| Happy Fathers Day: 15:57 - Jun 17 with 24809 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 20:09 - Jun 17 with 6192 views | Shaky |
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| Happy Fathers Day: on 23:40 - Jun 17 with 6158 views | Tummer_from_Texas |
Shaky, I deeply appreciate your oh-so-woke opinions about how my country should have open borders and allow these criminals (they are breaking the law by entering my country illegally) to live the American Dream (only, without having to pay those pesky federal income taxes like the rest of us, including poor citizens and legal migrants).
However, here's another thought: how about, instead, they come to my country and earn citizenship legally, like this guy:
Like this Latin American gentleman says, "if I can do, it every person who is a 'dreamer' and undocumented can do it, too."
Look, I have a great job and career, so illegal immigration doesn't hurt me at all. To be honest, eliminating it would mean that people like me would have to start paying fair wages to American citizens for housekeeping and to cut our lawns.
The people who are directly hurt by illegal immigrants who don't pay taxes and can undercut their wages are the poorest American citizens. The vast majority of them happen to not be white, by the way. Which blows my mind that the concept of wanting to enforce our immigration laws and not just open up the goddamn borders is seen as something "racist" against POC, when to me it's clearly the exact opposite.
I remember a time, not long ago at all in fact, when the concept that immigrants should only be in our country if they come here LEGALLY was a bipartisan ideal we all agreed on. Hell, even extreme Leftists like Nancy Pelosi used strong language against illegal immigration when Obama was President.
November 8, 2016, and the Trump Derangement Syndrome that subsequently followed, has turned the Left completely batshit crazy and shockingly stupid and illogical. |  |
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| Happy Fathers Day: on 00:13 - Jun 18 with 6137 views | Highjack |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 23:40 - Jun 17 by Tummer_from_Texas |
Shaky, I deeply appreciate your oh-so-woke opinions about how my country should have open borders and allow these criminals (they are breaking the law by entering my country illegally) to live the American Dream (only, without having to pay those pesky federal income taxes like the rest of us, including poor citizens and legal migrants).
However, here's another thought: how about, instead, they come to my country and earn citizenship legally, like this guy:
Like this Latin American gentleman says, "if I can do, it every person who is a 'dreamer' and undocumented can do it, too."
Look, I have a great job and career, so illegal immigration doesn't hurt me at all. To be honest, eliminating it would mean that people like me would have to start paying fair wages to American citizens for housekeeping and to cut our lawns.
The people who are directly hurt by illegal immigrants who don't pay taxes and can undercut their wages are the poorest American citizens. The vast majority of them happen to not be white, by the way. Which blows my mind that the concept of wanting to enforce our immigration laws and not just open up the goddamn borders is seen as something "racist" against POC, when to me it's clearly the exact opposite.
I remember a time, not long ago at all in fact, when the concept that immigrants should only be in our country if they come here LEGALLY was a bipartisan ideal we all agreed on. Hell, even extreme Leftists like Nancy Pelosi used strong language against illegal immigration when Obama was President.
November 8, 2016, and the Trump Derangement Syndrome that subsequently followed, has turned the Left completely batshit crazy and shockingly stupid and illogical. |
Illegal immigrants more often than not get driven underground into a world of crime and exploitation. They have no visa or right to work so can’t get jobs so get hoovered up by the crime lords. “Deliver this package mate, don’t ask what’s in it and if you get caught don’t say where it came from”. |  |
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| Happy Fathers Day: on 00:27 - Jun 18 with 6089 views | londonlisa2001 |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 23:40 - Jun 17 by Tummer_from_Texas |
Shaky, I deeply appreciate your oh-so-woke opinions about how my country should have open borders and allow these criminals (they are breaking the law by entering my country illegally) to live the American Dream (only, without having to pay those pesky federal income taxes like the rest of us, including poor citizens and legal migrants).
However, here's another thought: how about, instead, they come to my country and earn citizenship legally, like this guy:
Like this Latin American gentleman says, "if I can do, it every person who is a 'dreamer' and undocumented can do it, too."
Look, I have a great job and career, so illegal immigration doesn't hurt me at all. To be honest, eliminating it would mean that people like me would have to start paying fair wages to American citizens for housekeeping and to cut our lawns.
