Peter Greene offers a useful summary of the disgraceful, disgusting situation at our borders, where families are separated and children torn from their parents. The law doesn’t say so. It is wrong. It is evil. It is contrary to decency. Yes, we have done evil things in the past, but we should not do this evil thing now. Trump could stop it with a wave of his hand. Babies and toddlers are incarcerated. Their parents may never see them again. Some have been shipped hundreds or thousands of miles from their parents. Some are sent to foster homes. This is inhumane. We disgrace our nation in the eyes of the world.
Their parents broke the law. So what. First of all, as noted above, mostly we’re talking misdemeanors which means this is not the same as what happens to someone who was convicted of murder– it’s like taking the kids away from someone who was caught jay-walking.
The bullshit claims that the feds had to do this because evildoers were pouring across the border, because every brownskinned person is a member of an evil gang and a rapist and murder and we must get rid of them all. This is just racist bullshit with no foundation in reality (just like all racist bullshit).
The Bible. A complete non-starter, and the fact that it has even come up is a sign of how far removed from any serious religious or spiritual thought this administration is. Do we really have to point out that the Bible justified the Inquisition, slavery and a lot of other bad stuff. But if you want a religious take on it, here’s what the United Methodist Church (the one that Jeff Sessions nominally belongs to) has to say in condemnation. And here’s a Twitter thread listing the many religious condemnations of this.
This shameful policy is part of a larger initiative– to cut back the number of brown people coming to this country by making this country so unwelcoming, so cruel, so much worse than what they’re trying to escape that coming to America will be unattractive. That’s now our policy, our new unofficial motto– “If you aren’t white, it sucks to be here and you might as well not come.” That’s as stark a betrayal of our national ideals as we’ve ever seen in our long history of not living up to those ideals. And every gutless member of Congress who can’t find the spine to say so needs to face trouble at the polls come the fall. And really, when this is done, all of us who are worked up about it need to ask if there aren’t perhaps other equally huge but less visceral injustices being perpetrated that we should be throwing our energies against.
Call your member of Congress. Now.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I posted this on your “What Is the Trump Policy on Family Separation?” but feel it needs repeating. Ann Coulter looks good on the outside but there is nothing of substance to her on the inside. How can anyone be this cruel? She supports Ayn Rand and Trump. Maybe that’s her problem. There’s money to be made from lies.
………….
‘Do not fall for it, Mr President’: Outrage as Ann Coulter says ‘weeping and crying’ immigrant children in detention centers are ‘CHILD ACTORS’
Coulter’s comment on a Fox News panel Sunday has been met with widespread outrage as social media users call her ‘heartless’ for suggesting that the children are faking their anguish.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5858633/Ann-Coulter-warns-Trump-weeping-crying-immigrant-children-child-actors.html?ito=email_share_article-top
Most Read Articles:
Wrapped in thermal blankets and crammed inside chain-link-fenced cages: New footage shows illegal immigrants including young children marching into a Texas detention center where 1,100 people are now being kept in cramped conditions
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5858211/VIDEO-chain-link-fenced-cages-illegal-immigrants-including-children-crammed-detention-center.html?ito=email_share_article-top_most-read-articles
Anne Coulter is just as vile, despicable, amoral and unhinged as Alex Jones. They spread lies, disinformation and hoaxes with not even a hint of shame; they are beneath contempt, they are the Goebbelses of the USA.
Ann Coulter needs some time in detention. Heart rehab. Tho it might be too late.
Diane and Carolmalaysia,
To start – I agree that separation of children from parents is very wrong,
In reading Greene’s comment i find it deplorable, and he has in the past offered more cogent posts than this racist note – “This shameful policy is part of a larger initiative– to cut back the number of brown people coming to this country … That’s now our policy, our new unofficial motto– “If you aren’t white, it sucks to be here and you might as well not come.”
He is right in one way – ” this is part of a larger initiative”- IMHO covering up the iy s a distraction created to avoid the progress Trump is making in the economy job creations for blacks and hispanics etc.
