Trump’s 1,058 Bureaucratic Rule Changes Cut Immigration In Half

1,058 rule changes, adjustments to asylum officers’ guidelines, modifications of enforcement norms, and other bureaucratic changes to the immigration system by the Trump administration cut the number of legal immigrants to the U.S. nearly in half, says Lucas Guttentag, who maintains the Immigration Policy Tracking Project.

More:

“The Race to Dismantle Trump’s Immigration Policies,” Sarah Stillman, The New Yorker

“Dismantling and Reconstructing the U.S. Immigration System: A Catalog of Changes under the Trump Presidency,” Sarah Pierce and Jessica Bolter, Migration Policy Institute

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DOJ Report: Trump’s Appalling Family Separation Policy Was Political

“Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions and top Justice Department officials moved forward with a “zero tolerance” immigration policy in 2018 aware that it would forcibly split up families and were unprepared for the impact, according to a new report by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General.

Sessions’ office was a ‘driving force’ in pushing for the Department of Homeland Security to begin referring adults who entered the U.S. illegally with children to be prosecuted by the Justice Department, according to the report. The Trump administration policy, which lasted from April to June 2018, resulted in the separation of more than 5,000 families — with hundreds that still have not been reunited.”

— “Jeff Sessions’ DOJ was ‘driving force’ behind family separation policy, IG report finds,” Sabrina Rodríguez, Politico

More:

“Justice Department Knew 2018 Border Policy Would Separate Children From Families,” Dustin Jones, NPR News

“Senior U.S. Justice officials pushed family separations, watchdog finds,” Mimi Dwyer, Reuters

“Justice officials respond to report on family separation by blaming Trump, expressing regret,” Julia Ainsley and Jacob Soboroff, NBC News

Update:

“The Justice Department Has Rescinded Trump’s “Zero Tolerance” Border Policy That Led To Families Being Separated,” Adolfo Flores, BuzzFeed News

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Trump’s Child Detention Program

“When U.S. Customs and Border Protection holds migrant children in custody, the child’s detention is supposed to be safe and short. That’s true whether the child is with a parent or without one.

But new data shows that over the last four years, detention times lengthened as the number of children held at the border soared to almost half a million. The detentions, which include both unaccompanied children and children with their families, peaked last year at over 300,000, with 40 percent held longer than the 72-hour limit set by a patchwork of legislation and a court settlement.”

— “500,000 Kids, 30 Million Hours: Trump’s Vast Expansion of Child Detention,” Anna Flagg and Andrew R. Calderón, The Marshall Project

Related:

“Judge blocks border officials from expelling unaccompanied migrant children,” Stef W. Kight, Axios

“White House killed deal to pay for mental health care for migrant families separated at border,”  Jacob Soboroff, Julia Ainsley and Geoff Bennett, NBC News

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Migrant Child Detention Center Operator Cancels Trump Golf Club Holiday Party

Caliburn International, a federal contractor making billions from imprisoning immigrant children, has canceled its planned holiday party at the Trump National Golf Club in Virginia after the event became public knowlege and conflict-of-interest questions were raised. It wasn’t a party for the migrant kids, mind you, just their taxpayer-funded jailers.

Happy holidays.

More:

“Contractor that holds migrant children scraps plans for holiday party at Trump golf club,” Graham Kates, CBS News

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Trump Administration Snatched 1,500 More Babies at the Border

“The American Civil Liberties Union said Thursday that the Trump administration separated 1,556 more immigrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border than has previously been disclosed to the public.

The majority of the children are ages 12 and under, including more than 200 considered “tender age” because they are under 5 years old.

The ACLU said the Justice Department disclosed the final tally — which is in addition to the more than 2,700 children known to have been separated last year — hours before a federal court deadline to identify all children separated since mid-2017, the year President Trump took office.”

— “ACLU says 1,500 more migrant children were taken from parents by the Trump administration,” Maria Sacchetti, Washington Post

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Family Separations Continue

The Trump Administration continues to separate migrant children from their families at the southern border, claims the ACLU, despite a year-old court order forbidding the practice. There is an exception when parents with criminal histories or communicable diseases pose a risk to their children, and Customs and Border Protection has abused that carve-out, separating nearly 1000 children from families over petty offenses or subjective and contrived reasons, says the ACLU in court filings.

More:

“ACLU: U.S. has taken nearly 1,000 child migrants from their parents since judge ordered stop to border separations,”Maria Sacchetti, Washington Post

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U.S. Internment Camp for Kids

The Trump Administration, acting in the name of America’s citizens, plans to imprison migrant children, some 1400 of them, at Fort Sill, Oklahoma starting in July. That U.S. Army base was a prison for Chiricahua Apache families from 1894 to 1913 and used to incarcerate Japanese American families during World War II.

