Maria Sacchetti reports for WashPost:
The nation’s top immigration and border officials are urging Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to detain and prosecute all parents caught crossing the Mexican border illegally with their children, a stark change in policy that would result in the separation of families that until now have mostly been kept together.
If approved, the zero-tolerance measure could split up thousands of families, although officials say they would not prosecute those who turn themselves in at legal ports of entry and claim asylum. More than 20,000 of the 30,000 migrants who sought asylum during the first quarter — the period from October-December — of the current fiscal year crossed the border illegally.
In a memorandum that outlines the proposal and was obtained by The Washington Post, officials say that threatening adults with criminal charges and prison time would be the “most effective” way to reverse the steadily rising number of attempted crossings. Most parents now caught crossing the border illegally with their children are quickly released to await civil deportation hearings.
The memo sent to Nielsen on Monday — and signed by acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Thomas Homan, Director of Citizenship and Immigration Services L. Francis Cissna and Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin K. McAleenan — said attempted crossings by parents with children increased to nearly 700 a day last week, the highest level since 2016. The officials predicted that the number will continue to rise if Nielsen does not act.
Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who has filed a federal lawsuit in California over earlier instances of family separations at the border, said the proposal would make “children as young as 2 and 3 years old pawns in a cruel public policy experiment.”
. . . .
Philip G. Schrag, a Georgetown law professor and asylum expert, said that expanding the forced separation of parents and children could cause severe psychological harm to families that ultimately might have legal grounds under federal asylum law to remain in the United States permanently.
“I think it’s absolutely wrenching psychologically and terrible for both the children and the parents,” he said. “What are we doing to those children psychologically that will haunt us years down the road if they become Americans?”
Federal officials say asylum applications have skyrocketed in recent years, raising concerns about fraud. Advocates for immigrants say those seeking asylum have legitimate claims under federal law and are fleeing some of the world’s most dangerous countries.
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Read Maria’s complete article at the link.
I associate myself completely with the remarks of my good friend and Georgetown Law colleague Professor Phil Schrag. Cruelty to children is stupid, counterproductive — children are our future — and morally wrong. It will definitely haunt us as a country for generations to come. It’s largely what I said before about the misguided policies of the Obama Administration. But, as with many things, the Trump Administration takes every dumb and wrong immigration policy of the past and multiplies it.
PWS
04-27-18
And thanks to PWS for using the proper term for Trump’s strategy for discarding American Democracy: “KAKISTOCRACY”.
It’s not just a funky sounding epithet, like racist, fascist, bigot, etc. Kakistocracy is a system of government which is run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens. Trump, Pruitt, Price, Sessions, etc are perfect illustrations of these types.
If you took Political Science in college, you probably learned about the Trial of Socrates detailing how “pure Athenian democracy” (majority decides everything) is incompatible with a constitutional democracy like ours.
And if you read the most famous chapter of “Democracy in America” by Alexis De Tocqueville, remember his explanation for the “Tyranny of the Majority”. In short, once a government achieves and maintains power by mistreating the weakest, vested interests arise and a vicious cycle ensues among those who benefit from these abuses.
Think of the people who grabbed the businesses, homes and goods that once belonged to the Jews after Kristallnacht. They provided the Nazis with an added layer of support because totalitarian regimes rely on selfish authoritarians for ruling effectively through harsh measures and intimidation of all potential political rivals.
As my favorite authoritarian Trumputin friend once explained, authoritarians want a country “where after the government decides, the people are bound and the laws are strictly enforced”. Hitler, Stalin, Castro, Pol Pot, etc., proved how you can control a country targeting unpopular minorities.
Lincoln explained that you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all of the time. But Lincoln never addressed how an unprincipled authoritarian like Trump in 2016 could fool enough of the people at the right time, gain power and create a ruling minority a/k/aTrump’s “Bitter Third”.
USA was lucky we had FDR in the 1930s instead of a Mussolini, a Hitler, a Stalin and all the others who gained power during the Great Depression and built totalitarian states. Let’s hope that Karl Marx was right when he said “History Repeats Itself, First as a Tragedy and Later as a Farce”. Trump surely looks the part of the “Farce”.
Thanks, Gus!
“Bound and the laws are strictly enforced” sure sounds like Jeff Sessions. It also sounds like something directly from the “Jim Crow” era of America that Sessions, Trump, Miller, and the rest of the GOP White Nationalist cabal so revere.
But, of course, Sessions & Co don’t really want the laws enforced when they provide Due Process to immigrants, guarantee a fair right to apply for asylum, prevent the Feds from dragooning states and localities into immigration enforcement, require the setting of reasonable bonds, protect victims of domestic violence fleeing persecution, provide fair access to counsel, protect the LGBT community from discrimination, allow minorities to vote, protect our environment, require ethical conduct and fiduciary responsibility from public officials, prevent obstruction of justice, protect career civil servants from political retribution, require fair notice of actions that will make an individual removable, require fair and humane treatment of children arriving at the border, hold police accountable for violating the rights of African Americans, require impartial judges and unbiased decision making, protect dissent, punish hate crimes, provide medical insurance for those who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford it, prevent consumers from being ripped off, protect against financial fraud, etc. I could go on and on about the disrespect of the Trumpsters for the rule of law. Indeed, I blogged yesterday about how Sessions’s sick obsession with jailing undocumented migrants has given White Collar criminals and other more serious offenders a “free pass” — an “amnesty” if you will. How corrupt and perverted can someone be and still hold public office?
Yes, we are being governed by a Kakistocracy! And, unless enough folks wake up and remove these horrible folks and their enablers from office through the ballot box, it will be too late to save our country.
PWS
04-28-17
I am optimistic Americans love Democracy more than white male Supremacy, circa 1950s. Trump is the Farce. The 1930s tyrants fortunately didn’t include FDR! And someone has to work at the Cuban restaurants in Miami. Might as well be hard working optimistic immigrants.
Don’t take me wrong, I love Ike too, even if Trump took one of the few things Ike did wrong and turned into an argument in 2016 as to why setting forth a Gestapo destroying American families is OK. OK is close enough for government work most times. 62 million USCs voted for that!
And I’m a refugee from communism. Pardon my persistent trumpet.
This happens about 80 years/4 generations each time our political system adapts by constitutional design to our USA relentlessly growing SW. Thanks to Lincoln’s Gettysburg vision of a “New Birth of Freedom”, USA is adapting better than ever. No Civil War, no Great Depression.
Is this a great country or what? But Trump sure does look the part of a Mussolini doppelganger. Thanks to all my freedom loving colleagues and friends for your dedication to Due Process.