Documents reveal DHS knew ending protections could cause more, not less, illegal immigration
By Tal Kopan, CNN
The Trump administration was warned by intelligence analysts that ending protections for hundreds of thousands of Central Americans living in the US would likely drive a spike in illegal immigration. They did it anyway.
That intelligence assessment was made public late Tuesday as part of an ongoing lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security over the termination of Temporary Protected Status for citizens of multiple countries, many of whom have lived in the US upwards of two decades.
Questions have swirled since the administration began systematically terminating the majority of TPS designations on the books, impacting more than 400,000 immigrants who have lived in the US for years. The administration justified the moves by citing the law, saying that the Department of Homeland Security was compelled to end the protections because conditions from the original disasters that precipitated the protected status had improved.
But the intelligence report and another email from the acting secretary last year to White House chief of staff John Kelly add to other uncovered documents that raise serious questions about whether the Trump administration ignored its own experts’ analysis and recommendations to fulfill a pre-ordained objective.
The email explains that the administration was intending to “send a clear signal that TPS in general is coming to a close.”
The analysts’ report and email were revealed as part of a dispute in the lawsuit over the production of the internal documents that were used to come to the decision. Attorneys representing the immigrants suing in the case argue the government has been too slow to produce the documents.
More: http://www.cnn.com/2018/07/18/politics/internal-dhs-tps-documents-elaine-duke-email/index.html
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Much like Sessions’s uncalled for action in overruling Matter of A-R-C-G- on domestic violence, the Administration took a part of the immigration system that was working well, benefitting both the U.S. and migrants, and causing no harm, and made it a problem. Guided by White Nationalism, rather than the law, sound advice, or pragmatism, this Administration’s immigration policies aim to “ramp up” undocumented immigration to build the unneeded “Wall.” Then, when that also predictably fails to stem the tide, they will claim that there is a fake “immigration emergency” and seek to impose extraordinary measures to deal with mess that they created.
It’s like the “Reichstag Fire” over and over again. Don’t let them get away with it!
PWS
07-18-18