Immigration Policy

[dbt1949]

So I gather everyone coming from south of the border is considered an asylum seeker.

[Smoove_B]

Of course not. However, I'm still waiting for the in-depth investigation that reveals numerous sleeper-cell infants and 6 year olds were really MS13 gang members, deep undercover and looking to sneak into America. Even noted criminal Nelson Mandela had a succinct observation:

There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.

[dbt1949]

But they're not our children.

[Kraken]

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.

Pardon me: white-collar crime is not real crime.

[dbt1949]

Don't get me wrong, I hate Trump and most all his policies but I am having trouble sorting this particular thing all out.
Yes, these children are being treated wrong but most of these people coming from the south are here for financial reasons and will say anything to stay/get here.
If congress doesn't like how things are being run enact some laws to change it.

[LawBeefaroni]

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.

They don't have to cross the border. They can, and do, request asylum at the border. We've taken their kids too.

[Rip]

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.

How much are the ones they release putting up in bond?

[Kraken]

Don't get me wrong, I hate Trump and most all his policies but I am having trouble sorting this particular thing all out.
Yes, these children are being treated wrong but most of these people coming from the south are here for financial reasons and will say anything to stay/get here.
If congress doesn't like how things are being run enact some laws to change it.

This is a long facebook post that addresses your questions. I found it educational.

Spoiler:

Overheard: “There is so much misinformation out there about the Trump administration's new "zero tolerance" policy that requires criminal prosecution, which then warrants the separating of parents and children at the southern border. Before responding to a post defending this policy, please do your research...As a professor at a local Cal State, I research and write about these issues, so here, I wrote the following to make it easier for you:

Myth: This is not a new policy and was practiced under Obama and Clinton - FALSE. The policy to separate parents and children is new and was instituted on 4/6/2018. It was the “brainchild” of John Kelly and Stephen Miller to serve as a deterrent for undocumented immigration, and some allege to be used as a bargaining chip. The policy was approved by Trump, and adopted by Sessions. Prior administrations detained migrant families, but didn’t have a practice of forcibly separating parents from their children unless the adults were deemed unfit. https://www.justice.gov/…/press-rele…/f ... 1/download…

Myth: This is the only way to deter undocumented immigration - FALSE. Annual trends show that arrests for undocumented entry are at a 46 year low, and undocumented crossings dropped in 2007, with a net loss (more people leaving than arriving). Deportations have increased steadily though (spiking in 1996 and more recently), because several laws that were passed since 1996 have made it more difficult to gain legal status for people already here, and thus increased their deportations (I address this later under the myth that it's the Democrats' fault). What we mostly have now are people crossing the border illegally because they've already been hired by a US company, or because they are seeking political asylum. Economic migrants come to this country because our country has kept the demand going. But again, many of these people impacted by Trump's "zero tolerance" policy appear to be political asylum-seekers. https://www.npr.org/…/arrests-for-illeg ... crossings-…

Myth: Most of the people coming across the border are just trying to take advantage of our country by taking our jobs - FALSE. Most of the parents who have been impacted by Trump's "zero tolerance" policy have presented themselves as political asylum-seekers at a U.S. port-of-entry, from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Rather than processing their claims, according to witness accounts, it appears as though they have been taken into custody on the spot and had their children ripped from their arms. The ACLU alleges that this practice violates the US Asylum Act, and the UN asserts that it violates the UN Treaty on the State of Refugees, one of the few treaties the US has ratified. The ACLU asserts that this policy is an illegal act on the part of the United States government, not to mention morally and ethically reprehensible. https://www.nytimes.com/…/meatpackers-p ... ge-on-pool…

Myth: We're a country that respects the Rule of Law, and if people break the law, this is what they get - FALSE. We are a country that has an above-ground system of immigration and an underground system. Our government (under both parties) has always been aware that US companies recruit workers in the poorest parts of Mexico for cheap labor, and ICE (and its predecessor INS) has looked the other way because this underground economy benefits our country to the tune of billions of dollars annually. Thus, even though many of the people crossing the border now are asylum-seekers, those who are economic migrants (migrant workers) likely have been recruited here to do jobs Americans will not do. https://www.upi.com/…/Donald-Trumps-wal ... 477498203/

