Immigration Policy

[Archinerd]

Indeed. Only with Trump as POTUS could you lock up the poor kids.

Remind me, I forgot what makes it okay to do now just because it was done before.

[Smoove_B]

Former First Lady Laura Bush has some thoughts:

Our government should not be in the business of warehousing children in converted box stores or making plans to place them in tent cities in the desert outside of El Paso. These images are eerily reminiscent of the Japanese American internment camps of World War II, now considered to have been one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. history. We also know that this treatment inflicts trauma; interned Japanese have been two times as likely to suffer cardiovascular disease or die prematurely than those who were not interned.

Americans pride ourselves on being a moral nation, on being the nation that sends humanitarian relief to places devastated by natural disasters or famine or war. We pride ourselves on believing that people should be seen for the content of their character, not the color of their skin. We pride ourselves on acceptance. If we are truly that country, then it is our obligation to reunite these detained children with their parents - and to stop separating parents and children in the first place.

[Rip]

Indeed. Only with Trump as POTUS could you lock up the poor kids.

Remind me, I forgot what makes it okay to do now just because it was done before.

It doesn't. It just makes it hypocritical to have not raised a stink about it then and then make like it is some great new offense now.

[Defiant]

Brane said she also saw officials at the facility scold a group of 5-year-olds for playing around in their cage, telling them to settle down. There are no toys or books.

But one boy nearby wasn’t playing with the rest. According to Brane, he was quiet, clutching a piece of paper that was a photocopy of his mother’s ID card.

“The government is literally taking kids away from their parents and leaving them in inappropriate conditions,” Brane said. “If a parent left a child in a cage with no supervision with other 5-year-olds, they’d be held accountable.”

link

[Archinerd]

Indeed. Only with Trump as POTUS could you lock up the poor kids.

Remind me, I forgot what makes it okay to do now just because it was done before.

It doesn't. It just makes it hypocritical to have not raised a stink about it then and then make like it is some great new offense now.

If you agree that it's not okay, why are you trying to justify it now?

In the article it said that in 10 months of the program 536 children had been detained. That's not right, but it's not anywhere near the scale of what is going on right now.

And you know what? I did see people making a stink about Obama's immigration policies when he was president too. I personally witnessed one incident, here is an article covering that exact speech.

[Archinerd]

Thankfully it doesn't all seem to be like that, Casa Padre in Brownsville, TX at least sounds somewhat pleasant.

Reporters who visited told PRI they saw good conditions overall. Children are not kept in cages or cells. They’re free to move around, but they’re not allowed to leave the center. They get two hours per day outside. But because the center is overcrowded, five beds are packed into rooms built for four.
...
“It looked something like how I might describe a charter school...You had an area when you first walked in, there was a cafeteria, pretty nice kitchen. There were brightly colored murals painted all over the walls in other areas. There was a barbershop. There were indoor and outdoor basketball courts, pool tables, kids playing video games on big screen TVs. There was a movie theater playing ‘Moana’ in Spanish. There were classrooms. There was a medical area.”

link

[gbasden]

In the article it said that in 10 months of the program 536 children had been detained. That's not right, but it's not anywhere near the scale of what is going on right now.

And you know what? I did see people making a stink about Obama's immigration policies when he was president too. I personally witnessed one incident, here is an article covering that exact speech.

I knew Obama was being aggressive in enforcing the border laws, but if there is evidence he was systematically taking young children away from their parents and warehousing them with no supervision I'll call him an evil motherfucker too.

[GreenGoo]

It doesn't. It just makes it hypocritical to have not raised a stink about it then and then make like it is some great new offense now.

Thanks for bringing it to our attention years later to score points in some weird game that you think we're all playing (which I've already won, btw. See Fitzy).

You're a true paragon.

It's your position that we were all aware of this and simply kept quiet because it was a Dem administration doing it? And it's your position that the 2 situations are the same?

[pr0ner]

DHS Secretary Nielsen got ratioed HARD on Twitter for this one.



And rightfully so.

[Skinypupy]

CBP would appreciate it if you stopped saying they're keeping people in "cages". I mean, they are keeping them in cages, but they really don't like it when you actually say that out loud.

This just in from @davidbegnaud: Border Patrol has reached out to @cbsthismorning and said they are "very uncomfortable" with the use of the word cages. They say it's not inaccurate and added that they may be cages but people are not being treated like animals.