But ket me offer a little background:
OBAMA HELD MORE THAN DOUBLE THE NUMBER OF CHILDREN IN SHELTERS COMPARED TO TRUMP WHITE HOUSE
NEWSWEEK
BY CHANTAL DA SILVA ON 5/30/18 AT 10:26 AM
The number of undocumented children being held without their parents in U.S. government custody has seen a 21 percent increase in the past month after the Trump administration announced its “zero tolerance” crackdown on families caught crossing the border illegally, it has emerged.
Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Administration for Children and Families spokesperson Kenneth Wolfe told Newsweek on Wednesday that it had as many as 10,852 undocumented children in its custody—a significant jump from the 8,886 that were in the agency’s custody on April 29, according to the Washington Post. spokesman for HHS’s Administration for Children and Families told
In fiscal year 2013, under the Barack Obama administration, the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) had as many as 25,000 unaccompanied children in its care across 80 shelters, according to a July 2014 article in Mother Jones.
“Democratic Lawmaker: Obama Admin Kept Child Migrant Crisis ‘Very Quiet’ — Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) claimed in an interview Saturday that the Obama administration tried to cover up the number of unaccompanied minors crossing the United States’ southern border.”
They were not coming from Mexico. They were coming from Central America. They were coming from Nicaragua El Salvador. Guatemala. There is a loophole in American immigration law that says if people from Central America come to the United States from a non-contiguous nation, we have to keep them.
If they are seeking asylum, once they get to Mexico, they have it. The fact that they’re waiting and traveling through Mexico to try to get asylum here is one of the many roots of this problem.
“Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) [said] Saturday that the Obama administration tried to cover up the number of unaccompanied minors crossing the United States’ southern border. ‘It was kept very quiet under [Obama]. There were large numbers of people coming in. The Obama administration was trying to keep this quiet…’ According to data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency, nearly 70,000 unaccompanied minors crossed the southern border in fiscal year (FY) 2014 — the period between October 1, 2013, to September 30, 2014. …
“Cuellar suggested that some adults who are not legal guardians of the children they carry over the border take advantage of the separation policy. ‘Keep in mind that under the law, you can separate a child if that person, the adult, is not the real parent or the custodian because sometimes we see situations where they’ll bring a child because they know of the policy that we have over here with children,’ Cuellar said.”
. January 28, 2016, Washington Post.
This is over two years ago. “Obama Administration placed Children with Human Traffickers, Report Says.” This story is literally devastating.
“The Obama administration failed to protect thousands of Central American children who have flooded across the U.S. border since 2011, leaving them vulnerable to traffickers and to abuses at the hands of government-approved caretakers, a Senate investigation has found. … Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) initiated the six-month investigation after several Guatemalan teens were found in a dilapidated trailer park near Marion, Ohio, where they were being held captive by traffickers and forced to work at a local egg farm.
“The boys were among more than 125,000 unaccompanied minors who have surged into the United States since 2011, fleeing violence and unrest in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. ‘It is intolerable that human trafficking — modern-day slavery — could occur in our own backyard,’ Portman said…”
Where were you howls of concern? Where was the compassion for the children? Where were all the catcalls that Obama and the country were separating immigrant families? Is this a pretend concern about illegal immigrant kids being separated from their parents?
2.January 29th, 2016, New York Magazine: “Obama Administration Handed Child migrants Over to Human Traffickers.” Well, it looks to me like New York Magazine picked up this story that was originally published in the Washington Post, and they ran the details I just shared with you. Then we have a New York Times report April 26th, 2018. “Federal Agencies Lost track of Nearly 1500 Migrant Children Placed with Sponsors.” What does this mean?
3 Post, March 10, 2015. Joshua Partlow is the writer. “Mexican Kids Held for Months as Punishment for Border-Crossing.” Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What? March 2015? Donald Trump hasn’t even announced his candidacy yet!
“Last spring, as Central American children flooded into Texas in a way he had never seen in his three-decade career, Border Patrol agent Robert Harris decided to experiment. His intelligence analysts estimated that 78% of the guides smuggling other migrants were Mexicans younger than 18 — teenagers often hired or conscripted by drug cartels that knew they would not be prosecuted if caught — and he wanted to attack this loophole. ‘Why don’t we remove these juveniles from the smuggling cycle?’