Myth: The children have to be separated from their parents because the parents must be arrested and it would be cruel to put children in jail with their parents - FALSE. First, in the case of economic migrants crossing the border illegally, criminal prosecution has not been the legal norm, and families have historically been kept together at all cost. Also, crossing the border without documentation is typically a misdemeanor not requiring arrest, but rather has been handled in a civil proceeding. Additionally, parents who have been detained have historically been detained with their children in ICE "family residential centers," again, for civil processing. The Trump administration's shift in policy is for political purposes only, not legal ones. See p. 18: https://www.aclu.org/…/ms-l-v-ice-plain ... sition-def…

Myth: We have rampant fraud in our asylum process, the proof of which is the significant increase we have in the number of people applying for asylum. FALSE. The increase in asylum seekers is a direct result of the increase in civil conflict and violence across the globe. While some people may believe that we shouldn't allow any refugees into our country because "it's not our problem," neither our current asylum law, nor our ideological foundation as a country support such an isolationist approach. There is very little evidence to support Sessions' claim that abuse of our asylum-seeking policies is rampant. Also, what Sessions failed to mention is that the majority of asylum seekers are from China, not South of the border. Here is a very fair and balanced assessment of his statements: http://www.politifact.com/…/jeff-sessio ... about-asyl…/

Myth: The Democrats caused this, "it's their law." FALSE. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats caused this, the Trump administration did (although the Republicans could fix this today, and have refused). I believe what this myth refers to is the passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which were both passed under Clinton in 1996. These laws essentially made unauthorized entry into the US a crime (typically a misdemeanor for first-time offenders), but under both Republicans and Democrats, these cases were handled through civil deportation proceedings, not a criminal proceeding, which did not require separation. And again, even in cases where detainment was required, families were always kept together in family residential centers, unless the parents were deemed unfit (as mentioned above). Thus, Trump's assertion that he hates this policy but has no choice but to separate the parents from their children, because the Democrats "gave us this law" is false and nothing more than propaganda designed to compel negotiation on bad policy. https://www.independent.co.uk/…/trump-d ... s-border-m…

Myth: The parents and children will be reunited shortly, once the parents' court cases are finalized. FALSE. Criminal court is a vastly different beast than civil court proceedings. Also, the children are being processed as unaccompanied minors ("unaccompanied alien children"), which typically means they are in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHS). Under normal circumstances when a child enters the country without his or her parent, ORR attempts to locate a family member within a few weeks, and the child is then released to a family member, or if a family member cannot be located, the child is placed in a residential center (anywhere in the country), or in some cases, foster care. Prior to Trump's new policy, ORR was operating at 95% capacity, and they simply cannot effectively manage the influx of 2000+ children, some as young as 4 months old. Also, keep in mind, these are not unaccompanied minor children, they have parents. There is great legal ambiguity on how and even whether the parents will get their children back because we are in uncharted territory right now. According to the ACLU lawsuit (see below), there is currently no easy vehicle for reuniting parents with their children. Additionally, according to a May 2018 report, numerous cases of verbal, physical and sexual abuse were found to have occurred in these residential centers. https://www.aclu.org/…/aclu-obtains-doc ... wing-wides…

Myth: This policy is legal. LIKELY FALSE. The ACLU filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on 5/6/18, and a recent court ruling denied the government's motion to dismiss the suit. The judge deciding the case stated that the Trump Administration’s policy is "brutal, offensive, and fails to comport with traditional notions of fair play and decency." The case is moving forward because it was deemed to have legal merit. https://www.bloomberg.com/…/aclu-suit-o ... separation…

- Michelle Martin

[dbt1949]

Thanks! That does a good job of clearing a lot of things up.

[Defiant]

A Texas sheriff's deputy was being held Monday on a charge of "super aggravated sexual assault" of a 4-year-old girl after authorities say her mother, an undocumented immigrant, was being blackmailed to stay silent about the abuse — or face deportation.

link

[malchior]

Fox in its favorite role as the Voice of the Deplorable

[Defiant]

"Summer camp"? What, did she go to Camp Crystal Lake as a child or something?

[Defiant]

[$iljanus]

Fox in its favorite role as the Voice of the Deplorable

Yeah, like sending your kids to Camp Manzanar

[em2nought]

After the whole boondoggle of the

he's starting a war with N. Korea/he's placating N. Korea thing

you're desperately after the Hispanic vote aren't you?

[malchior]

+1 for the Washington Post here.



Edit: Also this is hilarious in a sick, twisted way.