[Isgrimnur]

Yankees Red Sox go home

Governor Charlie Baker is canceling the deployment of Massachusetts National Guard troops to the border in light of recent reports about the Trump Administration’s practice of separating immigrant children from families.

“Governor Baker directed the National Guard not to send any assets or personnel to the Southwest border today because the federal government’s current actions are resulting in the inhumane treatment of children,” said Baker communications director Lizzy Guyton in a statement sent to WGBH News.
...
Oregon Governor Kate Brown, a Democrat, said she would refuse to send troops to the border if asked, and Montana Governor Steve Bullock expressed reticence as well. Vermont Governor Phil Scott said in April that he “would not be eager” to send National Guard troops to the border, but a spokeswoman told WGBH News in a statement last week that the state had not received a specific request for assistance, and would “evaluate any such requests based on the needs and our available resources at that time.”

[Skinypupy]

By the way, we've apparently moved from "crisis actors" to "child refugee actors" who are being coached by liberals.

Conservative commentator Ann Coulter called children crying at the border after being separated from parents “child actors” during an appearance Sunday on Fox News.

Coulter also said President Trump should not fall for the "child actors" as he faces pressure to end his zero-tolerance policy at the border, which has resulted in parents being separated from their children so that they face immediate deportation.

Coulter referenced a story in The New Yorker in arguing that children filmed at the border are acting, saying it had described the children as being coached.

“A New Yorker article, The New Yorker is not a conservative publication, they describe how these kids, these kids are being coached," she said. "They’re given scripts to read by liberals, according to The New Yorker. Don’t fall for the actor children.”

It’s unclear what New Yorker article Coulter was referring to.

Every time I think I couldn't despise this woman (and anyone who listens to her) any more that I already do...

[Fretmute]

By the way, we've apparently moved from "crisis actors" to "child refugee actors" who are being coached by liberals.

People believe things like this, and I think to myself "Have these people not heard of Occam's Razor?", and then I realize, no, they probably haven't, because they're idiots.

Concoct for me the most Rube Goldbergian scheme to discredit Trump possible!

[Holman]

Indeed. Only with Trump as POTUS could you lock up the poor kids.

Remind me, I forgot what makes it okay to do now just because it was done before.

It doesn't. It just makes it hypocritical to have not raised a stink about it then and then make like it is some great new offense now.

These children arrived at the border as unaccompanied minors. (Have people forgotten that border crisis already?)

They weren't forcible separated from their families as part of a strategy of intentional cruelty and state terror such as we're seeing now.

[YellowKing]

“I say it’s very strongly the Democrats’ fault, their obstruction, they’re really obstructionist and they’re really obstructing,” Trump said.

And this is why I can't listen to this 3rd-grade reading level buffoon talk for more than 10 seconds.

[Rip]

Makes more sense to keep them together by sending them home together.

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).

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.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/ ... at-border/

[Chaz]

Wait, so they need to declare at the first safe country they come to, right? But the President is constantly saying how Mexico and everywhere south is just so full of horrible crime and murder, right? So they probably don't feel safe in those places, because of the crime and murder. So they come to the US, to one of those ports. Except those ports are locking them out. So they're being prevented from entering legally in those places. Then, if they try to cross elsewhere and present themselves immediately to claim asylum (which is another legal option for claiming asylum), they're arrested and charged, and their kids are taken and put in cages.

But hey, it doesn't matter, because they're just criminals, right?

[Pyperkub]

133 year ago today, the Statue of Liberty arrived in New York

#OTD in 1885, the Statue of Liberty arrived at the New York Harbor. Designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, this massive copper statue became a symbol of freedom and opportunity to immigrants arriving from overseas. #oldestallies #fromthearchives

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

[YellowKing]

Even if there's a better way to claim asylum, the fact of the matter is that pre-Trump, we managed it without taking babies away from their mothers.

It's yet another example of the compassionless conservativism that rules the country today.

[Captain Caveman]

https://twitter.com/ericuman/status/1008800749298610176

This is absolutely excruciating to listen to. I had to turn it off.

[Holman]

This is barely even a dog whistle. It's just straight-up race-baiting:

The people of Germany are turning against their leadership as migration is rocking the already tenuous Berlin coalition. Crime in Germany is way up. Big mistake made all over Europe in allowing millions of people in who have so strongly and violently changed their culture!

Spoiler:
1) Here we have Trump openly rooting for the collapse of an ally's government,
2) He's lying; Germany's crime rates are currently the lowest since 1992.