The people who are directly hurt by illegal immigrants who don't pay taxes and can undercut their wages are the poorest American citizens. The vast majority of them happen to not be white, by the way. Which blows my mind that the concept of wanting to enforce our immigration laws and not just open up the goddamn borders is seen as something "racist" against POC, when to me it's clearly the exact opposite.
I remember a time, not long ago at all in fact, when the concept that immigrants should only be in our country if they come here LEGALLY was a bipartisan ideal we all agreed on. Hell, even extreme Leftists like Nancy Pelosi used strong language against illegal immigration when Obama was President.
November 8, 2016, and the Trump Derangement Syndrome that subsequently followed, has turned the Left completely batshit crazy and shockingly stupid and illogical. |
They are children that the article is talking about. Do you get that? Children.
They are putting innocent children in detention centres, keeping them apart from their families. They must be terrified. And they have even had the temerity to quote the Bible to justify it. Sessions is quoting the Bible. Think about that for one minute.
He’s enforcing a policy of separating children from family and justifying it by quoting the Bible.
In 2018.
And Trump has the gall to call other countries shitholes?
The only Trump derangement syndrome is that displayed by you and the others like you that can’t see that your country is being run by a bunch of psychotic madmen with a sociopathic would be dictator at the top.
It’s you that is batshit crazy, shockingly stupid and illogical because you can’t see it. Well either that or you simply don’t give a shit. |  | | |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 02:01 - Jun 18 with 6090 views | Loyal |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 00:27 - Jun 18 by londonlisa2001 |
They are children that the article is talking about. Do you get that? Children.
They are putting innocent children in detention centres, keeping them apart from their families. They must be terrified. And they have even had the temerity to quote the Bible to justify it. Sessions is quoting the Bible. Think about that for one minute.
He’s enforcing a policy of separating children from family and justifying it by quoting the Bible.
In 2018.
And Trump has the gall to call other countries shitholes?
The only Trump derangement syndrome is that displayed by you and the others like you that can’t see that your country is being run by a bunch of psychotic madmen with a sociopathic would be dictator at the top.
It’s you that is batshit crazy, shockingly stupid and illogical because you can’t see it. Well either that or you simply don’t give a shit. |
Not a big fan of Trump then ... |  |
| Nolan sympathiser, clout expert, personal friend of Leigh Dineen, advocate and enforcer of porridge swallows.
The official inventor of the tit w@nk. | | Poll: | Who should be Swansea number 1 |
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| Happy Fathers Day: on 03:02 - Jun 18 with 6073 views | Highjack |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 02:01 - Jun 18 by Loyal |
Not a big fan of Trump then ... |
In the interest of fairness Shaky's latest copy and paste article does make it clear that Trump is against this policy:
"Among those who have professed objections to the policy is the president himself"
"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. "
It is a horrible situation though. I mean if they want a zero tolerance policy on illegal immigration (probably the right thing to do, because it's illegal) and someone brings a little kid with them, what do they do? To keep the child with the parents probably means sending the kid to an adult detention centre. That's not going to be nice either.
It seems like it's a lose/lose situation for all involved. | |
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| Happy Fathers Day: on 10:14 - Jun 18 with 6016 views | Shaky |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 23:40 - Jun 17 by Tummer_from_Texas |
Shaky, I deeply appreciate your oh-so-woke opinions about how my country should have open borders and allow these criminals (they are breaking the law by entering my country illegally) to live the American Dream (only, without having to pay those pesky federal income taxes like the rest of us, including poor citizens and legal migrants).
However, here's another thought: how about, instead, they come to my country and earn citizenship legally, like this guy:
Like this Latin American gentleman says, "if I can do, it every person who is a 'dreamer' and undocumented can do it, too."
Look, I have a great job and career, so illegal immigration doesn't hurt me at all. To be honest, eliminating it would mean that people like me would have to start paying fair wages to American citizens for housekeeping and to cut our lawns.