However, Nielsen’s consent to take the brunt of the bullets from an increasingly unpopular policy has paid her no dividends with the boss. Per Politico, Trump has Nielsen square in his phaser beams, targeting his wrath on her as criticism pours in from both sides of the aisle.

Nielsen reportedly seems to be in an increasingly perilous situation, as Trump’s dislike—which he has sustained since she began in his White House, due to her Bush administration origins—grows and Kelly’s influence wanes.

Trump is pretty much among the worst leaders in the world (at least to his subordinates), he burns these people, and these people keep falling on swords for him. Why? I don't get it at all.

[Holman]

Trump is pretty much among the worst leaders in the world (at least to his subordinates), he burns these people, and these people keep falling on swords for him. Why? I don't get it at all.

Trump is meeting with GOP leadership today to try to get out from under this disaster. I assume McConnell and Ryan are going to offer him a way to claim he has solved the problem and saved the children...

...at which point every surrogate and toady who put their reputations on the line to defend the policy will be left holding a bag of shit.

[Holman]

Democrats are the problem. They don’t care about crime and want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country, like MS-13. They can’t win on their terrible policies, so they view them as potential voters!

"Infest."

He's also using the same language to talk about migrants in Germany, but of course they've heard it before.

[NickAragua]

It's funny, back when the orange turd got elected, I made some not-so-joking jokes about him setting up gulags. I wish I had been wrong.

I just don't see how it's possible for me to respect anyone who voted for this scum.

[El Guapo]

Trump is pretty much among the worst leaders in the world (at least to his subordinates), he burns these people, and these people keep falling on swords for him. Why? I don't get it at all.

It's pretty baffling. I assume that it's a mix of ambition and the opportunity to wield power. And that once you've done a few bad things, probably easier to keep going than to admit your sins.

[gilraen]

Trump is pretty much among the worst leaders in the world (at least to his subordinates), he burns these people, and these people keep falling on swords for him. Why? I don't get it at all.

It's pretty baffling. I assume that it's a mix of ambition and the opportunity to wield power. And that once you've done a few bad things, probably easier to keep going than to admit your sins.

More like mix of denial, self-flagellation, and Stockholm Syndrome.

[Blackhawk]

I wonder if this is the line in the sand that will finally start to turn his party against him? The voter blowback on this has got to be huge.

[Skinypupy]

I wonder if this is the line in the sand that will finally start to turn his party against him? The voter blowback on this has got to be huge.

Elections aren't until November. Voters have the attention span of a gnat at the best of times, and this will likely be buried under a massive mountain of other bullshit by then.

Sadly, I don't see it having much effect one way or the other.

[Octavious]

I don't think it will be. We have been shown time and time again that we have some really shitty people out there. To them anyone that wasn't born here does not matter and can be treated like animals.

[Holman]

I wonder if this is the line in the sand that will finally start to turn his party against him? The voter blowback on this has got to be huge.

Yeah. Nope.

According the NYT's reporting, stoking divisions over immigration is central to Trump's 2018 election strategy.

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

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

This fear-oriented approach reflects the degree that Mr. Trump has put his anti-immigration imprint on the Republican Party. The same raw appeals Mr. Trump made in 2016 about immigrants illegally crossing the border have not abated among most of his Republican supporters. And his supporters say the party has little choice in an election where Democrats are eager to register their opposition to a president they despise — and that the only way to succeed in a campaign driven by turning out the party base is to focus on what grass-roots conservatives care most about.

The risk is great (and the blowback among Dems and independents might be greater than Trump/Miller/Kelly expected) but it's all aimed at motivating the base.

The cruelty is a feature, not a bug. To the Deplorables, we absolutely are that country now.

[Archinerd]

Yeah, best case scenario is this doesn't take us one more step toward genocide. It's a low bar.

[malchior]

Funny side note - Session's church brought church charges against him for his immoral defense of the child separations and invoking the bible to support it.

A group of more than 600 United Methodist clergy unhappy with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a fellow Methodist, on his zero-tolerance enforcement of US immigration law is bringing church charges against him, according to a United Methodist Church news release.

Sessions is a member of a Mobile, Alabama United Methodist church.

[El Guapo]

This whole separation policy is hugely unpopular (more so than the travel ban, which actually mildly surprised me). Almost by definition it's going to cost Trump / the GOP in the polls in at least the short term. After that? Harder to say (in part because it will depend on what Trump does, including whether he ever rescinds the policy). While any given issue almost always fades over time, this stuff gets baked into people's long-term views (and this stuff is reaching low-information voters). Overall seems unlikely to help Trump, but the degree of impact is unclear.