This won’t be the first time youngsters separated from families were held captive at Fort Sill. From 1871 until 1980 the base housed the Fort Sill Indian School, a boarding school where Comanche, Apache, Caddo, Kiowa, Delaware, Wichita, and Navajo children were removed from their families and punished for speaking their Native American languages.

More:

“‘Stop Repeating History’: Plan to Keep Migrant Children at Former Internment Camp Draws Outrage,” Ben Fenwick, New York Times

“Japanese-American internment survivors protest use of Oklahoma base as migrant detention center,” Tim O’Donnell, Time

“The Unimaginable Reality of American Concentration Camps,” Masha Gessen, The New Yorker

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GOP Family Values: Baby Snatching

U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw has given the Trump administration six months, until October 25th, to identify the thousands of children it has separated from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border:

“It is important for all government actors to have a timeframe, a deadline,” he said. “You tend to stand on it.”

— “Judge gives US 6 months to identify children split at border,” Elliot Spagat, Associated Press

 

More:

“Judge gives U.S. six months to identify separated migrant children,” Tom Hals, Reuters

Update:

“Leaked Emails Show Trump Admin Couldn’t Reunite Separated Migrant Kids With Parents,” Daily Beast

Related:

“New Poll: Despite Partisan Divides on Immigration, Americans Oppose Family Separation,” Shibley Telhami and Stella M. Rouse, Lawfare

“Trump says ending family separation practice was a ‘disaster’ that led to surge in border crossings,” Kimberly Kindy, Nick Miroff and Maria Sacchetti, Washington Post

“Homeland Security Used a Private Intelligence Firm to Monitor Family Separation Protests,” Ryan Devereaux, The Intercept

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Ideological Purge at DHS

Right-Wing ideologue and White House Rasputin Stephen Miller, grandson of immigrant refugees, hates immigrants so much he wants to close both U.S. borders and all ports of entry. Recently, he helped close the careers of the Trump Administration’s top-ranking DHS officials.

At a college student, Mr. Miller defended Western Civilization as coordinator of an islamophobic project sponsoring “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” on college campuses. He graduated and worked for Congresscreature Michele “Crazy Eyes” Bachmann, who (surprise!) championed a southern border wall. Noted islamophobic loon David Horowitz introduced Stephen Miller to Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, and it was a Nativist match made in heaven. He became the senator’s communications director and helped defeat a major immigration reform bill. Mr. Miller entered the 2016 Trump campaign as Steve Bannon’s typist, and was promoted to Chief Troll after writing the sulfurous Trump Convention speech.

Stephen Miller has written those Trump speeches that sound like dystopian sci-fi and the fear-mongering sermons of Medieval crusader-priests. As Senior Policy Advisor, he is credited (if that’s the word) for the Administration’s Family Separation policy. Mr. Miller’s other talents tend towards backstabbing and lurking in the corridors of (white) power. His monomaniacal ideological fixation makes him easy to understand, even for President “Best Brain” Trump, and the two share a taste for chaos. His policies – from the Muslim Ban to baby-snatching — may have failed, but Stephen Miller is now the last xenophobe standing.

Trump Will Take 2 Years to Reunite Separated Families

The Justice Department has told a judge it will take at least two years to find out how many of the 47,000 children DHS locked up at the Mexican border were separated from their families by the government. The kids were jailed between July 1, 2017 and June 25, 2018 before U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw ordered the Trump Administration to stop the “Zero Tolerance” practice of baby snatching and reunite the families.

The plaintiff in the case, the ACLU, is understandably upset with the timeline, as are psychologists who treat separated children. Or anyone, really, except Stephen Miller.

More:

“U.S. Says It Could Take 2 Years to Identify Up to Thousands of Separated Immigrant Families,” Victor J. Blue, New York Times

“It may take 2 years to identify thousands of separated families, government says,” Catherine E. Shoichet and Priscilla Alvarez, CNN

“The Long-Term Damage of Trump’s War on Immigrants,” Chas Danner, New York Magazine

Updates:

“Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen leaving Trump administration amid surge of migrants,” Nick Miroff, Josh Dawsey, Seung Min Kim, and Maria Sacchetti, Washington Post

“Kirstjen Nielsen Was Heartless, but Not Heartless Enough for Trump,” Michael Tomasky,
Daily Beast

“Stephen Miller pressuring Trump officials amid immigration shakeups,” Anita Kumar, Gabby Orr, and Daniel Lippman, Politico

“Inside Trump adviser Stephen Miller’s grand plan to ‘clean house’ at the DHS,” Brendan Morrow, The Week

Related:

“Trump’s possibly illegal designation of a new acting homeland security secretary, explained,” Matthew Yglesias, Vox

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