Trump is holding children hostage

[Rockfish1]

From multiple sources, this is the basic story:

President Trump has calculated that he will gain political leverage in congressional negotiations by continuing to enforce a policy he claims to hate — separating immigrant parents from their young children at the southern border, according to White House officials.

On Friday, Trump suggested he would not change the policy unless Democrats agreed to his other immigration demands, which include funding a border wall, tightening the rules for border enforcement and curbing legal entry. He also is intent on pushing members of his party to vote for a compromise measure that would achieve those long-standing priorities.

Trump’s public acknowledgment that he was willing to let the policy continue as he pursued his political goals came as the president once again blamed Democrats for a policy enacted and touted by his own administration.

“The Democrats are forcing the breakup of families at the Border with their horrible and cruel legislative agenda,” he tweeted. After listing his demands in any immigration bill, he added, “Go for it! WIN!”

The attempt to gain advantage from a practice the American Academy of Pediatrics describes as causing children “irreparable harm” sets up a high-stakes gambit for Trump, whose political career has long benefited from harsh rhetoric on immigration.

. . . Besides increasing the odds of a broader immigration bill, senior Trump strategists believe that the child separation policy will deter the flow of migrant families across the border. Nearly 2,000 immigrant children were separated from parents in less than two weeks in late April, according to the Justice Department. The figure is the only one released by the goverment.

"The president has told folks that in lieu of the laws being fixed, he wants to use the enforcement mechanisms that we have,” a White House official said. “The thinking in the building is to force people to the table.”

. . . Some senior officials think Democrats will be pressured by the policy to cut an immigration deal.

“If they aren’t going to cooperate, we are going to look to utilize the laws as hard as we can,” said a second White House official.

Others have argued that the main benefit of the policy is deterrence. Miller has said internally that the child separations will bring the numbers down at the border, a goal that Trump wants to achieve.
​

Trump has begun separating children from their parents because he thinks the very inhumanity of it will drive Democrats to fund his Game of Thrones wall. That's the decision-making of a sociopath. (Here is what Trump's distraught child hostages sound like, sobbing and begging for their parents.) But only two-thirds of us oppose this barbarism; over half of Republicans say they support it.

I'd have thought it'd be easy to get bipartisan agreement that it's reprehensible to hold children hostage to get your way in negotiations. And maybe it still could be. But no principled person could negotiate with a man who's literally holding children hostage. The people who are on that person's team need to tell him that he has to release the child hostages before anyone can be seen talking to him. This is the sort of thing they'd do if they didn't want to be associated with a sociopath, anyway.

​

 

[iu_a_att]

From multiple sources, this is the basic story:

President Trump has calculated that he will gain political leverage in congressional negotiations by continuing to enforce a policy he claims to hate — separating immigrant parents from their young children at the southern border, according to White House officials.

On Friday, Trump suggested he would not change the policy unless Democrats agreed to his other immigration demands, which include funding a border wall, tightening the rules for border enforcement and curbing legal entry. He also is intent on pushing members of his party to vote for a compromise measure that would achieve those long-standing priorities.

Trump’s public acknowledgment that he was willing to let the policy continue as he pursued his political goals came as the president once again blamed Democrats for a policy enacted and touted by his own administration.

“The Democrats are forcing the breakup of families at the Border with their horrible and cruel legislative agenda,” he tweeted. After listing his demands in any immigration bill, he added, “Go for it! WIN!”

The attempt to gain advantage from a practice the American Academy of Pediatrics describes as causing children “irreparable harm” sets up a high-stakes gambit for Trump, whose political career has long benefited from harsh rhetoric on immigration.

. . . Besides increasing the odds of a broader immigration bill, senior Trump strategists believe that the child separation policy will deter the flow of migrant families across the border. Nearly 2,000 immigrant children were separated from parents in less than two weeks in late April, according to the Justice Department. The figure is the only one released by the goverment.

"The president has told folks that in lieu of the laws being fixed, he wants to use the enforcement mechanisms that we have,” a White House official said. “The thinking in the building is to force people to the table.”

. . . Some senior officials think Democrats will be pressured by the policy to cut an immigration deal.

“If they aren’t going to cooperate, we are going to look to utilize the laws as hard as we can,” said a second White House official.

Others have argued that the main benefit of the policy is deterrence. Miller has said internally that the child separations will bring the numbers down at the border, a goal that Trump wants to achieve.
​

Trump has begun separating children from their parents because he thinks the very inhumanity of it will drive Democrats to fund his Game of Thrones wall. That's the decision-making of a sociopath. (Here is what Trump's distraught child hostages sound like, sobbing and begging for their parents.) But only two-thirds of us oppose this barbarism; over half of Republicans say they support it.

