https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2018/12/29/with-trump-there-is-no-bottom/
Karen Tumulty writes in WashPost:
With President Trump, there is no bottom. Every time you think you have seen it, he manages to sink even lower.
It is not news that the president is indifferent to human suffering. His limp response to the devastation of the 2017 hurricane in Puerto Rico — which he claimed to have been a “fantastic job” on the part of his administration — stands out in that regard. But on Saturday, we saw yet another level of depravity when Trump made his first comments regarding the deaths in recent days of two migrant Guatemalan children after they were apprehended by federal authorities. It revealed not only callousness but also opportunism, as he sought to turn this tragedy into a partisan advantage in his current standoff with Democrats over the government shutdown.
His statements came, not unexpectedly, over Twitter. First this:
Any deaths of children or others at the Border are strictly the fault of the Democrats and their pathetic immigration policies that allow people to make the long trek thinking they can enter our country illegally. They can’t. If we had a Wall, they wouldn’t even try! The two…..
And then, minutes later, this:
…children in question were very sick before they were given over to Border Patrol. The father of the young girl said it was not their fault, he hadn’t given her water in days. Border Patrol needs the Wall and it will all end. They are working so hard & getting so little credit!
Not a word of sympathy here — much less remorse on the part of the government over the deaths of a 7-year-old girl and 8-year-old boy while in its custody. Nor does Trump address questions that are being raised about whether the administration’s new policy seeking to limit the ability of immigrants to seek asylum protection might be a factor in putting more at risk. Under recent changes, migrants must remain in Mexico as their asylum cases are processed, possibly increasing their willingness to do something reckless to come across the border.
Then there was the dissonance: His blast came on a day that Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was visiting Yuma, Ariz., after stopping in El Paso, Tex. Her department has promised more thorough medical screenings and is calling on other agencies to help. “The system is clearly overwhelmed and we must work together to address this humanitarian crisis and protect vulnerable populations,” Nielsen said in a statement.
Even if Trump were to get funding for the wall — and even if the wall were the deterrent he promises it would be, a more dubious proposition — that would be many months if not years in the future. This is an immediate crisis, for which the president seems to have no concern. Nor does Trump address the fact that what he claims are Democratic immigration policies have been in place for decades, and yet, until this month, it had been more than a decade since a child had died while in Customs and Border Protection custody.
It is true that greater numbers of vulnerable Central American children are being put into treacherous situations. My colleagues Joshua Partlow and Nick Miroff have done excellent reporting on how smugglers are gaming a dysfunctional immigration system:
This is happening because Central Americans know they will have a better chance of avoiding deportation, at least temporarily, if they are processed along with children.
The economics of the journey reinforces the decision to bring a child: Smugglers in Central America charge less than half the price if a minor is part of the cargo because less work is required of them.
Unlike single adult migrants, who would need to be guided on a dangerous march through the deserts of Texas or Arizona, smugglers deliver families only to the U.S. border crossing and the waiting arms of U.S. immigration authorities. The smuggler does not have to enter the United States and risk arrest.
The Trump administration tried to deter parents this spring when it imposed a “zero tolerance” family-separation policy at the border. But the controversy it generated and the president’s decision to halt the practice six weeks later cemented the widely held impression that parents who bring children can avoid deportation.
As Trump fulminates about the wall, he rarely brings up the idea of doing anything about the source of the problem: the desperation of people who are being driven from their native countries by poverty and violence. Until those forces are addressed, migrants will keep coming, even if it means taking greater risks to do so.
In the meantime, we have a president who is willing to politicize the deaths of two young children to score points against the opposition party. And the most shocking thing about seeing him scrape along a new moral bottom is this: It is no longer shocking at all.
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Read the original article at the link.
The key:
As Trump fulminates about the wall, he rarely brings up the idea of doing anything about the source of the problem: the desperation of people who are being driven from their native countries by poverty and violence. Until those forces are addressed, migrants will keep coming, even if it means taking greater risks to do so.
Walls, detention centers, tent cities, and more Border Patrol Agents won’t solve this problem. Nor will proposed changes in the law and administrative actions aimed at further undermining our legal obligations toward refugees and asylum seekers. In fact, as we can see, the Administration’s approach is making things worse.
Establishing a fairer and appropriately more generous interpretation and application of our asylum and related protection laws, investing in addressing “push” conditions in Central America, establishing robust “in country” refugee programs in the Northern Triangle, cooperation with the UNHCR is seeking “regional solutions” closer to the Northern Triangle, more well-trained Asylum Officers, and more well-trained, fair and impartial U.S. Immigration Judges with a prior background in fair and humane treatment of asylum seekers would, over time, improve the situation. Perhaps in the long run, it would even solve the problems.
PWS
12-31-18