Trump immigrant family separation policy

[lionking]

Originally Posted by logger

This is to identify smugglers, sheesh, do you even get that? ****!

How do DNA tests identify smugglers?

[logger]

Originally Posted by I Am The Scum

That is absolutely the way law enforcement works in this country. Cops don't pull over random people because they might be in a stolen car. They don't get to confiscate people's guns because they might be murder weapons.

All I'm saying is that if a government agent is going to place a child in custody, they should have a reasonable suspicion that the child was the victim of or perpetrator of a crime. Feel free to disagree with that one if you want.

You think these people are picked up walking out of a Taco Bell?

[logger]

Originally Posted by lionking

How do DNA tests identify smugglers?

To see if they are related? Possibly

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by I Am The Scum

That is absolutely the way law enforcement works in this country. Cops don't pull over random people because they might be in a stolen car. They don't get to confiscate people's guns because they might be murder weapons.

All I'm saying is that if a government agent is going to place a child in custody, they should have a reasonable suspicion that the child was the victim of or perpetrator of a crime. Feel free to disagree with that one if you want.

Goodness, I usually agree with you and I hate the current policy, but I think you're wrong here. If one's parents are taken into custody and no one else is available, then the child would be taken into custodial care.

Like I said, the fact that Sessions has decided to take every family into custody is a bad move, but I think that your description of the effect is mistaken.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by phiwum

Goodness, I usually agree with you and I hate the current policy, but I think you're wrong here. If one's parents are taken into custody and no one else is available, then the child would be taken into custodial care.

Like I said, the fact that Sessions has decided to take every family into custody is a bad move, but I think that your description of the effect is mistaken.

Think any effort has been made to see if any friends or family are available?

Here are a couple pertinent facts you are leaving out:

One, they are being charged, I do believe one gets a hearing before being convicted.

And even if without any rights to a trial, they are convicted, it's a minor misdemeanor charge. You don't lose your kids because you are convicted of a misdemeanor.

First time offense for a misdemeanor, and you have kids with you, you will get probation or a suspended sentence or no time.

Two, if you are arrested and your kids are with you, you have a chance to call relatives to come get the kids. They are not whisked off into social services custody if you have relatives or friends that can come pick them up, I don't care if they are citizens or not. Hell, half the right-wingers wanted Elian Gonzales to stay with FL relatives. No one said, he's not a citizen, deport him to Cuba.

Some of those kids had relatives in the US.

Three, it's not American to use children as hostages. What friggin country do you live in? What, just because they are brown they are non-people? You know what they are being held hostage for (besides disgusting unethical reasons), Trump believes he will get mid-term votes out of it. Because the alt-whiters believe the false stats that if these immigrants are let out with court dates they don't show up for court.

That turns out to be a lie, the majority do indeed return for their asylum court hearings.

Calling it catch and release? Really, talk about trigger framing. They are people, not fish.

[Travis]

Originally Posted by logger

I wonder if anyone here is interested in these facts. Maybe the Dems are in support of the smugglers.



http://dailycaller.com/2018/06/19/to...ons-dna-tests/

When America descends into civil war you can bet there will be families trying to become refugees in Canada. That day will come but it isn't here quite yet. Until then comparing the situation is ridiculous.

[BobTheCoward]

Originally Posted by logger

No, but that isn’t the way law enforcement works. Are you going to be the border patrol agent that lets one get by?

So if a family can produce evidence they are related, like cell phone photos, do you think they should not be detained and separated?

[sylvan8798]

Originally Posted by I Am The Scum

If we're going to be honest, this catastrophe falls squarely on the shoulders of the first Democrat ever. And that Democrat's name was Jesus.

If you want to get technical, "God" rips children from the arms of their parents every day.

Quote:

The under-five mortality rate for the world is 40.8 deaths according to the World Bank and the World Health Organization. 5.6 million children under age five died in 2016, 15 000 every day.

[sylvan8798]

Originally Posted by BobTheCoward

So if a family can produce evidence they are related, like cell phone photos, do you think they should not be detained and separated?

Some of those smugglers are so dedicated to their craft that they breast feed the infants they are smuggling. It's amazing.