I'd have thought it'd be easy to get bipartisan agreement that it's reprehensible to hold children hostage to get your way in negotiations. And maybe it still could be. But no principled person could negotiate with a man who's literally holding children hostage. The people who are on that person's team need to tell him that he has to release the child hostages before anyone can be seen talking to him. This is the sort of thing they'd do if they didn't want to be associated with a sociopath, anyway.

​

You remember that we had this discussion previously about the way the Repubs were holding the DACA kids hostage...many of the Repubs here were cool with it...thought it was good strategy.

 

[TheOriginalHappyGoat]

I'd have thought it'd be easy to get bipartisan agreement that it's reprehensible to hold children hostage to get your way in negotiations.

It sounds like there is actual bipartisan agreement that it's reprehensible. The problem is that there doesn't appear to be much bipartisan agreement to actually, you know, do anything about it. Congressional Republicans continue to demonstrate that they've decided to abdicate all legislative responsibility in exchange for Trump sycophancy.

 

[toastedbread]

From multiple sources, this is the basic story:

President Trump has calculated that he will gain political leverage in congressional negotiations by continuing to enforce a policy he claims to hate — separating immigrant parents from their young children at the southern border, according to White House officials.

On Friday, Trump suggested he would not change the policy unless Democrats agreed to his other immigration demands, which include funding a border wall, tightening the rules for border enforcement and curbing legal entry. He also is intent on pushing members of his party to vote for a compromise measure that would achieve those long-standing priorities.

Trump’s public acknowledgment that he was willing to let the policy continue as he pursued his political goals came as the president once again blamed Democrats for a policy enacted and touted by his own administration.

“The Democrats are forcing the breakup of families at the Border with their horrible and cruel legislative agenda,” he tweeted. After listing his demands in any immigration bill, he added, “Go for it! WIN!”

The attempt to gain advantage from a practice the American Academy of Pediatrics describes as causing children “irreparable harm” sets up a high-stakes gambit for Trump, whose political career has long benefited from harsh rhetoric on immigration.

. . . Besides increasing the odds of a broader immigration bill, senior Trump strategists believe that the child separation policy will deter the flow of migrant families across the border. Nearly 2,000 immigrant children were separated from parents in less than two weeks in late April, according to the Justice Department. The figure is the only one released by the goverment.

"The president has told folks that in lieu of the laws being fixed, he wants to use the enforcement mechanisms that we have,” a White House official said. “The thinking in the building is to force people to the table.”

. . . Some senior officials think Democrats will be pressured by the policy to cut an immigration deal.

“If they aren’t going to cooperate, we are going to look to utilize the laws as hard as we can,” said a second White House official.

Others have argued that the main benefit of the policy is deterrence. Miller has said internally that the child separations will bring the numbers down at the border, a goal that Trump wants to achieve.
​

Trump has begun separating children from their parents because he thinks the very inhumanity of it will drive Democrats to fund his Game of Thrones wall. That's the decision-making of a sociopath. (Here is what Trump's distraught child hostages sound like, sobbing and begging for their parents.) But only two-thirds of us oppose this barbarism; over half of Republicans say they support it.

I'd have thought it'd be easy to get bipartisan agreement that it's reprehensible to hold children hostage to get your way in negotiations. And maybe it still could be. But no principled person could negotiate with a man who's literally holding children hostage. The people who are on that person's team need to tell him that he has to release the child hostages before anyone can be seen talking to him. This is the sort of thing they'd do if they didn't want to be associated with a sociopath, anyway.

​

This is no worse than the travel ban, which affects children of American citizens who have fled war zones and in some cases, children who need dire medical attention. There are Amercian relatives who fled Yemen and are spending every last penny in Djibouti.

It's rather striking, how the response of the Democratic party is much less vociferous in the travel ban case.

As the ongoing tragedy in Yemen shows, Americans as a whole practice NIMBY to a phenonmenal degree. The activity on the border is no worse than the ongoing American approved tragedy in Hodeidah. The silence is palpable.

Liberal relatives of mine, active Democrats, friends on Facebook all post about the border tragedy. And yet, in the case of more serious tragedies, complete crickets. Americans care about their appearances and the kids on the border are the flashy event to be angry about. Push come to shove, they don't care about a bunch of brown others in another part of the world. (and one that doesn't have a large voting block behind it)

 

[sglowrider]

So Mexican mothers are actually paying for it.

Campaign promise met! (sort of)

 

[sglowrider]

I know someone in CO who won't be voting for this Gov.

 

[sglowrider]

 

[SuperHoosierFan]

View embedded media

So Mexican mothers are actually paying for it.

Campaign promise met! (sort of)

I thought Mexico was paying for the wall. What the hell does he need congress for?

 

[VanPastorMan]

From multiple sources, this is the basic story:

President Trump has calculated that he will gain political leverage in congressional negotiations by continuing to enforce a policy he claims to hate — separating immigrant parents from their young children at the southern border, according to White House officials.