The people who are directly hurt by illegal immigrants who don't pay taxes and can undercut their wages are the poorest American citizens. The vast majority of them happen to not be white, by the way. Which blows my mind that the concept of wanting to enforce our immigration laws and not just open up the goddamn borders is seen as something "racist" against POC, when to me it's clearly the exact opposite.
I remember a time, not long ago at all in fact, when the concept that immigrants should only be in our country if they come here LEGALLY was a bipartisan ideal we all agreed on. Hell, even extreme Leftists like Nancy Pelosi used strong language against illegal immigration when Obama was President.
November 8, 2016, and the Trump Derangement Syndrome that subsequently followed, has turned the Left completely batshit crazy and shockingly stupid and illogical. |
Your country?
I'm sorry, Tummer, I didn't realise you were Apache. | |
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| Happy Fathers Day: on 10:15 - Jun 18 with 6013 views | Shaky |
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| Happy Fathers Day: on 10:31 - Jun 18 with 6003 views | Shaky |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 03:02 - Jun 18 by Highjack |
In the interest of fairness Shaky's latest copy and paste article does make it clear that Trump is against this policy:
"Among those who have professed objections to the policy is the president himself"
"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. "
It is a horrible situation though. I mean if they want a zero tolerance policy on illegal immigration (probably the right thing to do, because it's illegal) and someone brings a little kid with them, what do they do? To keep the child with the parents probably means sending the kid to an adult detention centre. That's not going to be nice either.
It seems like it's a lose/lose situation for all involved. |
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| Happy Fathers Day: on 10:49 - Jun 18 with 5947 views | omarjack |
Disgusting.
And for those who are defending this. Just wow.
We are not mugs. I know that illegal immigration should not be the norm. Saying that is not xenophobic or racist by any means. People in each country,whether they're citizens or not should be documented. And that's the right way to do it (Although,Immigration should be the right for all people,not only those who share the same skin colour or culture of the predominant population,but that's a different conversation)
But the ICE are targeting those helpless ones who came for a slightly better opportunity. Detaining them like animals,separating them from their families. Those who can't afford the hard immigration criteria that's imposed by the government.
Instead of targeting illegals who are committing crimes. They're showing off their strength on those who have no one to stand for them. The poor,the desperate and the ones with families to take care of.
It came to my memory what happened in May,when a U.S patrol officer fatally shot an undocumented 20 years old girl. How is that ok?
People who have entered illegally should have the right to fix their situation and "legalise" themselves,either with programs for that purpose,or by applying for a protection or refugee visas (even people from Latin America can apply for those in certain cases considering the horrifying level of crime in those countries)
Not just deport,deport and deport without any consideration or any human decency.
But I guess "normal" people are just very numb to others misery. How would you like to be from a 3rd world country battling crime,warlords or worse? you incosiderate pr!cks. [Post edited 18 Jun 2018 10:52]
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| Happy Fathers Day: on 12:48 - Jun 18 with 5941 views | Shaky |
"Enforcing the Law" Doesn't Justify Separating Migrant Children from their Parents
The main justification for the Trump administration policy of forcibly separating immigrant children from their families is that it is supposedly mandated by law. This claim is both false on its own terms, and an inadequate defense even if it were true.
Ilya Somin | Jun. 17, 2018 8:20 pm
The Trump administration recently adopted a "zero tolerance" policy under which undocumented immigrants apprehended by federal officials are forcibly separated from their children. In April and May alone, almost 2000 children were torn from their parents and detained separately, often under cruel conditions likely to cause trauma and inflict longterm developmental damage. Attorney General Jeff Sessions claims that separation of families is justified by the need to enforce the law, and even asserts that the administration's policy is supported by the Bible. I will leave the Biblical issues to theologians and cardinals, who have addressed them far better than I could. But Sessions' secular argument is no better than his religious one. There is no law requiring family separation at the border. And even if there was, that still would not be enough to justify the administration's cruel policy.
The federal law criminalizing "improper entry" by aliens does not require family separation. The law also provides for the use of civil penalties, as well as criminal ones. While it states that the application of civil penalties does not preclude application of criminal ones, it also does not compel federal prosecutors to pursue both. Until the administration's recent policy change, civil proceedings were in fact the usual approach in case of families with minor children, under both Democratic and Republican administrations. The use of civil proceedings generally does not require pretrial detention of any kind, and therefore obviates the need to detain either parents or children. And, in some cases, the administration has even forcibly separated children from migrants who have not violated any law, but instead have legally crossed the border to petition for asylum in the United States.