[The Don]

It's being reported here in the UK that the Republican bill to address the situation contains a couple of rather controversial points:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44543252

1) $25bn for border security - including the Trump border wall

If that's the case then the President's blackmail was successful. Of course Mexico was supposed to pay for it, but that ship would never have sailed in any case

2) Formalising separation of children

The bill would allegedly limit child separation, but not ban it altogether. Knowing how little legislators read, and the "give an inch, take a mile" approach adopted by this administration against immigrants, I'd suggest that gives the green light for the indefinite separation of parents and children in the majority of cases

The GOP is showing its true colours once again. I have been wrong when I thought that the majority of GOP legislators were just cowards afraid of being primaried and that a lot of GOP supporters were supporting Trump through mistaken partisanship. It turns out that both groups are active supporters of his policies (along with a significant minority of independents) and that around 40% of people in the US are openly racist an white supremacist - I stand corrected

[Craig4]

Originally Posted by Travis

Is this the point where we can stop pretending that conservatives have any shred of humanity in them? Is creating child concentration camps intended only for cruelty the line they cross when we write them off as human beings worth sharing a nation with?


I think we liberals need to seriously ponder those questions.

That's a bit of a cheap shot at conservatives. Some of the strongest condemnations of this policy have come from conservatives. This is a question of being loyal to the nation and our values or not. You can be loyal to our values and be conservative. You cannot be loyal to this country and support this president and his policies.

[The Don]

Originally Posted by Craig4

That's a bit of a cheap shot at conservatives. Some of the strongest condemnations of this policy have come from conservatives. This is a question of being loyal to the nation and our values or not. You can be loyal to our values and be conservative. You cannot be loyal to this country and support this president and his policies.

And yet the conservatives are putting together a bill which gives President Trump $25bn for border security (including the wall) and allows separation of parents and children - they're enabling his blackmailing.

A true condemnation would not provide him with a generous quid pro quo for dropping what is allegedly* a very controversial policy.

* - I guess we'll see. Although the US electorate are supposed to be against it, large scale opposition seems to have been quite muted.

[McHrozni]

Originally Posted by The Don

* - I guess we'll see. Although the US electorate are supposed to be against it, large scale opposition seems to have been quite muted.

The thing is separation of parents and children is in some cases justified. Jeff Sessions is simply abusing an existing law in place to protect children from criminal parents.

It's difficult to make a simple alternative and public rarely rallies behind a complex alternative. That's why the large scale opposition is muted.

McHrozni

[Lurch]

Saw a bit on some news channel yesterday. Two groups of Trump supporters were interviewed, one in a restaurant, the other in a bar, I think. The former were middle-aged or older white folk. The latter were 20-something professionals, two or three of them being people of color/children of immigrants. The former had kids and grandkids. The latter had none.

Who do you think were the less sympathetic to the plight of the children being taken from their parents?

Yep. The fat, priveleged, old, angry white folk stuffing their avaricious, ignorant faces with cholesterol. Those are the *********** deplorables. And I'm a middle-aged white guy myself. Goddamned disgusting.

[The Don]

Originally Posted by McHrozni

The thing is separation of parents and children is in some cases justified. Jeff Sessions is simply abusing an existing law in place to protect children from criminal parents.

It's difficult to make a simple alternative and public rarely rallies behind a complex alternative. That's why the large scale opposition is muted.

McHrozni

True.

And there are a lot of people who view all illegal immigrants as subhumans. Always mentioning MS-13 when referring to Hispanic people is just part of the process - as, no doubt, is exaggerating the threat that MS-13 presents to US society.

As far as brown people go....

Immigrants = Illegals = Gangbangers = Threat to society

And so any and all actions are justified...

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

The Pope has chimed in: https://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/1006468651392745472

Quote:

Children must be able to play, study and grow in a peaceful environment. Woe to anyone who stifles their joyful impulse to hope!

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

https://twitter.com/JProskowGlobal/s...19915348021249

Quote:

NEW: I just spoke with the former head of US Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) – He tells me that he expects hundreds of separated children will never be reunited with their parents. They will be lost in the system. Orphaned by the US Govt'.

He says that during his time at ICE there were rare cases where children could not be reunited with their parents. Separation becomes permanent. This was *before* Trump’s policy that has so far separated 2300+ children from their parents.

He adds there are two separate legal tracks for children and adult migrants who are detained. Adults can be deported within weeks to their home countries, children may be left in the US for years in foster care or with relatives.