On Friday, Trump suggested he would not change the policy unless Democrats agreed to his other immigration demands, which include funding a border wall, tightening the rules for border enforcement and curbing legal entry. He also is intent on pushing members of his party to vote for a compromise measure that would achieve those long-standing priorities.

Trump’s public acknowledgment that he was willing to let the policy continue as he pursued his political goals came as the president once again blamed Democrats for a policy enacted and touted by his own administration.

“The Democrats are forcing the breakup of families at the Border with their horrible and cruel legislative agenda,” he tweeted. After listing his demands in any immigration bill, he added, “Go for it! WIN!”

The attempt to gain advantage from a practice the American Academy of Pediatrics describes as causing children “irreparable harm” sets up a high-stakes gambit for Trump, whose political career has long benefited from harsh rhetoric on immigration.

. . . Besides increasing the odds of a broader immigration bill, senior Trump strategists believe that the child separation policy will deter the flow of migrant families across the border. Nearly 2,000 immigrant children were separated from parents in less than two weeks in late April, according to the Justice Department. The figure is the only one released by the goverment.

"The president has told folks that in lieu of the laws being fixed, he wants to use the enforcement mechanisms that we have,” a White House official said. “The thinking in the building is to force people to the table.”

. . . Some senior officials think Democrats will be pressured by the policy to cut an immigration deal.

“If they aren’t going to cooperate, we are going to look to utilize the laws as hard as we can,” said a second White House official.

Others have argued that the main benefit of the policy is deterrence. Miller has said internally that the child separations will bring the numbers down at the border, a goal that Trump wants to achieve.
​

Trump has begun separating children from their parents because he thinks the very inhumanity of it will drive Democrats to fund his Game of Thrones wall. That's the decision-making of a sociopath. (Here is what Trump's distraught child hostages sound like, sobbing and begging for their parents.) But only two-thirds of us oppose this barbarism; over half of Republicans say they support it.

I'd have thought it'd be easy to get bipartisan agreement that it's reprehensible to hold children hostage to get your way in negotiations. And maybe it still could be. But no principled person could negotiate with a man who's literally holding children hostage. The people who are on that person's team need to tell him that he has to release the child hostages before anyone can be seen talking to him. This is the sort of thing they'd do if they didn't want to be associated with a sociopath, anyway.

​

The President said he is open to changing the law. Are you aware that Obama separated kids also? I believe this law goes back to 97 or 98. The problem is the law not the President who is abiding by it.

 

[CO. Hoosier]

But no principled person could negotiate with a man who's literally holding children hostage. The people who are on that person's team need to tell him that he has to release the child hostages before anyone can be seen talking to him.

The kids can only be detained 20 days.

 

[sglowrider]

Listen to Children Who’ve Just Been Separated From Their Parents at the Border
ProPublica has obtained audio from inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility, in which children can be heard wailing as an agent jokes, “We have an orchestra here.”
https://www.propublica.org/article/...ts-border-patrol-cbp-trump-immigration-policy

 

[Marvin the Martian]

The kids can only be detained 20 days.

So how does locking the kids in an old Wal-Mart get around the 20 day rule? I keep hearing that explanation, but what creates the Wal-Mart out?

 

[meridian]

The kids can only be detained 20 days.

Only 20 days?
That's a relief!

 

[CO. Hoosier]

View embedded media

I know someone in CO who won't be voting for this Gov.

That EO is a fashion statement. State agencies don't do the hands-on child welfare enforcement. That's done at the local level. Moreover, I don't think the EO does anything important at the local level. In my opinion, immigration status by itself will not meet the statutory grounds for taking kids away from a parent.

FWIW. I voted for Hick twice. He's good. I wish he would have been the Democratic nominee for POTUS. Nobody besides Hillary had a chance.

 

[TheOriginalHappyGoat]

The President said he is open to changing the law. Are you aware that Obama separated kids also? I believe this law goes back to 97 or 98. The problem is the law not the President who is abiding by it.

Incorrect. Law enforcement has always had the discretion to deal with illegal entries through the immigration courts, instead of making use of criminal referrals. No law need change to shift the exercise of this discretion one way or the other. The Trump administration has made a decision to shift all the way in one direction, which results in this sudden increase of family separation.

Whether you agree with the policy or not, this is a policy of the administration, period. Place the blame where it belongs: in the Oval Office.

 

[sglowrider]

Only 20 days?
That's a relief!

According to the ProPublica reporter said, the adults are fast-tracked out of the country whilst the kids are processed at a separate facility. As a result, the parent/s leave the country without their kids.

 

[CO. Hoosier]

Only 20 days?
That's a relief!

