| Happy Fathers Day: 15:57 - Jun 17 with 25351 views | Shaky |
How Trump Came to Enforce a Practice of Separating Migrant Families
By Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Michael D. Shear
NYT, June 16, 2018
WASHINGTON – Almost immediately after President Trump took office, his administration began weighing what for years had been regarded as the nuclear option in the effort to discourage immigrants from unlawfully entering the United States.
Children would be separated from their parents if the families had been apprehended entering the country illegally, John F. Kelly, then the homeland security secretary, said in March 2017, “in order to deter more movement along this terribly dangerous network.”
For more than a decade, even as illegal immigration levels fell overall, seasonal spikes in unauthorized border crossings had bedeviled American presidents in both political parties, prompting them to cast about for increasingly aggressive ways to discourage migrants from making the trek.
Yet for George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the idea of crying children torn from their parents’ arms was simply too inhumane – and too politically perilous – to embrace as policy, and Mr. Trump, though he had made an immigration crackdown one of the central issues of his campaign, succumbed to the same reality, publicly dropping the idea after Mr. Kelly’s comments touched off a swift backlash.
But advocates inside the administration, most prominently Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s senior policy adviser, never gave up on the idea. Last month, facing a sharp uptick in illegal border crossings, Mr. Trump ordered a new effort to criminally prosecute anyone who crossed the border unlawfully – with few exceptions for parents traveling with their minor children.
And now Mr. Trump faces the consequences. With thousands of children detained in makeshift shelters, his spokesmen this past week had to deny accusations that the administration was acting like Nazis. Even evangelical supporters like Franklin Graham said its policy was “disgraceful.”
Among those who have professed objections to the policy is the president himself, who despite his tough rhetoric on immigration and his clear directive to show no mercy in enforcing the law, has searched publicly for someone else to blame for dividing families. He has falsely claimed that Democrats are responsible for the practice. But the kind of pictures so feared by Mr. Trump’s predecessors could end up defining a major domestic policy issue of his term.
Inside the Trump administration, current and former officials say, there is considerable unease about the policy, which is regarded by some charged with carrying it out as unfeasible in practice and questionable morally. Kirstjen Nielsen, the current homeland security secretary, has clashed privately with Mr. Trump over the practice, sometimes inviting furious lectures from the president that have pushed her to the brink of resignation.
But Mr. Miller has expressed none of the president’s misgivings. “No nation can have the policy that whole classes of people are immune from immigration law or enforcement,” he said during an interview in his West Wing office this past week. “It was a simple decision by the administration to have a zero tolerance policy for illegal entry, period. The message is that no one is exempt from immigration law.”
The administration’s critics are not buying that explanation. “This is not a zero tolerance policy, this is a zero humanity policy, and we can’t let it go on,” said Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon.
“Ripping children out of their parents’ arms to inflict harm on the child to influence the parents,” he added, “is unacceptable.”
Beyond those moral objections, Jeh C. Johnson, who as secretary of homeland security was the point man for the Obama administration’s own struggles with illegal immigration, argued that deterrence, in and of itself, is neither practical nor a long-term solution to the problem.
“I’ve seen this movie before, and I feel like what we are doing now, with the zero tolerance policy and separating parents and children for the purpose of deterrence, is banging our heads against the wall,” he said. “Whether it’s family detention, messaging about dangers of the journey, or messaging about separating families and zero tolerance, it’s always going to have at best a short-term reaction.”
And that view was based on hard experience.
When Central American migrants, including many unaccompanied children, began surging across the border in early 2014, Mr. Obama, the antithesis of his impulsive successor, had his own characteristic reaction: He formed a multiagency team at the White House to figure out what should be done.
“This was the bane of my existence for three years,” Mr. Johnson said. “No matter what you did, somebody was going to be very angry at you.”
The officials met in the office of Denis R. McDonough, the White House chief of staff, and convened a series of meetings in the Situation Room to go through their options. Migrants were increasingly exploiting existing immigration laws and court rulings, and using children as a way to get adults into the country, on the theory that families were being treated differently from single people.
“The agencies were surfacing every possible idea,” Cecilia Muñoz, Mr. Obama’s top domestic policy adviser, recalled, including whether to separate parents from their children. “I do remember looking at each other like, ‘We’re not going to do this, are we?’ We spent five minutes thinking it through and concluded that it was a bad idea. The morality of it was clear – that’s not who we are.”
