The immigration thread

[Rewind]

When families cross the border illegally and come to the United States, there are provisions for their detention and prosecution. Such detention and prosecution should not involve separating children from their parents -- but that is what has been happening lately. This thread is for the discussion of immigrants and immigration. Discussion. That means I should not be the only one posting here. I want to see participation from other Sirius Buzz members. Don't make me beg.

Separating families at the border: How we got here
CBS News, Jun 18 2018 8:09 AM

Republican and Democratic presidents have struggled with illegal immigration but the Trump administration is the first to enforce a "zero tolerance" policy that has separated about 2,000 children from their parents in the past several weeks. In the Washington Post this morning, former first lady Laura Bush called the policy "cruel" and "immoral" and said it breaks her heart.

Here's a closer look at how we got here: "I would do almost anything to deter the people from Central America to getting on this very, very dangerous network," said White House Chief of Staff John Kelly in 2017, when he was still Secretary of Homeland Security. He acknowledged the Trump administration was considering a more aggressive immigration policy, including separating children from their parents if they try to cross illegally. "They will be well cared for as we deal with their parents."

What developed into the Trump administration's current approach is modeled after Operation Streamline, a program started by the Bush administration in 2005. That program referred all illegal immigrants for prosecution but made exceptions for adults traveling with children. The Obama administration then used that model as well, but detained families together in Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody.

"We've had a shelter system for years," said Cecilia Muñoz, who was the director of the White House Domestic Policy Council under President Obama. "What's different now is that this administration is choosing to separate children from their parents."

Despite mounting opposition, the Trump administration continues to faithfully defend its new policy. Last week, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said, "Having children does not give you immunity from arrest and prosecution. I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13 to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained the government for His purposes."

President Trump recently attempted to blame Democrats for not finding a better solution than his new strategy. "I hate the children being taken away," he said last week. "The Democrats have to change their law, that's their law."

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is stressing that the policy does not impact immigrants coming to ports of entry to seek asylum legally: "At ports of entry, they will only separate if the child is in danger, the adult does not have custody of the child or if the adult has broken a law."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/separat...w-we-got-here/

[Rewind]

In a chapter on war propaganda in Mein Kampf (1925), Adolf Hitler wrote, "If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it -- and you will even come to believe it yourself." Examples of such lies are "As many as 6,000,000 people voted illegally," "I had the biggest inaugural crowd of any President," "I've been on more Time magazine covers than anybody" and, now, "The Democrats are to blame for immigrant families being separated."

Trump continues to falsely claim there's a law on family separation, blames Democrats
CBS News, Jun 15 2018 6:39 PM

Roughly 50 children a day are being taken from their parents after they cross the US-Mexico border, according to the US Department of Homeland Security. But on Friday, President Trump insisted he's not the one separating families. "The Democrats forced that law upon our nation. I hate it," he said.

The fact that there is no such law did not stop the president from repeating his assertion half a dozen times. "The Democrats have to change their law, that's their law," he said. "That's the Democrats' law. We can change it tonight!"

Democrats said what Trump should change is a "zero tolerance" policy announced on May 7 by his own attorney general, Jeff Sessions. It means that asylum seekers who would previously have been released pending a hearing are now held behind bars and their children are sent to separate shelters such as a former Walmart in Brownsville, Texas. The policy has prompted dozens of protests across the country.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-c...ly-separation/

[Rewind]

Has anyone asked all the parents who have been separated from their children if they think the President has made America "great"? A goofy slogan on a goofy cap is just that: a slogan. Nothing more.

Backlash builds against Trump's policy splitting families at border
Los Angeles Times, Jun 18 2018 10:00 AM

President Trump stood firm as he faced a growing backlash today over his administration's “zero tolerance” immigration policy that since April has separated at least 2,000 children from their parents crossing the southern border and he continued to falsely blame Democrats for the hard-line actions. "The United States will not be a migrant camp and it will not be a refugee holding facility," Trump said at the White House.

Assailing Democrats for opposing his proposed immigration limits, he said Republicans "want to do it more than they do." He added, “We want safety and we want security for our country. If the Democrats would sit down instead of obstructing we could have something done very quickly.”