They don't have to be detained hardly at all if the parents would agree to voluntarily go home. But no. They file asylum applications which take years to litigate because the immigration advocates have overwhelmed the system with specious claims while those with legit claims get screwed by the delay.

 

[anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa]

The President said he is open to changing the law. Are you aware that Obama separated kids also? I believe this law goes back to 97 or 98. The problem is the law not the President who is abiding by it.

Oh my simple-thinking friend. If it’s been the law since 1997, why is he the only one that’s enforced this specific implementation of it? Is it because he’s a hero? Or is it because Romans informs his policy?

 

[CO. Hoosier]

Incorrect. Law enforcement has always had the discretion to deal with illegal entries through the immigration courts, instead of making use of criminal referrals. No law need change to shift the exercise of this discretion one way or the other. The Trump administration has made a decision to shift all the way in one direction, which results in this sudden increase of family separation.

Whether you agree with the policy or not, this is a policy of the administration, period. Place the blame where it belongs: in the Oval Office.

The problem with the civil process is the immigrants split and never show up for their hearings. Immigrants aren't dumb. They know how to game our system. They get a lot of help gaming our system.

 

[sglowrider]

They don't have to be detained hardly at all of the parents would agree to voluntarily go home. But no. They file asylum applications which take years to litigate because the immigration advocates have overwhelmed the system with specious claims while those with legit claims get screwed by the delay.

Only you will try and rationalise this disgusting Trumpian policy. I expect better of you COH.

 

[CO. Hoosier]

Only you will try and rationalise this disgust Trumpian policy. I expect better of you COH.

I expect better than an empty-headed platitude.

 

[TheOriginalHappyGoat]

The problem with the civil process is the immigrants split and never show up for their hearings. Immigrants aren't dumb. They know how to game our system. They get a lot of help gaming our system.

Irrelevant to VPM's incorrect assertions about the law.

 

[sglowrider]

I expect better than an empty-headed platitude.

Did you have an artificial heart transplant too?

 

[T.M.P.]

The President said he is open to changing the law. Are you aware that Obama separated kids also? I believe this law goes back to 97 or 98. The problem is the law not the President who is abiding by it.

Read something ....

 

[Morrison]

From multiple sources, this is the basic story:

President Trump has calculated that he will gain political leverage in congressional negotiations by continuing to enforce a policy he claims to hate — separating immigrant parents from their young children at the southern border, according to White House officials.

On Friday, Trump suggested he would not change the policy unless Democrats agreed to his other immigration demands, which include funding a border wall, tightening the rules for border enforcement and curbing legal entry. He also is intent on pushing members of his party to vote for a compromise measure that would achieve those long-standing priorities.

Trump’s public acknowledgment that he was willing to let the policy continue as he pursued his political goals came as the president once again blamed Democrats for a policy enacted and touted by his own administration.

“The Democrats are forcing the breakup of families at the Border with their horrible and cruel legislative agenda,” he tweeted. After listing his demands in any immigration bill, he added, “Go for it! WIN!”

The attempt to gain advantage from a practice the American Academy of Pediatrics describes as causing children “irreparable harm” sets up a high-stakes gambit for Trump, whose political career has long benefited from harsh rhetoric on immigration.

. . . Besides increasing the odds of a broader immigration bill, senior Trump strategists believe that the child separation policy will deter the flow of migrant families across the border. Nearly 2,000 immigrant children were separated from parents in less than two weeks in late April, according to the Justice Department. The figure is the only one released by the goverment.

"The president has told folks that in lieu of the laws being fixed, he wants to use the enforcement mechanisms that we have,” a White House official said. “The thinking in the building is to force people to the table.”

. . . Some senior officials think Democrats will be pressured by the policy to cut an immigration deal.

“If they aren’t going to cooperate, we are going to look to utilize the laws as hard as we can,” said a second White House official.

Others have argued that the main benefit of the policy is deterrence. Miller has said internally that the child separations will bring the numbers down at the border, a goal that Trump wants to achieve.
​

Trump has begun separating children from their parents because he thinks the very inhumanity of it will drive Democrats to fund his Game of Thrones wall. That's the decision-making of a sociopath. (Here is what Trump's distraught child hostages sound like, sobbing and begging for their parents.) But only two-thirds of us oppose this barbarism; over half of Republicans say they support it.

I'd have thought it'd be easy to get bipartisan agreement that it's reprehensible to hold children hostage to get your way in negotiations. And maybe it still could be. But no principled person could negotiate with a man who's literally holding children hostage. The people who are on that person's team need to tell him that he has to release the child hostages before anyone can be seen talking to him. This is the sort of thing they'd do if they didn't want to be associated with a sociopath, anyway.

​

I remember Reagan saying he refuses to negotiate with terrorists. Is that a position the Democrats should take in this instance, regarding the POTUS?

