All Things Trump

[Hermit]

Powerful.

And, that child was not separated from her parents. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/mor ... aa2386cbd3

2000 others were at a rate of 50 per day.

[Tero]

There is NO need to arrest the people crossing border. Just deport them. There is a refugee quota, some 70 000 to 80 000 per year. After that, there is no need to take more of them. Some will fly in, some will walk in. The number flying in is easily controlled at departure point. But Muslims! List of Muslim countries!

[Forty Two]

But you'll agree that it's representative of the situation? If you're going to maintain that it somehow misrepresents the situation, on strictly factual grounds as it were, then we should probanky also note that Trump never met that child in a red room and never said those words either.

Should have been rather easy to find a real example, shouldn't it?

And, this matter is wholly exaggerated by the teary-eyed Maddows of the world. It's a political cudgel, and that's all. That's why the Democrats would not agree to get a legislative solution. If this is a Nazi policy, reminiscent of concentration camps, and the treatment of Jews and Japanese Americans in world war 2, then why would Democrats not be willing to create a legislative solution? http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3930 ... der-crisis

The Obama administration separated immigrant children from accompanying adults in two cases: (1) if the child was in danger or (2) if the accompanying adult was being prosecuted.

The Trump administration did not alter these guidelines. What did change, however, is that the Trump administration — unlike Obama — is enforcing the law passed by Congress which makes it a crime to cross the border illegally. Trump’s so-called “zero tolerance” policy is really just a manifestation of Article II of the Constitution, which states plainly that the president “shall take care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”

As Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen pointed out:

“Surely it is the beginning of the unraveling of democracy when the body who makes the laws, instead of changing them, tells the enforcement body not to enforce the law.”

Loopholes like 1997’s Flores settlement, which does not permit children to be detained for more than 20 days, have the unintended effect of separating children from still-detained parents after a 20-day period because, as Rich Lowry wrote:

“Adults (claiming asylum) are almost certainly going to be detained longer than the government is allowed to hold their children. ... So even if we want to hold a family unit together, we are forbidden from doing so.”

Similarly, the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) does not permit minors from non-contiguous countries (i.e. Central American countries) to be sent home in an expedited fashion.

These laws, combined with our broken asylum system, create a situation where families are separated when the law is enforced. In an ordinary case of expedited removal the separation period is brief. The individual who entered illegally is prosecuted and reunited with his or her child, but the issue is thus more complicated if the parent applies for asylum. Congress has the power to supplement the president's executive order and change the status quo by overriding the Flores Settlement Agreement or amending the TVPRA.

While an adult illegal entrant is prosecuted, the accompanying child goes into Health and Human Services (HHS) custody. In 2018, 90 percent of children taken in by HHS in 2018 were placed with a parent, relative or another sponsor in the U.S. For those remaining in HHS care, an average of $775 per day is spent on each immigrant child. As for the 90 percent of unaccompanied minors placed with relatives or sponsors, in 2015 the Office of Refugee Resettlement began making voluntary calls to unaccompanied minors to ensure they are placed in a safe environment — a practice still enforced by the Trump administration today.

“We’re going to keep focusing enforcement resources on actual threats to our security,” Obama announced in 2014. “Felons, not families. Criminals, not children.”

This announcement and the policy of “catch and release” sent a signal to aspiring illegal entrants: If you arrive with a child, your chances of being released into the U.S. interior increase. Accordingly, we have seen an influx of “family units” crossing the border. Pew reported in 2016:

“Apprehensions of children and their families at the U.S.-Mexico border since October 2015 have more than doubled from a year ago and now outnumber apprehensions of unaccompanied children.”

We have also seen an uptick in wrongdoers taking advantage of the Obama-era policy, with Nielsen noting a 314 percent increase of adults and children “fraudulently claiming to be a family unit.”

A ticking time bomb” is how an educator recently characterized MS-13, violent gang known for its inhumane tactics, to the Washington Post. “Dozens of schools from Northern Virginia to Long Island to Boston are dealing with a resurgence of MS-13,” the Post notes before acknowledging that “the gang’s growth has been fueled by a wave of 200,000 teens who traveled to the United States alone to escape poverty and gang violence in Central America.”

During Operation Matador — an ICE operation to stop MS-13 in New York — the Trump administration apprehended 274 MS-13 gang members, 99 of which arrived as unaccompanied minors and were released into society. Stemming the surge of MS-13 gang members means enforcing the law, prosecuting illegal border crossers, and amending the TVPRA. At the same time, the administration recognized the legitimate and credible fear of asylum seekers, which is why Nielsen stated clearly:

“If an adult enters at a port of entry and claims asylum, they will not face prosecution for illegal entry.”

President Trump, for his part, has issued an executive order to do what the executive branch can to stop the separation of families at the border, but as Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has stated, fully solving the problem “requires a legislative solution.”

Rather than demonizing the Trump administration, true advocates for change should be calling for congressional action. President Trump is enforcing U.S. immigration law, and in doing so, protecting the well-being and in some cases the lives of U.S. citizens.