They did, however, decide to vastly expand the detention of immigrant families, opening new facilities along the border where women and young children were held for long periods while they awaited a chance to have their cases processed.
Mr. Johnson wrote an open letter to appear in Spanish-language news outlets warning parents that their children would be deported if they entered the United States illegally. He traveled to Guatemala to deliver the message in person.
Opening a large family immigration detention facility in Dilley, Tex., he held a news conference to showcase what he called an “effective deterrent.”
The steps led to just the kind of brutal images that Mr. Obama’s advisers feared: hundreds of young children, many dirty and some in tears, who were being held with their families in makeshift detention facilities.
Immigrant advocacy groups denounced the policy, berating senior administration officials – some of whom were reduced to rueful apologies for a policy they said they could not justify – and telling Mr. Obama to his face during a meeting at the White House in late 2014 that he was turning his back on the most vulnerable people seeking refuge in the United States.
“I was pissed, and still am,” said Ben Johnson, the executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “I thought that he had a shocking disregard for due process.”
Before long, the Obama administration would face legal challenges, and be forced to stop detaining families indefinitely. A federal judge in Washington ordered the administration in 2015 to stop detaining asylum-seeking Central American mothers and children in order to deter others from their region from coming into the United States.
Under a 1997 consent decree known as the Flores settlement, unaccompanied children could be held in immigration detention for only a short period of time; in 2016, a federal judge ruled that the settlement applied to families as well, effectively requiring that they be released within 20 days. Many were released – some with GPS ankle bracelets to track their movements – and asked to return for a court date sometime in the future.
It was Mr. Bush, who had firsthand experience with the border as governor of Texas and ran for president as a “compassionate conservative,” who initiated the “zero tolerance” approach for illegal immigration on which Mr. Trump’s policy is modeled.
In 2005, he launched Operation Streamline, a program along a stretch of the border in Texas that referred all unlawful entrants for criminal prosecution, imprisoning them and expediting assembly-line-style trials geared toward quickly deporting them. The initiative yielded results and was soon expanded to more border sectors. Back then, however, exceptions were generally made for adults who were traveling with minor children, as well as juveniles and people who were ill.
Mr. Obama’s administration employed the program at the height of the migration crisis as well, although it generally did not treat first-time border crossers as priorities for prosecution, and it detained families together in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody – administrative, rather than criminal, detention.
Discussions began almost immediately after Mr. Trump took office about vastly expanding Operation Streamline, with almost none of those limitations. Even after Mr. Kelly stopped talking publicly about family separation, the Department of Homeland Security quietly tested the approach last summer in certain areas in Texas.
Privately, Mr. Miller argued that bringing back “zero tolerance” would be a potent tool in a severely limited arsenal of strategies for stopping migrants from flooding across the border.
The idea was to end a practice referred to by its detractors as “catch and release,” in which illegal immigrants apprehended at the border are released into the interior of the United States to await the processing of their cases. Mr. Miller argued that the policy provided a perverse incentive for migrants, essentially ensuring that if they could make it to the United States border and claim a “credible fear” of returning home, they would be given a chance to stay under asylum laws, at least temporarily.
A lengthy backlog of asylum claims made it likely that it would be years before they would have to appear before a judge to back up that plea – and many never returned to do so.
The situation was even more complicated when children were involved. A 2008 law meant to combat the trafficking of minors places strict requirements on how unaccompanied migrant children from Central America are to be treated.
Minors from Mexico or Canada – countries contiguous with the United States – can be quickly sent back to their home countries unless it is deemed dangerous to do so. But those from other nations cannot be quickly returned; they must be transferred within 72 hours to the Office of Refugee Resettlement at the Department of Health and Human Services, and placed in the least restrictive setting possible. And the Flores ruling meant that children and families could not be held for more than 20 days.
In October, after Mr. Trump ended Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the Obama-era program that gave legal status to undocumented immigrants raised in the United States, Mr. Miller insisted that any legislative package to codify those protections contain changes to close what he called the loopholes encouraging illegal immigrants to come.
And in April, after the border numbers reached their zenith, Mr. Miller was instrumental in Mr. Trump’s decision to ratchet up the zero tolerance policy.