 

[meridian]

Whether you agree with the policy or not, this is a policy of the administration, period. Place the blame where it belongs: in the Oval Office.

What makes you think Pastor Van blames Pres. Trump? Most likely, he is singing Halleluja now.

 

[Lucy01]

What makes you think Pastor Van blames Pres. Trump? Most likely, he is singing Halleluja now.

Why blame Trump? Chicago has a lot of starving children living in deplorable conditions, But that’s OK because they are American citizens and liberals hate America!

 

[Rockfish1]

You remember that we had this discussion previously about the way the Repubs were holding the DACA kids hostage...many of the Repubs here were cool with it...thought it was good strategy.

There's a dark empty space where their humanity is supposed to be.

 

[Rockfish1]

I expect better of you COH.

I can't imagine why.

 

[Lucy01]

Where’s the Asian Goat this morning?

 

[37Hoosier]

The President said he is open to changing the law. Are you aware that Obama separated kids also? I believe this law goes back to 97 or 98. The problem is the law not the President who is abiding by it.

Ahh, the ultimate family man and man of god deflecting again....it's ok, just a law, besides it is the bible to obey according to that Sessions who is mired in the 50's. Another day in Phony Land for VPM.

 

[Rockfish1]

It sounds like there is actual bipartisan agreement that it's reprehensible. The problem is that there doesn't appear to be much bipartisan agreement to actually, you know, do anything about it. Congressional Republicans continue to demonstrate that they've decided to abdicate all legislative responsibility in exchange for Trump sycophancy.

The polls I've seen report that most Republicans support Trump on this. Indeed, the reports I've seen say that Trump has launched this program of racist cruelty precisely because he believes it will rally his base:

Republicans typically handle immigration gingerly in an election year, as they try to appeal to Hispanic voters, independents and moderates across divergent districts. But with more Americans still opposing the tax measure than supporting it, Mr. Trump’s allies believe that trying to link Democrats to crimes committed by undocumented immigrants and gangs like MS-13 will do more to galvanize Republican voters and get them to the polls in November than emphasizing economic issues.

“People don’t turn out to say thank you,” said Corey Lewandowski, one of the president’s top political advisers. “If you want to get people motivated, you’ve got to give them a reason to vote. Saying ‘build the wall and stop illegals from coming in and killing American citizens’ gives them an important issue.”

This fear-oriented approach reflects the degree that Mr. Trump has put his anti-immigration imprint on the Republican Party. The same raw appeals Mr. Trump made in 2016 about immigrants illegally crossing the border have not abated among most of his Republican supporters.

And his supporters say the party has little choice in an election where Democrats are eager to register their opposition to a president they despise — and that the only way to succeed in a campaign driven by turning out the party base is to focus on what grass-roots conservatives care most about.
​

Maybe Trump has his base all wrong, and they won't rally to a sociopath holding children hostage. But that doesn't look like a good bet right now.

 

[Ladoga]

The facts of the current immigration situation. Article from May 28 by Rich Lowery of National Review.
Good explanation, but Demedia wants noise to cover the IG report so they scream without reporting the fact. Well, here you go.

QUOTE
May 28, 2018 10:37 PM

·
Some economic migrants are using children as chits, but the problem is fixable — if Congress acts.

The latest furor over Trump immigration policy involves the separation of children from parents at the border.

As usual, the outrage obscures more than it illuminates, so it’s worth walking through what’s happening here.

For the longest time, illegal immigration was driven by single males from Mexico. Over the last decade, the flow has shifted to women, children, and family units from Central America. This poses challenges we haven’t confronted before and has made what once were relatively minor wrinkles in the law loom very large.

The Trump administration isn’t changing the rules that pertain to separating an adult from the child. Those remain the same. Separation happens only if officials find that the adult is falsely claiming to be the child’s parent, or is a threat to the child, or is put into criminal proceedings.

It’s the last that is operative here. The past practice had been to give a free pass to an adult who is part of a family unit. The new Trump policy is to prosecute all adults. The idea is to send a signal that we are serious about our laws and to create a deterrent against re-entry. (Illegal entry is a misdemeanor, illegal re-entry a felony.)

When a migrant is prosecuted for illegal entry, he or she is taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals. In no circumstance anywhere in the U.S. do the marshals care for the children of people they take into custody. The child is taken into the custody of HHS, who cares for them at temporary shelters.

The criminal proceedings are exceptionally short, assuming there is no aggravating factor such as a prior illegal entity or another crime. The migrants generally plead guilty, and they are then sentenced to time served, typically all in the same day, although practices vary along the border. After this, they are returned to the custody of ICE.

If the adult then wants to go home, in keeping with the expedited order of removal that is issued as a matter of course, it’s relatively simple. The adult should be reunited quickly with his or her child, and the family returned home as a unit. In this scenario, there’s only a very brief separation.

