The airlift of endangered Afghan refugees from Taliban-controlled Kabul is hampered by a lengthy and convoluted visa process, which had a backlog of 20,000 applicants before the fall of the corrupt Karzai government. In 2018 the Pentagon urged the Trump administration to expedite Special Immigrant Visas for Afghan nationals who had assisted US and NATO forces, but this was denied.
Olivia Troye, homeland security and counterterrorism advisor to former Vice President Mike Pence, says all efforts to fast-track Afghan visas were sabotaged by Stephen Miller, racist and Islamophobe-In-Residence at the Trump White House. This was confirmed by Elizabeth Neumann, a former senior DNS official. Matt Zeller, Afghanistan combat veteran and former CIA officer, says Stephen Miller “should be held accountable for war crimes” for his refugee visa obstruction.
More:
“Pence aide blames Stephen Miller for ‘devastating’ visa system for Afghans,” Maureen Groppe, USA Today
“Stephen Miller peddled ‘racist hysteria about Afghanistan’ and gummed up refugee process: Ex-Pence adviser,” Raw Story
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
“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 anew 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
“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
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
“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
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
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
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
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.
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