“A big name of the game is deterrence,” Mr. Kelly, now the chief of staff, told NPR in May. “The children will be taken care of – put into foster care or whatever – but the big point is they elected to come illegally into the United States, and this is a technique that no one hopes will be used extensively or for very long.”
Technically, there is no Trump administration policy stating that illegal border crossers must be separated from their children. But the “zero tolerance policy” results in unlawful immigrants being taken into federal criminal custody, at which point their children are considered unaccompanied alien minors and taken away.
Unlike Mr. Obama’s administration, Mr. Trump’s is treating all people who have crossed the border without authorization as subject to criminal prosecution, even if they tell the officer apprehending them that they are seeking asylum based on fear of returning to their home country, and whether or not they have their children in tow.
“Having children does not give you immunity from arrest and prosecution,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a speech on Thursday in Fort Wayne, Ind.
“I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13 to obey the laws of the government,” said Mr. Sessions, quoting Bible verse as he took exception to evangelical leaders who have called the practice abhorrent. “Because God has ordained them for the purpose of order.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/16/us/politics/family-separation-trump.html [Post edited 17 Jun 2018 15:57]
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| Happy Fathers Day: on 18:22 - Jun 18 with 2179 views | Tummer_from_Texas |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 17:26 - Jun 18 by londonlisa2001 |
“batshit crazy, shockingly stupid and illogical”
Why don’t you have another little look at the thread and tell us who was the first poster to use those insults at others Perch.
You may see that it is Tummer, who I note doesn’t get accused by you of being on a moral attack nor of endless insults nor of thinking he’s better than others.
I wonder why that is?
Perhaps it’s because he’s not a female and therefore in your eyes shouldn’t shut up like a good little girl. Why not follow your own advice of answering the post not the poster?
By the way, your endless arselicking of all things American is a little sickening. You did it with our new owners as well. How’s that going?
Creep.
Oh - that’s an insult by the way. For the avoidance of doubt. Since you’re a little slow. |
Don't spend too much time wondering. I can tell you exactly why that is:
I don't come across as insufferably sanctimonious and condescending.
All the time.
With literally EVERYONE you quarrel with.
Also, my insult was directed at "the Left," not at any particular individual.
HTH, Lis. |  |
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| Happy Fathers Day: on 18:25 - Jun 18 with 2170 views | londonlisa2001 |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 18:19 - Jun 18 by moonie |
We can't solve anything
We can offer opinion ,politicians are those in power
And Lisa...just stick to the point . You re not dumb ,nor even semi- literate but to some you re a bit of a twerp and as prone to proselytising as any.
None of us are as smart as we really think we are
Remember that |
Perch, if I ever care whether or not you think I’m dumb, not dumb, literate, semi literate or a twerp i’ll be sure to let you know.
It’ll save you time wondering. |  | | |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 18:25 - Jun 18 with 2175 views | Highjack |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 18:19 - Jun 18 by moonie |
We can't solve anything
We can offer opinion ,politicians are those in power
And Lisa...just stick to the point . You re not dumb ,nor even semi- literate but to some you re a bit of a twerp and as prone to proselytising as any.
None of us are as smart as we really think we are
Remember that |
It seems that everyone is getting upset at the fact children are being separated from their families which is obviously horrible, but then the only other logical option is to lock them up with their families in adult detention centres which is also horrible.
So it seems the immigration authorities are between a rock and a hard place. |  |
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| Happy Fathers Day: on 18:27 - Jun 18 with 2166 views | moonie |
Highjack.
Fair point succinctly made
Children are often victims
Everywhere | | | |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 18:34 - Jun 18 with 2142 views | londonlisa2001 |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 18:22 - Jun 18 by Tummer_from_Texas |
Don't spend too much time wondering. I can tell you exactly why that is:
I don't come across as insufferably sanctimonious and condescending.
All the time.
With literally EVERYONE you quarrel with.
Also, my insult was directed at "the Left," not at any particular individual.
HTH, Lis. |
I genuinely take that as a compliment my Trump adoring friend. | | | |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 18:38 - Jun 18 with 2142 views | Highjack |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 18:27 - Jun 18 by moonie |
Highjack.