Where it becomes much more of an issue is if the adult files an asylum claim. In that scenario, the adults are almost certainly going to be detained longer than the government is allowed to hold their children.

That’s because of something called the Flores Consent Decree from 1997. It says that unaccompanied children can be held only 20 days. A ruling by the Ninth Circuit extended this 20-day limit to children who come as part of family units. So even if we want to hold a family unit together, we are forbidden from doing so.

The clock ticking on the time the government can hold a child will almost always run out before an asylum claim is settled. The migrant is allowed ten days to seek an attorney, and there may be continuances or other complications.

This creates the choice of either releasing the adults and children together into the country pending the ajudication of the asylum claim, or holding the adults and releasing the children. If the adult is held, HHS places the child with a responsible party in the U.S., ideally a relative (migrants are likely to have family and friends here).

Even if Flores didn’t exist, the government would be very constrained in how many family units it can accommodate. ICE has only about 3,000 family spaces in shelters. It is also limited in its overall space at the border, which is overwhelmed by the ongoing influx. This means that — whatever the Trump administration would prefer to do — many adults are still swiftly released.

Why try to hold adults at all? First of all, if an asylum-seeker is detained, it means that the claim goes through the process much more quickly, a couple of months or less rather than years. Second, if an adult is released while the claim is pending, the chances of ever finding that person again once he or she is in the country are dicey, to say the least. It is tantamount to allowing the migrant to live here, no matter what the merits of the case.

A few points about all this:

1) Family units can go home quickly. The option that both honors our laws and keeps family units together is a swift return home after prosecution. But immigrant advocates hate it because they want the migrants to stay in the United States. How you view this question will depend a lot on how you view the motivation of the migrants (and how seriously you take our laws and our border).

2) There’s a better way to claim asylum. Every indication is that the migrant flow to the United States is discretionary. It nearly dried up at the beginning of the Trump administration when migrants believed that they had no chance of getting into the United States. Now, it is going in earnest again because the message got out that, despite the rhetoric, the policy at the border hasn’t changed. This strongly suggests that the flow overwhelmingly consists of economic migrants who would prefer to live in the United States, rather than victims of persecution in their home country who have no option but to get out.

Even if a migrant does have a credible fear of persecution, there is a legitimate way to pursue that claim, and it does not involve entering the United States illegally. First, such people should make their asylum claim in the first country where they feel safe, i.e., Mexico or some other country they are traversing to get here. Second, if for some reason they are threatened everywhere but the United States, they should show up at a port of entry and make their claim there rather than crossing the border illegally.

3) There is a significant moral cost to not enforcing the border. There is obviously a moral cost to separating a parent from a child and almost everyone would prefer not to do it. But, under current policy and with the current resources, the only practical alternative is letting family units who show up at the border live in the country for the duration. Not only does this make a mockery of our laws, it creates an incentive for people to keep bringing children with them.

Needless to say, children should not be making this journey that is fraught with peril. But there is now a premium on bringing children because of how we have handled these cases. They are considered chits.

In April, the New York Times reported:

Some migrants have admitted they brought their children not only to remove them from danger in such places as Central America and Africa, but because they believed it would cause the authorities to release them from custody sooner.

Others have admitted to posing falsely with children who are not their own, and Border Patrol officials say that such instances of fraud are increasing.

According to azcentral.com, it is “common to have parents entrust their children to a smuggler as a favor or for profit.”

If someone is determined to come here illegally, the decent and safest thing would be to leave the child at home with a relative and send money back home. Because we favor family units over single adults, we are creating an incentive to do the opposite and use children to cut deals with smugglers.

4) Congress can fix this. Congress can change the rules so the Flores consent decree will no longer apply, and it can appropriate more money for family shelters at the border. This is an obvious thing to do that would eliminate the tension between enforcing our laws and keeping family units together. The Trump administration is throwing as many resources as it can at the border to expedite the process, and it desperately wants the Flores consent decree reversed. Despite some mixed messages, if the administration had its druthers, family units would be kept together and their cases settled quickly.

The missing piece here is Congress, but little outrage will be directed at it, and probably nothing will be done. And so our perverse system will remain in place and the crisis at the border will rumble on.
END QUOTE

 

[sglowrider]

Tucker's show has got to be a mockumentary!

 

[Bill4411]

Tucker's show has got to be a mockumentary!

View embedded media

Surely he is just making fun of his listeners.

 

[sglowrider]

Surely he is just making fun of his listeners.

I know. Not sure how he does that show with a straight face.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

The facts of the current immigration situation. Article from May 28 by Rich Lowery of National Review.
Good explanation, but Demedia wants noise to cover the IG report so they scream without reporting the fact. Well, here you go.