“Harris, the outgoing commander of the Laredo sector of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, recalled thinking. Now, as a result of that decision, young Mexicans are being held for months without charge in shelters across the United States, sometimes without their parents’ knowledge. Since the program began in May, 536 juveniles have been held — 248 of whom have been deported to Mexico after an average stay of 75 days, according to Border Patrol statistics.
“Mexican authorities say some of these repeat border-crossers have spent as much as six months in U.S. [jails] while they await an appearance before an immigration judge.” Why, are you telling me that Obama was jailing some of these kids because they were being used as traffickers by drug cartels to bring in product or to actually be human traffic?
March 10th, 2015, Washington Post: Mexican kids held for months away from their parents.
Nothing new at all. You asked what Trump’s [policy is – The new Trump policy is to prosecute all adults,” all of them who are breaking the law! Trump is serious about enforcing immigration law.
Your first illegal entry into the United States is a misdemeanor.
If you try again illegal reentry after having been deported or refused entry, it is a felony. “When a migrant is prosecuted for illegal entry, he or she is taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals. … The child is taken into the custody of HHS, who cares for them at temporary shelters. 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…” This is where you should begin listening very closely. “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.” Asking for asylum changes everything. Flores Consent Decree from 1997. It says that unaccompanied children can be held only 20 days. … So even if we want to hold a family unit together, we are forbidden from doing so” by existing law if the migrant is claiming asylum. “[E]ven if we want to hold a family unit together, we are forbidden from doing so.
Who is the fault for the separation? – how about the people bringing the kids – Trump can’t take his pen in an Exec Order to correct a law by Congress who needs 60 votes – and thus lies the issue of the Dems helping …..
• Breitbart: Democratic Lawmaker: Obama Admin Kept Child Migrant Crisis ‘Very Quiet’
• Washington Post: Obama Administration Placed Children with Human Traffickers, Report Says – 01.18.16
• New York Times: Federal Agencies Lost Track of Nearly 1,500 Migrant Children Placed With Sponsors – 04.26.18
• New York Mag: Report: Obama Administration Handed Child Migrants Over to Human Traffickers – 01.29.16
• Washington Post: Mexican Kids Held for Months as Punishment for Border-Crossing – 03.11.15
• Daily Wire: Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Neilsen: ‘Well-Coached’ Illegal Aliens Using Children To Pose As Families
• National Review: The Truth about Separating Kids – Rich Lowry
• Daily Wire: Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Neilsen: ‘Well-Coached’ Illegal Aliens Using Children To Pose As Families
Add the following on how the media joined the train on this issue:
. Seymour Hersh, considered the dean of journalistas was on NPR two Saturdays ago.
In the interview he said to the media (summarized), “You better harp on what’s happening to kids at the border vis-a-vis Mexico, ’cause that’s the only avenue left to getting Donald Trump.” Now, that’s two Saturdays ago. He said in his PBS interview, “Nothing else is sticking to Trump. We haven’t found anything. You focus on the kids and what happens to ’em at the border,” and bammo! In two weeks, guess where the media is?
The media is doing whatever it can to avoid Trump’s agenda in making America great again in jobs for blacks and hispanics, economy, satisfaction found in polls etc.
Make It a Great Day!
Obama administration incarcerated unaccompanied minors. Obama administration did not have a policy of separating families.
#MakeAmericaStupidMeanCruelAndIgnorantAgain
Congratulations, jscheidell, you condensed every single (debunked) Trump talking point into one concise post.
Or was that supplied to you by your handlers?
Throwing Godwin to the wind, history judges the Germans who allowed the Holocaust to happen quite harshly. That will be your legacy too.
National day of protest June 30.
Here are some names and contact information on some of the collaborators to this atrocity: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16Z04gxhORlgmS5sDhnX_ryDfSF8T2a6AwZWV1PMY-H8/mobilebasic
If you have some time, why not reach out and touch someone today?