"there’s very little that we in the United States can do to deter people who are fleeing this horrific violence in Central America to stop them trying to come here" John Sandweg told me.

“there’s so little that we can do that’s worse than what they are facing” Sandweg says, based on his experience at ICE.

"the federal government is not very good at keeping track of kids and parents.” he says.

"if the administration doesn’t reunify these children very quickly, which is logistically very hard to do, you’re going to have a lot of permanent separations."

"I think we’re going to see hundreds of cases where children are permanently separated from their parents, becoming wards of the United States"

One final thought from the former head of ICE: "I don’t understand why we’re doing this. From a border security perspective this adds nothing to securing our borders”

On child separation, former acting director of ICE John Sandweg said "the other thing that scares me Jackson, is I’m not seeing any signs that this was a planned policy change ... and I think that’s being reflected by these horrific detention facilities"

There's a transcript and a video embedded in the last couple of tweets in that thread.

And it feeds in to the question I asked right at the start of this thread, and which nobody has been able to answer - who actually benefits from this policy? How does it make America safer, or better? It seems that the reason nobody who is defending this policy can answer those questions is because the answers are "nobody" and "it doesn't", respectively.

It really is just being cruel for the sake of being cruel in hopes that it will act as a "deterrent", even though ICE's own internal documents show that it isn't.

[McHrozni]

Originally Posted by The Don

True.

And there are a lot of people who view all illegal immigrants as subhumans. Always mentioning MS-13 when referring to Hispanic people is just part of the process - as, no doubt, is exaggerating the threat that MS-13 presents to US society.

The greatest threat MS-13 presents to US society is what it's doing now, promoting xenophobia and destroying the liberal world order as a result.

Quote:

As far as brown people go....

Immigrants = Illegals = Gangbangers = Threat to society

And so any and all actions are justified...

Yeah. And there is no easy solution for that. Once the Pandoras' box is open it's hard to put the evil back in - it'll take decades at least.
Usually wars or major crises are how these things ended. I'm not looking forward to that.

McHrozni

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

https://twitter.com/radleybalko/stat...47903754448896

Quote:

NBC is reporting that the feds’ new desert tent city outside of Tornillo, Texas, is preparing for more than 4,000 children. 20 to a tent. Expected high in Tornillo tomorrow: 106 degrees.

I wonder when we're going to start seeing the first deaths?

[Craig B]

Originally Posted by NoahFence

Get a *********** ladder and take down the Statue of liberty.

Cynics can now have no end of fun amending Emma Lazarus's sonnet The New Colossus, written to raise funding for the Statue of Liberty, and now displayed on that monument. The original manuscript is held by the American Jewish Historical Society, who may want to make a present of it to Trump, as a timely reminder. But they can amend it a bit before doing so, as I have done in bold here...

Here at our guarded lockfast gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose shame
Is the imprisoned children, and her name
EXCLUDER OF EXILES ...

Keep these, the homeless, tempest-tost from me,
I douse my lamp beside the bolted door!

Lazarus was a Zionist before Herzl, by the way. She was radicalised by the plight of Jewish refugees fleeing from the Russian pogroms. Per wiki.

Lazarus became more interested in her Jewish ancestry after reading the George Eliot novel Daniel Deronda, and as she heard of the Russian pogroms that followed the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881 ... An important forerunner of the Zionist movement, Lazarus argued for the creation of a Jewish homeland thirteen years before Theodor Herzl began to use the term "Zionism".

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

https://twitter.com/AvivaDautch/stat...57553010036736

Quote:

I’ve seen several tweets comparing this to Nazis / The Holocaust and saying things like “this is how it begins”. I teach Holocaust Literature so let me be clear - this ISN’T how it began. This is already several stages along the way.
#NeverAgainIsNow

[Tsukasa Buddha]

Also new policy from Sessions regarding who is eligible for asylum:

Quote:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday made it all but impossible for asylum seekers to gain entry into the United States by citing fears of domestic abuse or gang violence, in a ruling that could have a broad effect on the flow of migrants from Central America.

Linky.

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Sessions says that the current situation is not like Nazi Germany because "In Nazi Germany, they were keeping the Jews from leaving the country"

[McHrozni]

Originally Posted by Squeegee Beckenheim

https://twitter.com/radleybalko/stat...47903754448896

I wonder when we're going to start seeing the first deaths?

