing. At the sight of the weeping boy, according to a Senate staffer who was at the hearing, Sessions leaned towards one of his aides and sighed, "Enough with the histrionics."

The UAFA hearing has spawned furious opposition from the nation's right-wing, who claim the act is an end run around DOMA.