Everyone wants this problem solved, I think. However, Trump's only solutions here are to say either: (a) we do not detain any illegal immigrants with children, or (b) we detain the children with the illegal immigrants, or (c) we detain no illegal immigrants, with or without children. He has opted for an executive order to allow the families of detainees to stay together. That is going to be challenged in court.

Viewing this logically, what should the solution be? What should be the policy for people coming into the country - not through ports of entry, but just coming in without inspection, who are apprehended? Should they be immediately sent back to their home country? If they claim asylum, what should happen? Just let them into the country to rent an apartment and get a job while their asylum claim is pending? Is that how other, civilized, countries do it?

[Forty Two]

There is NO need to arrest the people crossing border. Just deport them. There is a refugee quota, some 70 000 to 80 000 per year. After that, there is no need to take more of them. Some will fly in, some will walk in. The number flying in is easily controlled at departure point. But Muslims! List of Muslim countries!

They do deport them, unless they seek asylum. Asylees and refugees are different.

Yours is not an accurate statement. The refugee quota is for third-country acceptance of a refugee who is overseas. There is no limit on the number of asylees, and asylees are those who make the claim of asylum (persecution/well founded fear) here in the United States.

One, the ones that fly in, they come through a port of entry. If they do not have a visa, they will be sent home immediately -- except if they claim asylum, and if they claim asylum when coming in through a port of entry, they will not be kept in a detention center. That's already the case.

The ones that walk in are in a different status. The law renders them subject to arrest. And, that's where the problem lies. These are folks that sneak in - they could go right up to the front door (port of entry) ring the bell, and claim asylum, but they don't. They take kids on thousand mile treks across desert country and across the Rio Grande to sneak in, and then they claim asylum when apprehended. If they make the claim of asylum, they can't under current law be deported. Yet, merely claiming asylum doesn't mean they really are asylees, fleeing a well founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, politics, whatever. So, the reason to detain them is obvious - you have to figure out who they are - what they are doing, where they are coming from, and whether they qualify for asylum.

The separation comes about because the law (via court decisions and the 1997 Flores agreement) limits detention of the minor children to like 20 days. And, the practical procedures do not allow determination of the asylum status in 20 days. So, it's either separate the children, or let the parent go too.

Separating the children is, apparently, Nazi Germany, right? So we don't wan that.

So, the other option is to free the parent, too - the parent who chose to take a child on 1,000 mile walk through the desert, braving human and real coyotes, to sneak into the country in a place where there is nobody to make a claim of asylum to, and then they make the asylum when they are captured (they aren't walking up to border patrol people and saying "hey! I was looking for you!" - if they were doing that, they could just take a bus to the toll booth in Tijuana and say "I need to make an application for asylum." Should the person who just crossed the Rio Grande in no-man's land be let go in Phoenix on their own recognizance, promising to come back to immigration court down the line?

And is it a good system to have a rule that says "walk across the border alone and you are going to sit in detention while your asylum case is considered, but if you bring a minor child, you'll be released in San Diego, or Phoenix or El Paso, and told have a nice day, see you in a few months when your court case is called?"

There is a real immigration problem here. It has to be solved. If we all agree that separating the kids from parents claiming asylum is the wrong way to go, then don't we need the law to say that people who enter illegally with kids, not through a port of entry, will be immediately deported, and if they claim asylum, don't we need a place for them to live until their case is determined? Or do they all just get let out into the populace?

[Tero]

Time cover:
time.com/5317522/donald-trump-border-cover/
"At first, not much was known about the mother and daughter or what happened to them. Many speculated that the girl may have been ultimately separated from her mother, like the more than 2,300 migrant children split from their parents since May 5.

In Honduras, Denis Javier Varela Hernandez recognized his daughter in the photo and also feared she was separated from her mother, he told The Post.

But he learned this week that his wife and daughter were not, in fact, separated. The mother, 32-year-old Sandra Sanchez, was detained with her nearly 2-year-old daughter, Yanela, at a facility in McAllen Tex., Varela said.

Honduran deputy foreign minister Nelly Jerez confirmed Varela’s account to Reuters. A spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection also confirmed to the Daily Beast that the mother and daughter were not separated. Honduran and federal officials could not immediately be reached for comment by The Post."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/mor ... 79dfd3e2fe

[Brian Peacock]

But you'll agree that it's representative of the situation? If you're going to maintain that it somehow misrepresents the situation, on strictly factual grounds as it were, then we should probanky also note that Trump never met that child in a red room and never said those words either.

Should have been rather easy to find a real example, shouldn't it?

I think you're overburdening your objection by an arbitrary ex recto requirement: that the illustration should be able to be taken as literally true in order not to misrepresent the situation. I pointed the absurdity of that in my earlier reply quoted above.

[Forty Two]

But you'll agree that it's representative of the situation? If you're going to maintain that it somehow misrepresents the situation, on strictly factual grounds as it were, then we should probanky also note that Trump never met that child in a red room and never said those words either.

Should have been rather easy to find a real example, shouldn't it?

I think you're overburdening your objection by an arbitrary ex recto requirement: that the illustration should be able to be taken as literally true in order not to misrepresent the situation. I pointed the absurdity of that in my earlier reply quoted above.