The Trump administration claims that their policy is required by the 1997 Flores court settlement. But that settlement in no way mandates family separation and detention of children away from their parents. To the contrary, it instructs federal officials to "place each detained minor in the least restrictive setting appropriate" and to release them to the custody of family or guardians "without unnecessary delay." The settlement also mandates that federal immigration officials must "treat, all minors in its custody with dignity, respect and special concern for their particular vulnerability as minors." Detaining children under harsh conditions, separated from their parents, is pretty obviously not "the least restrictive setting" possible, and it most definitely doesn't qualify as treating children with "dignity, respect and special concern for their particular vulnerability."
Even if the law did clearly direct criminal prosecution combined with automatic family separation in pretrial detention, it does not follow that the administration had a legal duty to adopt a "zero tolerance" policy that prioritizes prosecution of this particular type of offense. In a world where the vast majority of adult Americans have violated federal criminal law at some point in their lives, and there are so many laws and offenders that prosecutors can only target a small fraction of them, federal officials inevitably have vast discretion in determining which offenses to pursue and to what degree. First-time illegal entry into the United States is a mere misdemeanor carrying a penalty (up to 6 months imprisonment or a small fine) lower than the penalty for possession of small amounts of marijuana (1 year). The relative penalties suggest that federal law considers the latter a more serious offense than the former. Yet not even hard-core drug warriors like Sessions urge the federal government to adopt a "zero tolerance" policy under which we routinely prosecute all small-time marijuana users. In practice, the feds only target a tiny fraction of them. And when they do, they don't separate their children from them, and detain the children under harsh conditions.
The administration's zero tolerance policy, therefore, is not mandated by law. They could easily exercise the discretion to avoid prosecution and family separation, as previous administrations have, and as the Trump administration itself does in the case of nearly all small-time marijuana users. Prioritizing this offense over nearly all others is a policy policy choice, not a legal requirement. It's a choice the president made, and one he could reverse at any time.
If enforcing the law really were the main concern of Trump and Sessions, they could easily address the issue by supporting legislation banning family separation at the border, except in cases of child abuse or similar exigency. Congressional Democrats have in fact proposed such a law, the Keep Families Together Act. If Trump were to endorse it, the bill could easily attract enough GOP support to get through Congress quickly, as many Republicans also oppose family separation and worry that the administration's policy might hurt their in the midterm elections. But Trump refuses to do that, because he instead prefers to use the plight of separated children as leverage to extract concessions from Congress on other immigration issues. He literally wants to hold the children as political hostages in order to push through his agenda of drastically reducing legal immigration, as well as illegal.
In sum, no law requires the administration's policy, and it is highly unlikely that legal considerations are the true motives for it. But even if the law really did mandate the family separation policy, and legal reform were politically infeasible, that still would not be enough to justify family separation.
Not every law is just. Some, at least, are so unjust that there is no moral obligation to obey them. For example, there is widespread agreement that civil rights activists were justified in violating segregation laws, and abolitionists in violating the Fugitive Slave Acts. Violation of these laws was just because they inflicted grave harm on innocent people based on morally irrelevant characteristics: race and ancestry. Much the same is true of many of our immigration laws. Most of the undocumented migrants entering the United States with their minor children are fleeing violence, abuse, oppression, dire poverty, or other terrible conditions. The laws that bar their entry are largely based on immutable conditions similar to race: who their parents were, or where they were born. The US may not be responsible for the awful conditions these people are fleeing. But if we forcibly deport them back to places where they are likely to face oppression, privation, and often even death, we become complicit in the wrongs they suffer. As philosopher Michael Huemer explains, the situation the situation is akin to one where we use force to prevent starving people from buying food they need to survive.