Meanwhile, Italy's far-right Interior Minister just announced that they're going to seek out and round up all the Roma for deportation.

[GreenGoo]

This is absolutely excruciating to listen to. I had to turn it off.

I just want to remind everyone that Rip's stance is they should have followed the rules if they didn't want this to happen.

[Holman]

The White House press briefing is delayed for several hours at this point because Sarah Sanders reportedly didn't want to take questions about the administration's family separation policy, per @CNN. They're waiting on a DHS official to show up to take questions instead.

[Captain Caveman]

Wow. Did she reach her breaking point? I wonder if that's the end of her as press secretary.

Edit: nevermind. She's at the podium now introducing Nielsen

[malchior]

[Holman]

Nielson is awful. Just awful.

She declares it's not a policy and then defends it as policy. She blames Dems when nearly all Dem congresspeople have come out against the policy.

She says it's not child abuse because there are TV's for the children.

[malchior]

That was awful. The head of DHS just got up and brazenly lied about a policy that breaks up families in a way that can only be described as evil. We are governed by evil people. There is no reasonable other way to parse this 'event'. This isn't some tough love policy. This should break the administration but again the Republicans are turning a blind eye in general. Fuck them - they deserve death as a party.

[Holman]

She called basic journalistic questions "offensive" because they pushed back against her claims.

[malchior]

She called basic journalistic questions "offensive" because they pushed back against her claims.

This is the clearly new play when asked tough questions. This happened also when the media pushed back against some of the Korea summit lies about how verification would work. We are in some dark shit here.

Re: Verification of Denuclearization in North Korea

QUESTION: And the President said it will be verified.

SECRETARY POMPEO: Of course it will.

QUESTION: Can you tell us a little bit more about —

SECRETARY POMPEO: Of course it will. I mean —

QUESTION:— what is — what discussed about how?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Just so you know, you could ask me this — I find that question insulting and ridiculous and, frankly, ludicrous. I just have to be honest with you. It's a game and one ought not play games with serious matters like this.

[Captain Caveman]

That presser by Nielsen was scary as fuck. Just brazen lying and completely heartless.

[malchior]

Wait what? I thought it was the Democrats? These guys just make shit up on the regular now. There is no subtlety here - it is just out and out lying.

[Holman]

Yeah. Don't waste any time on sympathy for Sanders.

[AWS260]

Good to see that America is still the leader of the free world, inspiring our allies to walk in our footsteps.

Italy’s new government plans to carry out a census of the Roma community with an eye to kicking out anyone staying in the country illegally, Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said on Monday.

“Unfortunately we will have to keep the Italian Roma because we can’t expel them,” Salvini, who is head of the far-right League, told television station Telelombardia.

[Holman]

All 49 Democratic and independent senators (even Manchin) have signed on to a bill to end family separation.

Not one Republican has done so.

It's very clear who is on the right side of history here.

[Smoove_B]

Yeah, but the Democrats are obstructing obstructionists - that's what Trump said, so it must be true.

[dbt1949]

I was under the impression that illegal aliens were considered criminals. I realize that they may not have been convicted but they're still in jail "awaiting their trial "or whatever it's called in this case.
Other criminals in the US don't get to take their children to jail with them.
Altho I do think the children's separation should be handled better.

[Chaz]

There's a difference between entering the country illegally, and entering to request asylum. The administration is attempting to conflate the two, and shutting down avenues of applying for asylum. In the process, they may be violating laws and international agreements.

[Holman]

I was under the impression that illegal aliens were considered criminals. I realize that they may not have been convicted but they're still in jail "awaiting their trial "or whatever it's called in this case.
Other criminals in the US don't get to take their children to jail with them.
Altho I do think the children's separation should be handled better.

Asylum seekers have to cross into the U.S. before they can seek asylum. There is no asylum visa request from outside the country.

It's a Catch-22. Other administrations have handled it more humanely. Trump and his people are exploiting it to sinister effect because they are evil fucks.

[Chaz]

Also worth noting that Paul Mannafort is being accused of several high level crimes, and he was allowed to post bail and go free. He's only back in jail because he used that opportunity to flagrantly do more crime. So we're totally fine with people accused of crimes walking free, as long as they have the money to buy their way out.

[Fitzy]

It doesn't. It just makes it hypocritical to have not raised a stink about it then and then make like it is some great new offense now.

Thanks for bringing it to our attention years later to score points in some weird game that you think we're all playing (which I've already won, btw. See Fitzy).