Some Republican allies in Congress, religious leaders and former First Lady Laura Bush joined a chorus of critics lambasting the policy as inhumane and immoral after a Father's Day weekend of 24-hour media coverage featuring images of children locked inside large metal cages, crying toddlers and heart-wrenching stories of families forced apart.

Trump is set to meet with House Republicans on Tuesday on pending immigration bills, which now have become possible vehicles for addressing the border plight. Yet the President, despite his claims that Congress must act, has the power to reverse a policy his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, announced in April.

As the Republican-controlled Congress nonetheless comes under pressure to act, it remains to be seen if the growing outrage over the policy will move a president known for his stubbornness and indifference to the country's foundational values of inclusiveness. He has indicated in multiple tweets over recent days that he is using the policy, which he claims to hate, as leverage to get Democrats to agree to limits on legal immigration as well as $25 billion for his promised border wall.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-n...618-story.html

[Rewind]

Only 5% of Democrats support Trump's policy of separating children from their undocumented immigrant parents. Ninety-two percent oppose it. Republicans -- who care only about themselves, the NRA, banks, big corporations and the wealthiest Americans -- are overwhelmingly in favor of it. How sad.

CNN poll: Two-thirds of Americans oppose immigration that causes family separation but majority of Republicans approve

http://ktla.com/2018/06/18/poll-2-3-...icans-approve/

[Rewind]

Pelosi, the House Minority Leader, visited four detention centers today. "Detention centers." You know, kind of like the internment camps we forced Japanese people into during World War II. Concerning the "zero tolerance" policy that separates children from their parents, Pelosi stated the obvious: "Trump started this and he can end this." Yes, but not as long as he continues to blame Democrats for a policy that he made.

Nancy Pelosi to President Trump on family separation: 'Stop this inhumane, barbaric policy'

http://abc7.com/politics/pelosi-to-t...olicy/3617844/

[Rewind]

Letter from James Goldwasser of Los Angeles in today's Los Angeles Times: "Trump in 2016: Mexico will pay for the wall. Trump in 2017: I will shut down the government to force Congress to pay for the wall. Trump in 2018: I will take thousands of children from my families until I get my wall. What will 2019 bring? Is there any bottom to the moral abyss into which this administration and its enables have plunged us?"

I would say the answer to that question is "no." Case in point:

Trump: 'You have to take the children away'
Yahoo News, Jun 19 2018 3:02 PM

President Trump said today that his administration has no choice but to separate children from parents who cross the US border illegally. "When you are prosecute the parents for coming in illegally — which should happen — you have to take the children away," Trump said in a speech to small business owners in Washington, DC. “Now you don’t have to prosecute the children, but then we’re not prosecuting them for coming in illegally.”

The president is facing bipartisan criticism for his administration’s "zero-tolerance" policy that has resulted in more than 2,000 children being separated from their families since April, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Many of the children separated from their families have been held in detention centers. In one such facility, hundreds of children were seen in a series of cages created by metal fencing.

Trump falsely insisted there are "only two options" for dealing with immigrants that come to the country illegally: “Totally open borders or criminal prosecution.” But the Bush and Obama administrations chose a third: to deal with immigrants crossing the border with children largely as civil cases, rather than criminal.

Trump also falsely blamed Democrats for creating "crippling loopholes" that have resulted laws that force family separations at the border. There is no US law requiring the children of immigrants entering the country illegally to be separated from their parents. The administration, unlike the previous two, is treating the adults as criminals and jailing them, which requires them to be separated from the children.

https://www.aol.com/article/news/201...away/23463023/

[Rewind]

Republicans control the House. Republicans control the Senate. The President is a Republican -- and he continues to blame the Democrats for current immigration policies, policies which he put into place. Senator John McCain has joined the growing number of Republicans aligning with Democrats in condemning Trump for separating immigrant children from their parents.

John McCain slams family separation policy as an 'affront' to American decency
CBS News, Jun 19 1018 8:55 AM

Senator John McCain, R-Arizona, lashed out against the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy which has sparked widespread outcry over the treatment of children of immigrants at the US-Mexico border. McCain, who is at his home in Arizona where he is receiving treatment related to his brain cancer diagnosis, tweeted yesterday, "The administration’s current family separation policy is an affront to the decency of the American people and contrary to principles and values upon which our nation was founded. The administration has the power to rescind this policy. It should do so now."