Most Americans routinely violate laws far less oppressive than segregation laws. For example, the vast majority violate speeding laws, and some 52% admit to using marijuana at some point in their lives. The point is not just many Americans violate these types of laws, but that they believe (rightly) that they commit no wrong in doing so, long as the speeding or marijuana use did not endanger innocent third parties. The same reasoning applies to undocumented migrant families fleeing oppression, except that their illegal actions are motivated by far greater need, and pose much less risk to third parties than speeding does.
Jeff Sessions contends that migrants fleeing horrible conditions should "apply lawfully [and] wait your turn." This admonition might have some validity if they actually had a realistic chance of gaining legal entry in the near future. In reality, the wait time for most potential immigrants who do not have very close relatives in the US is likely to be decades or even centuries. If they apply for asylum, they face a system that refuses to grant it even for many who are victims of horrific violence and oppression, and features Kafkaesque rules such as classifying performing slave labor for guerrillas as providing "material support" to terrorists (thereby making the escaped slave ineligible for asylum). Moreover, Sessions and his political allies have for years resisted all efforts to make legal entry into the United States easier. They have themselves to blame for creating the conditions under which many undocumented immigrants have no plausible moral obligation to obey the law.
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.
Some try to justify the administration policy by pointing out that people convicted of crimes are often imprisoned in ways that keep them apart from their children. But, in such cases, the children are left in the custody of relatives or guardians chosen by the family, not housed in harsh detention facilities. In addition, it is extremely rare for first-time offenders charged with misdemeanors to be subjected to prolonged detention at all, or even to get prison sentences after conviction (as opposed to fines or probation). If the government started rounding up small-time marijuana users or violators of speeding laws, putting them into pretrial detention, and separating them from minor children who are then placed in confinement under cruel conditions, there would be an outcry. Few, if any, would seriously claim that the policy is justified because it strengthens enforcement of drug and traffic laws. Even most who believe that our marijuana laws and traffic laws are just would condemn such a cruel policy. The same logic applies to Trump's family separation policy at the border.
Ilya Somin is Professor of Law at George Mason University and the author of Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government Is Smarter and The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain.
https://reason.com/volokh/2018/06/17/enforcing-the-law-cannot-justify-forcibl | |
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| Happy Fathers Day: on 12:51 - Jun 18 with 5940 views | Shaky |
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| Happy Fathers Day: on 12:57 - Jun 18 with 5933 views | Shaky |
Even Fox & Friends look uncomfortable toeing the party line.
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| Happy Fathers Day: on 13:05 - Jun 18 with 5928 views | Lohengrin |
Shaky, do you spend all day, every day fretting over the domestic policies of a country an ocean and thousands of miles away of which you are not a citizen?
You poor wife! You must drive her up the wall...  |  |
| An idea isn't responsible for those who believe in it. |
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| Happy Fathers Day: on 13:13 - Jun 18 with 5920 views | Shaky |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 13:05 - Jun 18 by Lohengrin |
Shaky, do you spend all day, every day fretting over the domestic policies of a country an ocean and thousands of miles away of which you are not a citizen?
You poor wife! You must drive her up the wall... |
I see where you're coming from; ignorance is bliss. | |
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| Happy Fathers Day: on 13:18 - Jun 18 with 5918 views | Lohengrin |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 13:13 - Jun 18 by Shaky |
I see where you're coming from; ignorance is bliss. |
The dividing line between interest and obsession isn’t awfully difficult to draw, Shaky. | |
| An idea isn't responsible for those who believe in it. |
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| Happy Fathers Day: on 13:29 - Jun 18 with 5910 views | moonie |
So tummer puts forward his views and gets on the receiving end of Lisa on another moral attack.
He s got a country that has a three thousand mile border over which countless chancers try their luck in a country so despised on here . Can't quite figure that out me as USA can't be that bad .
Try putting over your point Lisa without endless insults. You re no better than anyone | | | |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 13:41 - Jun 18 with 5903 views | Highjack |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 13:05 - Jun 18 by Lohengrin |
Shaky, do you spend all day, every day fretting over the domestic policies of a country an ocean and thousands of miles away of which you are not a citizen?