Senator Cruz (R-TX) has introduced legislation to end family separation, Good for him. See
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/392892-cruz-announces-bill-to-end-separation-of-immigrant-families
I think Cruz wants entire families incarcerated. How kind of him!
I read the article (and other articles describing the proposal). I find no indication, that the purpose of this legislation is to incarcerate entire families. Individuals crossing the border illegally, are going to be apprehended and prosecuted. If there are minor children being brought across the border, illegally, the individual(s) bringing the minor children will be prosecuted.
The absolute necessity of controlling our borders requires that offenders be brought to justice. There must be a balance between consideration for the minor children, and the need to enforce our immigration laws.
“A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation.” – Ronald Reagan.
What’s new about the Trump Policy is family separation. Toddlers are taken away from their mothers. That’s ok with you?
So touching! Families sharing the same jail cell! What a boon for the private prison industry!
My guess is Cruz has cronies in the prison construction industry.
Diane,
I hear all the complaints but where are your ideas to stop the process?
If the wall was built maybe they would enter at a portal and legally claim asylum….
Maybe if they really cared about these kids the parents wouldn’t send them on such a dangerous trip or have them confront the drug and sex traffickers.
Cruz offers a suggestion to keep them together and all we get is a snarky retort…Dems haven’t offered anything other than for Trump to use a pen to make changes – its a law – Congress has the issue and the Dems have to help pass a reasonable law that doesn’t give amnesty to thousands and can keep the families together
And for all here to consider is another problem that separates families =
And another example of Democrats concern for separating children from their families in the Democratic controlled Philadelphia
While Kids Wait For Homes, Philadelphia Bars Catholic Social Services From Serving Foster Children .
By targeting Catholic Social Services, Philadelphia is taking the U.S. Supreme Court’s flawed logic on same-sex marriage to its logical conclusion.
Last week, a group of foster families in Philadelphia asked a federal court to end a new municipal policy that prevents Catholic Social Services from placing children in foster homes. Catholic Social Services is one of the largest and highest-rated foster agencies in Philadelphia, but because it adheres to Catholic teaching on homosexuality and does not place foster children in same-sex households, the City of Philadelphia is cutting them off.
City officials are doing this despite a massive shortage of foster families in Philadelphia. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing the foster families, issued this summary of the case last week:
In March 2018, the City of Philadelphia put out an urgent call for 300 new foster families. Despite the desperate need for homes for the 6,000 children in Philadelphia’s foster care system, the City then abruptly barred Catholic Social Services, one of the most successful foster agencies in the city, from placing any children. The City’s actions mean that foster homes are sitting empty and loving foster parents are unable to serve at-risk children, simply because the City disagrees with Catholic Social Services’ longstanding beliefs about marriage.
Philadelphia will terminate its contract with Catholic Social Services at the end of June unless the agency abandons the Catholic Church’s teaching on marriage. Never mind that no same-sex couple has ever complained about Catholic Social Services, or that the agency refers couples with whom it cannot work to one of 26 other agencies in the region.
Never mind that Sharonell Fulton, a plaintiff in the case and a foster parent who has cared for more than 40 children over 25 years (including the two special-needs siblings currently in her care), depends on Catholic Social Services and says she cannot continue fostering children without the agency’s help.
Never mind that Philadelphia isn’t alone in its foster care crisis, that foster families are in short supply across the United States. In just the past few weeks, local news outlets have chronicled foster family shortages in Missouri, Colorado, Texas, Indiana, Washington, and Illinois. In Michigan alone, more than 13,000 kids are waiting for placement in foster homes.
Never mind all that. The only thing that matters to municipal officials in Philadelphia is that Catholic Social Services must bend the knee and abandon its deeply held religious beliefs. If orphans and abused children must go without foster homes to make a point, so be it.
Yes, those Dems show love and concern — a joke
The government could do what Obama did. He refused admission to those who entered illegally and deported those who gained entry illegally. He did not tell the Border Patrol to rip nursing babies out of the arms of their mothers or to incarcerate toddlers.