Fair point succinctly made
Children are often victims
Everywhere |
They don’t choose to make that journey of thousands of miles, the desire for the parents to get something better for their families is completely understandable but surely they must share a bit of blame for putting their kids through all that in the first place. | |
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| Happy Fathers Day: on 18:43 - Jun 18 with 2131 views | stAteSwan |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 18:15 - Jun 18 by Highjack |
How do the good folks of planetswans think this situation should be solved? |
Only way the issue gets solved is understanding why people choose to immigrate illegally to begin with.
The big thing that Trump and his advisors seem to miss with this is that for many of these families spending time in an immigration detention facility and having your kids thrown into the disaster that is the American Foster Care system is probably a hell of a lot safer than the situation back in their current country.
Separating children from their families isn't going to solve this issue. Perhaps spending enough time reading a history book could explain that in times of extreme peril, parents are far more willing to make non rational decisions to save their lives and lives of their children. | | | |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 18:45 - Jun 18 with 2124 views | Shaky |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 13:18 - Jun 18 by Lohengrin |
The dividing line between interest and obsession isn’t awfully difficult to draw, Shaky. |
Since the slingshots are now out, I have got to say this is rich coming from you given your constant lecherous pursuit of Lisa on here.
Have some fcuking self-respect you pathetic fool. | |
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| Happy Fathers Day: on 18:49 - Jun 18 with 2121 views | Tummer_from_Texas |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 18:34 - Jun 18 by londonlisa2001 |
I genuinely take that as a compliment my Trump adoring friend. |
Glad you own it.
So you can put away the "They Surely Must Be Sexist Pigs for Criticizing Me" card for now, and perhaps apologize to moonie. He didn't deserve it. Completely unwarranted. | |
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| Happy Fathers Day: on 18:52 - Jun 18 with 2115 views | Lohengrin |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 18:45 - Jun 18 by Shaky |
Since the slingshots are now out, I have got to say this is rich coming from you given your constant lecherous pursuit of Lisa on here.
Have some fcuking self-respect you pathetic fool. |
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| An idea isn't responsible for those who believe in it. |
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| Happy Fathers Day: on 19:01 - Jun 18 with 2103 views | stAteSwan |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 18:38 - Jun 18 by Highjack |
They don’t choose to make that journey of thousands of miles, the desire for the parents to get something better for their families is completely understandable but surely they must share a bit of blame for putting their kids through all that in the first place. |
Again, I think this is missing the point of why people immigrate illegally in the first place.
The concept of the "American Dream" certainly plays a role, but one of the biggest faults in the system here is that those running it seem to think that people make a perilous thousand plus mile journey with young children in tow simply to live a better life. This isn't the 1920's anymore. That's just not how immigration works. | | | |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 19:11 - Jun 18 with 2086 views | londonlisa2001 |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 18:49 - Jun 18 by Tummer_from_Texas |
Glad you own it.
So you can put away the "They Surely Must Be Sexist Pigs for Criticizing Me" card for now, and perhaps apologize to moonie. He didn't deserve it. Completely unwarranted. |
I didn’t say i agreed with you Tummer.
Just that I’m rather pleased to be disliked by someone like you. | | | |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 19:17 - Jun 18 with 2077 views | londonlisa2001 |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 18:45 - Jun 18 by Shaky |
Since the slingshots are now out, I have got to say this is rich coming from you given your constant lecherous pursuit of Lisa on here.
Have some fcuking self-respect you pathetic fool. |
He’s not really pursuing me Shaky mun. It’s based on an (imagined I suspect since I can’t remember it to be absolutely honest although to be fair I did own a Benetton top exactly as he has described) kiss as a pair of 17 year olds one hot Gower summer.
If he was pursuing me he’d have a good smack. Verbal obviously, but still a smack ;-) | | | |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 19:17 - Jun 18 with 2082 views | Lohengrin |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 19:11 - Jun 18 by londonlisa2001 |
I didn’t say i agreed with you Tummer.