QUOTE
May 28, 2018 10:37 PM

·
Some economic migrants are using children as chits, but the problem is fixable — if Congress acts.

The latest furor over Trump immigration policy involves the separation of children from parents at the border.

As usual, the outrage obscures more than it illuminates, so it’s worth walking through what’s happening here.

For the longest time, illegal immigration was driven by single males from Mexico. Over the last decade, the flow has shifted to women, children, and family units from Central America. This poses challenges we haven’t confronted before and has made what once were relatively minor wrinkles in the law loom very large.

The Trump administration isn’t changing the rules that pertain to separating an adult from the child. Those remain the same. Separation happens only if officials find that the adult is falsely claiming to be the child’s parent, or is a threat to the child, or is put into criminal proceedings.

It’s the last that is operative here. The past practice had been to give a free pass to an adult who is part of a family unit. The new Trump policy is to prosecute all adults. The idea is to send a signal that we are serious about our laws and to create a deterrent against re-entry. (Illegal entry is a misdemeanor, illegal re-entry a felony.)

When a migrant is prosecuted for illegal entry, he or she is taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals. In no circumstance anywhere in the U.S. do the marshals care for the children of people they take into custody. The child is taken into the custody of HHS, who cares for them at temporary shelters.

The criminal proceedings are exceptionally short, assuming there is no aggravating factor such as a prior illegal entity or another crime. The migrants generally plead guilty, and they are then sentenced to time served, typically all in the same day, although practices vary along the border. After this, they are returned to the custody of ICE.

If the adult then wants to go home, in keeping with the expedited order of removal that is issued as a matter of course, it’s relatively simple. The adult should be reunited quickly with his or her child, and the family returned home as a unit. In this scenario, there’s only a very brief separation.

Where it becomes much more of an issue is if the adult files an asylum claim. In that scenario, the adults are almost certainly going to be detained longer than the government is allowed to hold their children.

That’s because of something called the Flores Consent Decree from 1997. It says that unaccompanied children can be held only 20 days. A ruling by the Ninth Circuit extended this 20-day limit to children who come as part of family units. So even if we want to hold a family unit together, we are forbidden from doing so.

The clock ticking on the time the government can hold a child will almost always run out before an asylum claim is settled. The migrant is allowed ten days to seek an attorney, and there may be continuances or other complications.

This creates the choice of either releasing the adults and children together into the country pending the ajudication of the asylum claim, or holding the adults and releasing the children. If the adult is held, HHS places the child with a responsible party in the U.S., ideally a relative (migrants are likely to have family and friends here).

Even if Flores didn’t exist, the government would be very constrained in how many family units it can accommodate. ICE has only about 3,000 family spaces in shelters. It is also limited in its overall space at the border, which is overwhelmed by the ongoing influx. This means that — whatever the Trump administration would prefer to do — many adults are still swiftly released.

Why try to hold adults at all? First of all, if an asylum-seeker is detained, it means that the claim goes through the process much more quickly, a couple of months or less rather than years. Second, if an adult is released while the claim is pending, the chances of ever finding that person again once he or she is in the country are dicey, to say the least. It is tantamount to allowing the migrant to live here, no matter what the merits of the case.

A few points about all this:

1) Family units can go home quickly. The option that both honors our laws and keeps family units together is a swift return home after prosecution. But immigrant advocates hate it because they want the migrants to stay in the United States. How you view this question will depend a lot on how you view the motivation of the migrants (and how seriously you take our laws and our border).

2) There’s a better way to claim asylum. Every indication is that the migrant flow to the United States is discretionary. It nearly dried up at the beginning of the Trump administration when migrants believed that they had no chance of getting into the United States. Now, it is going in earnest again because the message got out that, despite the rhetoric, the policy at the border hasn’t changed. This strongly suggests that the flow overwhelmingly consists of economic migrants who would prefer to live in the United States, rather than victims of persecution in their home country who have no option but to get out.

Even if a migrant does have a credible fear of persecution, there is a legitimate way to pursue that claim, and it does not involve entering the United States illegally. First, such people should make their asylum claim in the first country where they feel safe, i.e., Mexico or some other country they are traversing to get here. Second, if for some reason they are threatened everywhere but the United States, they should show up at a port of entry and make their claim there rather than crossing the border illegally.

3) There is a significant moral cost to not enforcing the border. There is obviously a moral cost to separating a parent from a child and almost everyone would prefer not to do it. But, under current policy and with the current resources, the only practical alternative is letting family units who show up at the border live in the country for the duration. Not only does this make a mockery of our laws, it creates an incentive for people to keep bringing children with them.

Needless to say, children should not be making this journey that is fraught with peril. But there is now a premium on bringing children because of how we have handled these cases. They are considered chits.