Are you a Christian? A pagan? A heathen? I don’t know of any religion that condones Trump’s barbarism and cruelty. My religion does not.
jscheidell – if someone is punching you in the face, what is your solution? How about: stop punching me in the face? Similarly, the solution here is that obvious (so obvious perhaps you didn’t see it): stop separating families.
First of all, the majority of these families are entering the U.S. at legal points of entry. Peter Greene’s article addresses this. Second, even for those who are caught after illegal entry, that’s a misdemeanor, equivalent to speeding. Next time you are pulled over for speeding, should the cops throw you in one jail and your kids in another?
Thankfully I have not had to put up with any of Ann Coulter/s ignorance in some time. I never missed it.
Regarding the Bible and people who quote it, if they are Christians then they should pay attention to what Jesus said; suffer the little ones to come unto me. Trump is the very antithesis of everything that Jesus taught. But beyond that, what kind of a country have we become when we emulate the worst of the worst actions found in history? We have now set a standard for the rest of the world to see what we really are, not what we proclaim to be what the country stands for. There is and will be an horrific price to be paid for these kinds of actions. Alienate the world. Alienate our friends. Cozy up to dictators. What can the American voter be thinking of, especially those who claim to be “Christian”?.
I was happy to see the United Methodist Church, in which Sessions is a member, condemn the child separation policy. http://www.umc.org/church-charges-brought-against-sessions.static.html
The LDS (Mormon) Church has as well, along with quite a few other denominations.
For the Mormon statement, here is the link: https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900022039/troubled-by-forced-separation-of-families-lds-church-calls-for-rational-compassionate-immigration-solutions.html
This was just sent out by the WH. I wonder where they get their numbers? Sounds like the whole of Mexico is trying to cross the border all at once. Obviously all these rapists, thugs, smugglers, human traffickers and child molesters want to come to America before the ‘beautiful wall’ is built. [Sarcasm] Trump and his administration all lie.
………..
America’s immigration loopholes, by the numbers
Legal loopholes have hamstrung immigration enforcement and contributed to the crisis at our border. The number of unaccompanied alien children (UACs) at U.S. ports of entry increased by a staggering 636 percent from April 2017 to April 2018. In the last three months, illegal immigration on the southern border exceeded 50,000 people per month—”multiples over each month last year,” Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said yesterday.
At the same time, loopholes in our asylum laws have led to a significant spike in asylum claims. Because current law sets an easily met standard for “credible fear,” refugees fleeing actual persecution and violence are bogged down in the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services backlog, which has swelled more than 1900 percent since the end of the 2012 fiscal year.
Any real, lasting solution will require Congress to close these loopholes. Smugglers and human traffickers understand and have exploited these glaring weak points in our immigration system. “Until these loopholes are closed by Congress, it is not possible, as a matter of law, to detain and remove whole family units who arrive illegally in the United States,” Secretary Nielsen said.
And this too … OMG.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-pentagon-cant-account-for-21-trillion/
The Pentagon Can’t Account for $21 Trillion (That’s Not a Typo)
May 14, 2018
Trump and his administration can’t take criticism. The United Nations high commissioner for human rights described the Trump policy of family separation as ‘unconscionable’. How far down can the US go? It is loosing all respect in the world…except for countries run by dictators. Trump thinks they are fantastic leaders who love their people. These countries don’t have anyone who can protest. That is something Trump admires.
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Trump admin reportedly poised to quit UN Human Rights Council:
The Trump administration plans to announce its withdrawal from the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday, making good on a pledge to leave a body it has long accused of hypocrisy and criticized as biased against Israel, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley plan to announce the withdrawal at the State Department in Washington at 5 p.m., the people said.
NBC News has confirmed the news, citing two U.S. officials.
While Haley has criticized the council for its opposition to many Israeli policies, today’s move will come less than a week after the United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights described the Trump administration family-separation policy toward immigrants as “unconscionable.”…
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trump-admin-reportedly-poised-quit-un-human-rights-council
ARE WE BETTER THAN THIS? The Los Angeles Times reported (5/26/18) Federal Judge Robert Brack, who has sentenced more than 15,000 immigrants, sadly saying: “I have presided over a process that destroyed families for a long time, and I am weary of it. And I think we as a country are better than this.”