The thing is Trump and his lemmings want a few deaths among immigrant children. They think it wil deterr new immigrants from going to the US in the first place.

This is not false. It is abhorrent, but it also does have that effect. The controversy about the policy is sure to reduce the migrant flow for a while, news went around the world and back. However I doubt it's an effecient use of resources, soft power and political will to do something as mundane as reducing the number of immigrants coming in.

The reason I'm pointing this out is because pointing out immigrant children deaths is like saying "this will reduce crime" to them. Surely no one would oppose that, right? The result is they will support Trump even more and shield him against criticism even more than they already do.

Trump is many things, but stupid unfortunately isn't one of them. It would be stupid for him to back down now. It would be good for the country but not beneficial to him or his party, which is why warnings over this will go unheeded, indeed they'll just fan the flames a little more with Trump being the winner.

McHrozni

[newyorkguy]

The push back is starting.

Quote:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) on Tuesday announced that his administration will file a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its policy of separating children from their parents after crossing the United States border. It comes as dozens of the undocumented children are held in New York facilities.

"Children have legal rights. Parents have legal rights. That's established firmly in the federal and state constitutions and in case law," Cuomo said in a phone interview. "They're fundamental rights. They apply whether they're documented, undocumented, short, tall, Mexican, seeking asylum, or not seeking asylum. Those fundamental rights apply, and we believe they've been violated." News link

[ponderingturtle]

Originally Posted by I Am The Scum

That is absolutely the way law enforcement works in this country. Cops don't pull over random people because they might be in a stolen car. They don't get to confiscate people's guns because they might be murder weapons.

Of course they can and do, particularly if the person is black. See stop and frisk.

[ponderingturtle]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

Three, it's not American to use children as hostages.

Assumes morality not in evidence.

[ponderingturtle]

Originally Posted by Craig4

That's a bit of a cheap shot at conservatives. Some of the strongest condemnations of this policy have come from conservatives.

Just not ones in office and certainly not against those who implemented the policy.

[newyorkguy]

I found it really astounding that some of the kids are being housed in New York. They flew them all the way from Texas to here? This is insane.

Thought: Since the news of all this broke, this has completely pushed the Mueller investigation and Paul Manafort off the front page.

[Craig4]

Originally Posted by Squeegee Beckenheim

Sessions says that the current situation is not like Nazi Germany because "In Nazi Germany, they were keeping the Jews from leaving the country"

That's not accurate. Jews could leave if they wanted, thousands did.

[ponderingturtle]

Originally Posted by Craig4

That's not accurate. Jews could leave if they wanted, thousands did.

And we sent them right back, they after all were not germany's best.

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Originally Posted by McHrozni

This is not false. It is abhorrent, but it also does have that effect.

I don't have it to hand, but there was a news story the other day with internal documents which showed that it's actually had no effect whatsoever. Immigration in May was higher than April, and in line with May last year.

Of course you could say that it just hasn't had an effect yet, and that remains to be seen, but at the moment there's not even the argument that it's effective.

Quote:

Trump is many things, but stupid unfortunately isn't one of them.

I'm pretty sure he is. Even leaving aside my own judgements of his statements and behaviour, for the sake of supposing that he might just be playing some weird kind of part for the benefit of the cheap seats, there are numerous statements from people who have worked with and for him who have said that he's a moron. It's a common refrain. They could all be lying, or the role Trump is playing could extend even to non-public parts of his life, but I think the more parsimonious explanation is that he actually is a moron.

[McHrozni]

Originally Posted by Squeegee Beckenheim

I don't have it to hand, but there was a news story the other day with internal documents which showed that it's actually had no effect whatsoever. Immigration in May was higher than April, and in line with May last year.

It has no effect on those already en route, but it should have an effect on those taking the hard choice to leave their homes today.

Quote:

Of course you could say that it just hasn't had an effect yet, and that remains to be seen, but at the moment there's not even the argument that it's effective.

If would be effective, perhaps even highly effective, if it's left to run for a few years.

Of course effective in this context might mean fewer immigrants coming over with children. If you come alone there is no added risk from the policy after all. This wouldn't barely even show up in the overall migration statistics, I believe?