In April, the New York Times reported:

Some migrants have admitted they brought their children not only to remove them from danger in such places as Central America and Africa, but because they believed it would cause the authorities to release them from custody sooner.

Others have admitted to posing falsely with children who are not their own, and Border Patrol officials say that such instances of fraud are increasing.

According to azcentral.com, it is “common to have parents entrust their children to a smuggler as a favor or for profit.”

If someone is determined to come here illegally, the decent and safest thing would be to leave the child at home with a relative and send money back home. Because we favor family units over single adults, we are creating an incentive to do the opposite and use children to cut deals with smugglers.

4) Congress can fix this. Congress can change the rules so the Flores consent decree will no longer apply, and it can appropriate more money for family shelters at the border. This is an obvious thing to do that would eliminate the tension between enforcing our laws and keeping family units together. The Trump administration is throwing as many resources as it can at the border to expedite the process, and it desperately wants the Flores consent decree reversed. Despite some mixed messages, if the administration had its druthers, family units would be kept together and their cases settled quickly.

The missing piece here is Congress, but little outrage will be directed at it, and probably nothing will be done. And so our perverse system will remain in place and the crisis at the border will rumble on.
END QUOTE

The article does not mention the answer, maybe you know. The article does not mention the WalMart where 1500 kids are being housed. If kids can only be held for 20 days, what happens to them after 20 days at the WalMart? Couldn't they stay with their family those 20 days? How does this WalMart improve on the 20 day situation?

 

[Bruce1]

The President said he is open to changing the law. Are you aware that Obama separated kids also? I believe this law goes back to 97 or 98. The problem is the law not the President who is abiding by it.

Van, as, I posted earlier, these posts only demonstrate that this board is about feeding each other’s hate. Of course Obama did it too. In fact, by deporting parents of DACA kid’s parents he was potentially separating them for a long time. But that is different, of course. It has also been explained that the policy of separating children in criminal proceeding applies to citizens too...but of course that doesn’t fit the agenda and isn’t included in any discussions.

Finally, the conditions showing people living in clean, air conditioned facilities with fences are referred to as locked up in cages. These places are clean,the people are fed, etc. it is a lot better than this.
http://www.blessthechildreninc.org/index.cfm?page=EducationFactsHonduras

I don’t like the situation either but it is important to put it in perspective. Remember, these people have made an unbelievable trip to get here because of the violence and extreme poverty. These conditions are temporary. Maybe some people on this board have a better idea......

 

[CO. Hoosier]

The article does not mention the answer, maybe you know. The article does not mention the WalMart where 1500 kids are being housed. If kids can only be held for 20 days, what happens to them after 20 days at the WalMart? Couldn't they stay with their family those 20 days? How does this WalMart improve on the 20 day situation?

After 20 days, the kids are placed in a non-institutional arrangement. That might be a relative, foster care, or other group residential situation. It's a tough problem cuz the feds don't have those kinds of alternatives and the state and local system is overwhelmed with kids who are already here and who usually have been in trouble.

 

[Ladoga]

The article does not mention the answer, maybe you know. The article does not mention the WalMart where 1500 kids are being housed. If kids can only be held for 20 days, what happens to them after 20 days at the WalMart? Couldn't they stay with their family those 20 days? How does this WalMart improve on the 20 day situation?

There's yer trouble. If the detention of an adult family member (not the 10/12 falsely claiming to be family members) exceeds 20 days the kids cannot be put out into the street.

Lowery directly explains the situation. When a child arrives at or within our borders in company of an adult, 10,000 out of 12,000 currently came with a person who is NOT their parent - sent here alone. They are removed from the custody of the adult non-parent and HHS takes their custody in their temporary facilities. Some adults are deemed a threat to the children and the children are removed from their custody. Some adults have pending felony charges including an attempt to re-entry AFTER having been removed or denied entry and are detained pending the resolution of a felony charge and the children - not being sent to jail with the felon go to HHS. Often the pending criminal charge - especially if it is an immigration felony - result in an immediate guilty plea with sentence to time served and they get out and take custody of their child. It can easily happen in one day.

The facilities are safe, clean, comfortable, provide proper food and education if the time requires. The street, where they would go if not detained by HHS provided none of that.

The difference here? Not letting adult illegals in who have immigration or other crimes pending, not allowing adults to use children who are not their children to use kids as tickets and not exposing kids to parents or other related adults who are a threat to those children. Those are the requirements of law which have not been enforced by prior administrations. Now those requirements are being enforced and the left side of the American media voice has seized upon obeying the law a if it was wrong. Its not. I we are to change it, Congress - including Democrats - must help out, but of course, there won't be a single Dem vote to change this. They want a media crisis, false is fine with them, rather than a solution.

So why the uproar? Demedia trying to knock the IG report out of the news with their media campaign assistants who are oh, so ready to step in as the voice of the Democratic Party they own.