McCain, a frequent Trump critic, is the latest Republican to part with the President and the party on the policy that is at the root of a nationwide debate over immigration and the country's handling of children in federal custody.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/john-mc...rican-decency/

[Rewind]

Most of us are familiar with the songs If I Only Had A Brain, If I Only Had A Heart and If I Only Had The Nerve from the 1939 movie The Wizard Of Oz. Well, just think how much nicer our world would be if Donald Trump only had a conscience or if Donald Trump only had compassion. Our neighbors to the south are now weighing in:

Mexico blasts US family separation policy as 'violation of human rights'
Los Angeles Times, Jun 19 2018 3:45 PM

The Mexican government today condemned as "cruel and inhuman" the Trump administration policy of separating immigrant families detained on US soil. Only 1% of all cases of children separated from their families — 21 cases — involve Mexican nationals, said Luis Videgaray, Mexico’s foreign secretary, in the country’s first formal comments on the controversial policy. The vast majority of cases involve children from three Central American nations — Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

Central Americans seeking to enter the United States typically travel through Mexico to arrive at the US-Mexico border. Among the cases involving Mexican nationals, Videgaray said, is that of a 10-year-old Mexican girl with Down syndrome who was separated from her mother and sent to a detention center in Texas.

Videgaray said Mexico City recognizes "the sovereignty of the United States" and its right to set its own migratory policy. "Nonetheless," Videgaray said, "we cannot be indifferent to something that clearly represents a violation of human rights and puts minor children, including some with disabilities, in a situation of vulnerability." Mexican authorities are working to achieve the reunification of all of the families involved.

Today Trump once again tried to blame Democrats for the family separation crisis and took a swipe at Mexico as well. In remarks before a business organization, he said Mexico allows smugglers of drugs and people to reach the US border. "Mexico, they do nothing for us," Trump said. Videgaray denied that the Mexican government "promotes" illegal immigration, a charge often leveled by US activists seeking a more restrictive immigration policy.

Presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador, front-runner in Mexico's July 1 election, charged that US authorities are expelling the children in "inhumane conditions" and is asking for a United Nations investigation of a policy that he says "goes against the most fundamental human rights."

http://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-...619-story.html

[Rewind]

Two thousand children have been separated from their parents here in the "land of the free and home of the brave." The mother of one of those children has filed a lawsuit. The Governor of New York is also planning to file a lawsuit. There are surely many more lawsuits to come. Stay tuned.

Border-crossing Guatemalan mom sues Trump administration for not saying where her son is
NBC News, Jun 19 2018 7:46 PM

A mother from Guatemala whose 7-year-old son was taken from her after they were detained for crossing the border illegally sued Trump administration immigration officials today, saying they will not tell her where her son is, even though she has now been released from custody.

Beata Mariana de Jesus Mejia-Mejia said in the lawsuit that she and her son crossed the border near San Luis, Arizona on May 19th and sought asylum. They were detained by Border Patrol agents and two days later her son was taken from her. After she was transferred to the Eloy Detention Center in Arizona, she was told her son was in Phoenix at a facility run by HHS's Office of Refugee Resettlement. She spoke to him once on the phone, she said, and "he cried, 'Mama! Mama! Mama!' in a distressed voice over and over again."

She was never charged with a criminal offense for entering the country illegally and was released from custody on June 15th after posting bond, but as of four days later, she did not yet have her son back. Her lawsuit asked the judge to order the government to reunite mother and child and provide other relief related to her case. .

Meanwhile, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said today he is aware of more than 70 children who are staying in federal shelters in New York and he announced that New York intends to file a lawsuit against the Trump administration on the grounds that the federal government is violating the constitutional rights of thousands of immigrant children and their parents who have been separated at the border.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/whi...-where-n884821

[Rewind]

Fox News is Donald Trump's favorite channel. Of course it is -- no matter what Trump says or does, their hosts and commentators never ever say anything negative about him. They, especially Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, go to the other extreme, fawning over Trump for everything he does. Here is one disgusting example:

Fox News' Laura Ingraham under fire after saying detention centers for immigrant children are 'essentially summer camps'

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/...063215123.html