Is he right? Are we better than this, or are we an angry, vindictive nation who puts the blame for our problems on defenseless people, especially children whom we forcibly separate from their parents, sometimes forever?
Judge Brack isn’t some flaming liberal. He was appointed by Republican President George W. Bush and, as The Times reports, “He takes seriously his oath to uphold the laws of the United States. But he is a cog in a system he believes is unjust.” It is important to remember that justice and law a seperate things; segregation laws were law, but they were unjust and immoral, and there are countless unjust laws on the books today that were written to benefit special interests, such as the laws that require American workers to give up their constitutional right to a trial and instead submit to arbitration that strongly favors corporations because the salaries of arbitrators are in fact paid by corporations.
Judge Brack says of immigrants: “I have learned why people come, how and when they come, and what their expectations are. The people that I see are for the most part hardworking, gentle, undereducated, and completely lacking in criminal history. Just simple people looking for work.”
Right now, we don’t appear to be better than this — than tearing families apart, terrorizing children, and making criminals of their parents — because the voices of those angry people dominate and control our politics. Can those angry people control their anger and see what evil they are doing? If they can, and if they can vote in favor of justice over mere law, then we are a better nation than we have been in recent years. If not, asking God to bless our nation will fall on deaf ears.
Sessions’ claim that what Paul was saying in Romans 13 is the basis for the Trump Administration action against immigrants and their children shows that Sessions knows nothing about the Bible: All of what Paul wrote about in Romans 13 is about religious law, specifically, about the laws that govern the Jewish religion; Paul was not writing about civil law. The “governing authorities” Paul mentions are not civil government officials, but are those in the Jewish religion who interpret the religious law. And Sessions conveniently overlooks Romans 13:10: “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; love is the fulfillment of the law.”
Thanks for sharing this about the judge. Enlightening!
SUBJECT: I just signed this. I think you should, too.
I just signed a petition demanding that Congress stop the Trump regime from separating families at the border and pass legislation to protect the rights of immigrant children and families in detention – I think you should, too:
https://act.credoaction.com/sign/families_belong_together?referring_akid=a318102465.1912996.s2F-61&source=conf_email&aktmid=tm71360857.Sd1jfd&akid=a318102465.1912996.s2F-61&t=2
Thank you!
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WASHINGTON— Republicans on Capitol Hill frantically searched on Tuesday for ways to end the Trump administration’s policy of separating families after illegal border crossings, with the focus shifting on a new plan to keep children in detention longer than now permitted — but with their parents.
House GOP leaders are revising their legislation amid a public outcry over the administration’s “zero tolerance” approach to illegal crossings. The change would loosen rules that now limit the amount of time minors can be held to 20 days, according to a GOP source familiar with the measure. Instead, the children could be detained for extended periods — alongside their parents…
The problem is not Trump. It is not Sessions not the Republicans . It is their voter base. This is the equivalent of feeding the Christians to the lions the more savage the display the more likely they are to show up at the polls in the fall. They are 35% of the population and daily they should be reminded of that fact . Or soon it will not only be immigrants who lose their children.
Former US attorneys know more than our ignoramus president and his unfit appointees.
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HuffPost:
A bipartisan group of former U.S. attorneys has penned an open letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, calling on him to end the Trump administration’s highly controversial family separation policy at the border.
The 75 former U.S. attorneys condemned the zero tolerance policy, announced by Sessions in May, under which children are put into shelters while parents facing prosecution for illegally crossing the border into the United States are jailed.
“Your Zero Tolerance policy has resulted in the unnecessary trauma and suffering of innocent children,” they wrote in a letter published Monday on Medium.
“It is time for you to announce that this policy was ill-conceived and that its consequences and cost are too drastic, too inhumane, and flatly inconsistent with the mission and values of the United States Department of Justice. It is time for you to end it.””