[Blackhawk]

Makes me wish it was October.

[Kraken]

It's funny, back when the orange turd got elected, I made some not-so-joking jokes about him setting up gulags. I wish I had been wrong.

I just don't see how it's possible for me to respect anyone who voted for this scum.

While standing in a checkout line this morning I again encountered an old white man who loudly proclaimed that Trump is finally setting things right after eight years of "the worst president this country has ever had." To her credit, the cashier deflected with "I never read news at all," which our Trumpster approved of because "It's all fake anyway."

You can't engage with someone who's that far gone, much less respect him.

[Daehawk]

Lots of fun stuff today boys and girls.....

Hundreds at Jeff Sessions own church....United Methodist Church.....sign petition calling him a child abuser for his immigration policies

And I just saw it posted above about the church..sry

US to break away from UN's Human Rights Council ..I mean if you have no human rights you dont need to be on the council right?

3 states refuse to send National Guard troops to the border due to policies on separating children

[Enough]

You know what makes MS-13 cohorts and other deadlies? Policies exactly like Trump is pursuing. You can bet these kids who came to the border to request asylum will remember this.

[raydude]

It's funny, back when the orange turd got elected, I made some not-so-joking jokes about him setting up gulags. I wish I had been wrong.

I just don't see how it's possible for me to respect anyone who voted for this scum.

While standing in a checkout line this morning I again encountered an old white man who loudly proclaimed that Trump is finally setting things right after eight years of "the worst president this country has ever had." To her credit, the cashier deflected with "I never read news at all," which our Trumpster approved of because "It's all fake anyway."

You can't engage with someone who's that far gone, much less respect him.

You could always go with "What do you care? You've got one foot in the grave and then you're off to heaven." Which is one of my pet peeves with the whole thing. It seems like a loud and vocal subset of Trump supporters, those who think climate change is fake, and immigrants are bad, are one foot from dying. So why do they care about issues whose effects will only be seen after they are gone?

[El Guapo]

More from 538 on how unpopular the separation policy is.

[El Guapo]

Charlie Baker has announced that he'll no longer send the MA national guard to help at the border due to the separation policy.

[Defiant]

US to break away from UN's Human Rights Council ..I mean if you have no human rights you dont need to be on the council right?

I think it's a mistake to do so, but the council itself is pretty hypocritical, with a long history of having countries with completely terrible human rights records as members.

[Isgrimnur]

You really have two options.

1) Allow any country to have a seat to foster inclusiveness
2) Let only those with good records have a seat, ostracizing those that don't, who aren't going to listen to you anyway.

[LordMortis]

Democrats are the problem. They don’t care about crime and want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country, like MS-13. They can’t win on their terrible policies, so they view them as potential voters!

If he had a lick of sense he'd quit repeating MS-13 ad nauseum and instead say Russian Mafia and he'd start screening the borders and airports for slavic descendants.

http://fortune.com/2014/09/14/biggest-o ... the-world/

He could even use this to highlight cracking down the Opium epidemic he's been saying he's been doing.

[LordMortis]

According the NYT's reporting, stoking divisions over immigration is central to Trump's 2018 election strategy.

Who needs the NYT for that? He's turned Whitehouse.gov in to his election site

https://www.whitehouse.gov/

Look at your contents headers.

This whole separation policy is hugely unpopular (more so than the travel ban, which actually mildly surprised me).

Hence the spin that there is no increase in separation, and besides this increase was caused by a bad loophole and the Democracts are stopping Congress from fixing this miscarriage of justice s to keep Trumps Decree... um executive order... um, whatever from working as intended making sure that children are in fact detained with their parents like all good humans want to do if but can't if it weren't democrats and their hatred of all the children.

[El Guapo]

You really have two options.

1) Allow any country to have a seat to foster inclusiveness
2) Let only those with good records have a seat, ostracizing those that don't, who aren't going to listen to you anyway.

I would suggest only allowing in countries where its most recent election was certified free and fair by an independent organization. If you're not willing to provide that basic amount of human rights to your citizens, then there's nothing to discuss. And the uselessness of the UN HRC in its current form is the inevitable byproduct of not having any minimum human rights requirement to participate.