The child was posed. That's a fact. Take the picture to mean what you want. If you think that's representative (but they preferred to use the fake but representative picture over the numerous other options of real representative pictures) then that's up to you. It's an inflammatory image.

The real question is, what should be done about the actual situation on the ground, which I summarized above. What do you think should be done?

[Brian Peacock]

But you'll agree that it's representative of the situation? If you're going to maintain that it somehow misrepresents the situation, on strictly factual grounds as it were, then we should probanky also note that Trump never met that child in a red room and never said those words either.

Should have been rather easy to find a real example, shouldn't it?

I think you're overburdening your objection by an arbitrary ex recto requirement: that the illustration should be able to be taken as literally true in order not to misrepresent the situation. I pointed the absurdity of that in my earlier reply quoted above.

The child was posed. That's a fact. Take the picture to mean what you want. If you think that's representative (but they preferred to use the fake but representative picture over the numerous other options of real representative pictures) then that's up to you. It's an inflammatory image.

The real question is, what should be done about the actual situation on the ground, which I summarized above. What do you think should be done?

It's an illustration for a magazine cover - not a piece of photo-journalism. They could have used a stock image of an anonymous distressed toddler and the point would have remained unchanged. The policy isn't made any more or less appalling by knowing the identity of the child or the exact circumstance of the photo - the child is emblematic of all the children separated from their parents and/or guardians, and the cover illustration a comment on the apparent casual, callous cruelty of the policy.

[Forty Two]

I recommend we look to civilized countries for their processes and procedures --

The Government of Australia has a policy and practice of detaining in immigration detention facilities non-citizens not holding a valid visa, suspected of visa violations, illegal entry or unauthorised arrival, and those subject to deportation and removal in immigration detention until a decision is made by the immigration authorities to grant a visa and release them into the community, or to repatriate them to their country of departure. Persons in immigration detention may at any time opt to voluntarily leave Australia for their country of origin, or they may be deported or given a bridging or temporary visa.

In 1992, Australia adopted a mandatory detention policy obliging the Australian Government to detain all persons entering or being in the country without a valid visa, while their claim to remain in Australia is processed and security and health checks undertaken. Also at the same the law was changed to permit indefinite detention, from the previous limit of 273 days. Mandatory detention continues to be part of a campaign by successive Australian governments to stop people without a valid visa (typically asylum seekers) entering the country by boat. The policy was instituted by the Keating Government in 1992, and has been varied by the subsequent Howard, Rudd, Gillard, Abbott and Turnbull Governments.[1] The policy is regarded as controversial and has been criticised by a number of organisations. The High Court of Australia has confirmed, by majority, the constitutionality of indefinite mandatory detention of aliens.[2] In its present form, the policy is credited with halting the seaborne people-smuggling trade to Australia and the thousands of death associated with it.

Mandatory detention rules also apply to persons whose visa has been cancelled by the Minister, for example on character grounds, allowing such persons to be detained in immigration detention and deported, some after living in Australia for a long period.[3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigrati ... _Australia

I think that Trump might consider creating a detention center on Guam or the Marianas Islands, and maybe one in and then all asylum seekers will go there and held in indefinite detention pending review of their asylum applications. It's at least something to consider here. I mean, it's "controversial," but I haven't seen news reporters bursting into tears over it, so it must be reasonable, if not preferred.

[Tero]

Trumpists! Young libertarians! Randians! Scott Walker followers!
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story ... -dc-218833
No Trump haters, no refugees clawing at their cages:
...Waterfront and into Navy Yard, on the banks of the Anacostia River. It’s a string of neighborhoods that peer out over the water, separated from most of the city by an interstate, and facing away from official Washington. It’s a bubble within the Washington bubble: Here, young Trump staffers mix largely with each other and enjoy the view from their rooftop pools, where they can feel far away from the District’s locals and the rest of its political class.

[Tero]

More from link:
The young Bush and Obama crews mustered a visible social presence in part because so many of them had bonded on the campaign trail; by the time they got to Washington, they were a crowd. But Trump’s slapdash campaign was leaner, his team was thrown together on the fly, and it was riven by factions—meaning those staffers now in D.C. tend to keep a lower profile, in smaller groups. “With Trump, it’s not like there’s a huge contingent of New York people who came in. It’s geographically very disparate,” says a former Trump administration official. “They don’t seem to be leaving the impact on D.C. culturally that Bushworld did.”

[tattuchu]

All this hand-wringing is much ado about nothing. Thank you, 42, for setting us free from this burden.

[Brian Peacock]

I recommend we look to civilized countries for their processes and procedures --

[... snipped: blatant, burden-shifting 'whataboutism' ...]

And I recommend you look to the logical consequences of your own objections to the Time cover illustration - and in so doing I invite you to publicly consider both what those objections communicate about your own views on the separatipn policy and the role journalism might play in reflecting truth to power.

[Brian Peacock]

[Seabass]

All this hand-wringing is much ado about nothing. Thank you, 42, for setting us free from this burden.

Right? If babies being taken from their parents by our government and tossed in toddler concentration camps doesn't put a dent in his devotion to his cult leader, nothing will. Republicans are dead inside.