Signed by 75 former U.S. attorneys to Attorney General Jeff Sessions
Although President Donald Trump and several members of his administration, including Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, have repeatedly claimed the family separation policy must be enforced, legal experts, including this group of attorneys, have challenged such an assertion.
The Washington Post fact checking department, working overtime during Trump administration, awarded Four Pinnochios—the highest level of lying-to the Trumpian reasons for separating families and incarcerating children.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/06/19/the-facts-about-trumps-policy-of-separating-families-at-the-border/
Diane – any chance you could quote a few relevant passages from that article? Many of us here can’t get past the paywall.
I’m not usually a fan of Bloomberg News, but this is excellent reporting on the “non-profits” (cough, cough) that are profiting off warehousing children separated from their families. If only they had provided contact information for the people in charge of these “charities” (barf)
Crud. Would help if I posted the link, wouldn’t it? https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2018-06-19/trump-migrant-child-detentions-mean-458-million-for-nonprofit?__twitter_impression=true
HuffPost: Trump Administration Holding Babies And Toddlers In Multiple ‘Tender Age’ Shelters: AP
There are three shelters running in South Texas, with a fourth one planned for Houston, the report said.
As the Trump administration continues to forcibly separate immigrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border, “babies and other young children” are being sent to “tender age” shelters in Texas, The Associated Press reported Tuesday night.
At least three shelters, in Combes, Raymondville and Brownsville in South Texas, are currently operating, the report said. Visitors to the centers described “playrooms of crying preschool-age children in crisis.” Children at the shelters were found to be “hysterical, crying and acting out.”
A fourth shelter, which could house up to 240 children, is reportedly being planned for Houston. Sylvester Turner, Houston’s mayor, has said the shelter is not welcome in his city.
“The thought that they are going to be putting such little kids in an institutional setting? I mean it is hard for me to even wrap my mind around it,” Kay Bellor of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, a nonprofit that provides child welfare services to migrant children, told AP this week.
“Toddlers are being detained,” she said.
The administration has taken more than 2,300 children from their parents since early May, when the White House announced its “zero tolerance” policy for illegal border crossing. Officials on Tuesday said they didn’t know how many of these children were younger than 5.
CNN reported last week that a mother from Honduras said her breastfeeding baby was taken from her by federal agents while she was awaiting prosecution at an immigrant detention center. Michelle Brane, director of migrant rights at the Women’s Refugee Commission, described seeing “5-year-olds in cages alone with no adult care” and a 4-year-old whose diapers were being changed by other detained children as she visited a facility where migrants were being held…
Where is Magneto when we really need him?
The Orange One might get caught one of these days. Hope it is soon.
……………..
President Trump seems to be saying more and more things that aren’t true
…The president often seeks to paint a self-serving and self-affirming alternate reality for himself and his supporters. Disparaging the “Fake News” media, Trump offers his own filter through which to view the world – offering a competing reality on issues ranging from relationships forged (or broken) at the Group of 7 summit in Canada to the success of the Singapore summit with the North Koreans to his administration’s new “zero-tolerance” policy on immigration.
“It’s extraordinary how he is completely indifferent to truth. There’s just no relationship between his statements – anything he utters – and the actual truth of the matter,” said Thomas Murray, president emeritus of the Hastings Center, the founding institution in the field of bioethics. “As far as I can tell, the best way to understand anything he says is what will best serve his interests in the moment. It’s irrespective to any version of the truth.”
According to an analysis by The Washington Post Fact Checker through the end of May, Trump has made 3,251 false or misleading claims in 497 days – an average of 6.5 such claims per day of his presidency.
And within the past week, Trump seems to have ramped up both the volume and intensity of his false statements on two of the most prominent topics currently bedeviling his administration: the hard-line immigration policy that has led to the separation of thousands of children from their parents – which Trump erroneously blames on others – and the 500-page inspector general report that he claims, incorrectly, exonerates him in special counsel Robert Mueller III’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election…
http://providencejournal.com/news/20180620/president-trump-seems-to-be-saying-more-and-more-things-that-arent-true