Just that I’m rather pleased to be disliked by someone like you. |
I seem to have hove into the sights of a sub-Marxian cut and paste monster. Normally I’d take that as a compliment except if I keep riling him I’m worried he’ll put more of his music videos up just to spite me.  | |
| An idea isn't responsible for those who believe in it. |
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| Happy Fathers Day: on 19:20 - Jun 18 with 2072 views | londonlisa2001 |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 19:17 - Jun 18 by Lohengrin |
I seem to have hove into the sights of a sub-Marxian cut and paste monster. Normally I’d take that as a compliment except if I keep riling him I’m worried he’ll put more of his music videos up just to spite me. |
I have disagreed with the Shakester as often as anyone, but I’m enjoying his articles to be honest. On the subject of the giant Wotsit, he and I are as one. | | | |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 19:22 - Jun 18 with 2073 views | Tummer_from_Texas |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 10:14 - Jun 18 by Shaky |
Your country?
I'm sorry, Tummer, I didn't realise you were Apache. |
Yes, my country. I am a citizen of the USA. That is a fact, whether you like it or not.
Anyone who is a citizen call call this their country.
If anything, I consider immigrants (usually POC) who come here legally and EARN citizenship to be better Americans than me, since they have made a conscious effort to become Americans, and have done it the right way.
Even though they aren't Apache, either, you dolt. | |
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| Happy Fathers Day: on 19:23 - Jun 18 with 2071 views | moonie |
Lisa never apologises . Ever. I've exposed her short comings as I have countless others on here .
She ranks as high as anyone for self important crap .
You don't know the truth Lisa. You re not right . You need an injection of humility .
You only impress the impressionable
Yours ...the twerp | | | |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 19:25 - Jun 18 with 2067 views | Shaky |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 19:17 - Jun 18 by londonlisa2001 |
He’s not really pursuing me Shaky mun. It’s based on an (imagined I suspect since I can’t remember it to be absolutely honest although to be fair I did own a Benetton top exactly as he has described) kiss as a pair of 17 year olds one hot Gower summer.
If he was pursuing me he’d have a good smack. Verbal obviously, but still a smack ;-) |
Well it's all fantasy to a certain extent isn't it, but I am certainly cringing every time he whips out a new item of needy innuendo. | |
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| Happy Fathers Day: on 19:27 - Jun 18 with 2061 views | londonlisa2001 |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 19:23 - Jun 18 by moonie |
Lisa never apologises . Ever. I've exposed her short comings as I have countless others on here .
She ranks as high as anyone for self important crap .
You don't know the truth Lisa. You re not right . You need an injection of humility .
You only impress the impressionable
Yours ...the twerp |
Oh do p*ss off you stupid little man. | | | |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 19:31 - Jun 18 with 2051 views | londonlisa2001 |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 19:25 - Jun 18 by Shaky |
Well it's all fantasy to a certain extent isn't it, but I am certainly cringing every time he whips out a new item of needy innuendo. |
I don’t even notice it to be honest.
A lifetime of needy innuendo, double standards and downright hostility have made me somewhat immune.
I’ve had men whip out worse. They didn’t last long either :-) | | | |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 19:36 - Jun 18 with 2044 views | LeonWasGod |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 18:38 - Jun 18 by Highjack |
They don’t choose to make that journey of thousands of miles, the desire for the parents to get something better for their families is completely understandable but surely they must share a bit of blame for putting their kids through all that in the first place. |
Fair point. Although once they are there I suppose they could chose not to separate them, hold them in cages and treat them like animals? I'm sure it wouldn't beyond their means to have slightly more humane places to hold families. |  | | |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 19:37 - Jun 18 with 2043 views | dickythorpe |
I user to wear a Benneton top like the one loh described...... |  | | |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 19:41 - Jun 18 with 2038 views | Lohengrin |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 19:31 - Jun 18 by londonlisa2001 |
I don’t even notice it to be honest.
A lifetime of needy innuendo, double standards and downright hostility have made me somewhat immune.
I’ve had men whip out worse. They didn’t last long either :-) |
“I’ve had men whip out worse...”
Nah! I’ll bite my lip and say nowt... 
You know what he’s picking up on, don’t you? It’s me calling you love. Being a foreigner Glamorgan vernacular is a mystery to him. I don’t think he realises that’s how I speak in real life, we all do down here. | |
| An idea isn't responsible for those who believe in it. |
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| Happy Fathers Day: on 19:43 - Jun 18 with 2036 views | Lohengrin |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 19:37 - Jun 18 by dickythorpe |
I user to wear a Benneton top like the one loh described...... |
Aye, but did your eyes sparkle? | |
| An idea isn't responsible for those who believe in it. |
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