Quote:

I'm pretty sure he is. Even leaving aside my own judgements of his statements and behaviour, for the sake of supposing that he might just be playing some weird kind of part for the benefit of the cheap seats, there are numerous statements from people who have worked with and for him who have said that he's a moron. It's a common refrain. They could all be lying, or the role Trump is playing could extend even to non-public parts of his life, but I think the more parsimonious explanation is that he actually is a moron.

No, they aren't wrong and they aren't lying. They're just conflating what his priorities are, it's not the US, it's not the Americans, it's not even GOP, his sole priority is Donald Trump and what benefits him, personally.

Thus far his moronic strategy won him the presidency, dominance of the Republican party - who turned into his yes men within 18 months - lucrative contracts for his business with China and more. Even his tweets have done him little harm but they have served to produce such extreme levels of congitive dissocance among his lemmings that they're finding it all but impossible to find a fault with him. It resembles a stack overflow.

If it's stupid but it works it's not stupid.

That doesn't mean Trump is highly intelligent, he's not. Chances are half of the points above weren't a part of a coherent strategy but pure luck his toxic personality is so well in line with the deplorables. Still, if you look at his actions from the perspective of wanting what's best for him personally, all of his actions are at least reasonable and none are outright dumb.

McHrozni

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Originally Posted by McHrozni

If would be effective, perhaps even highly effective, if it's left to run for a few years.

Perhaps. I hope it's not in operation long enough for us to be able to gather the data.

Quote:

No, they aren't wrong and they aren't lying. They're just conflating what his priorities are, it's not the US, it's not the Americans, it's not even GOP, his sole priority is Donald Trump and what benefits him, personally.

I've seen no evidence to suggest that the people who have known Trump personally and declare him to be a moron are confused about anything.

Quote:

If it's stupid but it works it's not stupid.

You're confusing his effectiveness with his intelligence.

[NoahFence]

I'd like to see some contrast with how European immigrants are being treated.

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

The director of ICE has said that comparing ICE agents with Nazis is unfair, because they're just following orders

[The Great Zaganza]

Originally Posted by Squeegee Beckenheim

The director of ICE has said that comparing ICE agents with Nazis is unfair, because they're just following orders

...words fail...

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

A senator has been denied entry to a camp where he wanted to view conditions for himself. When the camp was first contacted he was told they would need two weeks notice to grant him access.

This mirrors a case reported on a few days ago when politicians were only granted entry to a camp to see living conditions after a week.

[Craig B]

Originally Posted by Craig4

That's not accurate. Jews could leave if they wanted, thousands did.

What they couldn't do so easily was take any of their money out of the country. In the early days of the Nazi regime the idea of removing Jews by expelling them from Germany but keeping their property was promoted by many anti Semites.

From 1933 until October 23, 1941, Nazi Germany pursued a policy of forced Jewish emigration. Antisemitic legislation and terror served to "encourage" and ultimately to compel hundreds of thousands of German Jews to leave. The government did all it could to make the Jews emigrate. In addition to making life miserable, the German authorities reduced bureaucratic hurdles so those who wanted to leave could do so more easily.

Holocaust Encyclopedia.

[Darat]

Originally Posted by Squeegee Beckenheim

A senator has been denied entry to a camp where he wanted to view conditions for himself. When the camp was first contacted he was told they would need two weeks notice to grant him access.

This mirrors a case reported on a few days ago when politicians were only granted entry to a camp to see living conditions after a week.

Once again, Theresienstadt.

ETA:

Quote:

...snip...

Late in the war, after D-Day and the invasion of Normandy, the Nazis permitted representatives from the Danish Red Cross and the International Red Cross to visit Theresienstadt in order to dispel rumours about the extermination camps. The commission that visited on June 23, 1944, included E. Juel-Henningsen, the head physician at the Danish Ministry of Health, and Franz Hvass, the top civil servant at the Danish Foreign Ministry. Dr. Paul Eppstein was instructed by the SS to appear in the role of the mayor of Theresienstadt.[47]

Weeks of preparation preceded the visit. The area was cleaned up, and the Nazis deported many Jews to Auschwitz to minimise the appearance of overcrowding in Theresienstadt. Also deported in these actions were most of the Czechoslovak workers assigned to "Operation Embellishment". The Nazis directed the building of fake shops and cafés to imply that the Jews lived in relative comfort.

...snip...