You poor wife! You must drive her up the wall... |
I have heard some people say his keyboard is taken into schools so geography teachers can demonstrate the effects of erosion on his Ctrl, C and V keys. | |
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| Happy Fathers Day: on 13:42 - Jun 18 with 5902 views | Lohengrin |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 13:41 - Jun 18 by Highjack |
I have heard some people say his keyboard is taken into schools so geography teachers can demonstrate the effects of erosion on his Ctrl, C and V keys. |
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| An idea isn't responsible for those who believe in it. |
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| Happy Fathers Day: on 16:20 - Jun 18 with 5843 views | Shaky |
And here we have an allusion to the sordid truth; the policy of caging children is a tactic to try to get Democrats to sign up to legislation to pay for Trump's great white elephant wall, that he specifically promised his sucker supporters Mexico would pay for:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Trump DHS chief defends immigration policy
By Tal Kopan, CNN
CNN, Updated 1453 GMT (2253 HKT) June 18, 2018
Washington (CNN)Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen defended the Trump administration's highly scrutinized immigration policy Monday while at the same time called on Congress to change the law.
"We will not apologize for the job we do or for the job law enforcement does for doing the job that the American people expect us to do," she said, speaking in front of a friendly audience of the National Sheriffs' Association about the administration's policies resulting in family separations. "Illegal actions have and must have consequences. No more free passes, no more get out of jail free cards."
. . .President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has been squarely placing blame on his administration's policy on Democrats.
"It is the Democrats fault for being weak and ineffective with Boarder Security and Crime. Tell them to start thinking about the people devastated by Crime coming from illegal immigration. Change the laws!" he tweeted Monday.
Though she was not as explicit as the President in characterizing the policy as a negotiating tactic, Nielsen clearly linked the effort with the demands the administration has made on Congress, which include passing laws that even some Republicans don't support.
Full story: https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/18/politics/kirstjen-nielsen-immigration-policy/inde | |
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| Happy Fathers Day: on 16:39 - Jun 18 with 5836 views | LeonWasGod |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 16:20 - Jun 18 by Shaky |
And here we have an allusion to the sordid truth; the policy of caging children is a tactic to try to get Democrats to sign up to legislation to pay for Trump's great white elephant wall, that he specifically promised his sucker supporters Mexico would pay for:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Trump DHS chief defends immigration policy
By Tal Kopan, CNN
CNN, Updated 1453 GMT (2253 HKT) June 18, 2018
Washington (CNN)Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen defended the Trump administration's highly scrutinized immigration policy Monday while at the same time called on Congress to change the law.
"We will not apologize for the job we do or for the job law enforcement does for doing the job that the American people expect us to do," she said, speaking in front of a friendly audience of the National Sheriffs' Association about the administration's policies resulting in family separations. "Illegal actions have and must have consequences. No more free passes, no more get out of jail free cards."
. . .President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has been squarely placing blame on his administration's policy on Democrats.
"It is the Democrats fault for being weak and ineffective with Boarder Security and Crime. Tell them to start thinking about the people devastated by Crime coming from illegal immigration. Change the laws!" he tweeted Monday.
Though she was not as explicit as the President in characterizing the policy as a negotiating tactic, Nielsen clearly linked the effort with the demands the administration has made on Congress, which include passing laws that even some Republicans don't support.
Full story: https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/18/politics/kirstjen-nielsen-immigration-policy/inde |
Yep, it's appalling. |  | | |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 16:58 - Jun 18 with 5822 views | oh_tommy_tommy |
God bless the USA
THE Biggest f&cked up country in the West |  |
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| Happy Fathers Day: on 17:26 - Jun 18 with 5759 views | londonlisa2001 |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 13:29 - Jun 18 by moonie |
So tummer puts forward his views and gets on the receiving end of Lisa on another moral attack.
He s got a country that has a three thousand mile border over which countless chancers try their luck in a country so despised on here . Can't quite figure that out me as USA can't be that bad .
Try putting over your point Lisa without endless insults. You re no better than anyone |
“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. | | | |
| Happy Fathers Day: on 18:15 - Jun 18 with 5776 views | Highjack |
How do the good folks of planetswans think this situation should be solved? | |
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| Happy Fathers Day: on 18:19 - Jun 18 with 5772 views | 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 | | | |
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