Trump admin knew migrant children would suffer from family separation, that was plan

annabenedetti

annabenedetti

like marbles on glass
The Trump administration knew migrant children would suffer from family separations. The government ramped up the practice anyway.

Separating kids to block asylum seekers

Despite evidence from the State Department and others supporting many migrants’ stories of escaping violent crime in their home countries, Trump accused migrants of gaming the asylum system, and he sought ways to block their entry. After he took office in 2017, his advisers suggested options that would require prosecuting every border crosser. Separating thousands of their children “would be reported by the media and it would have substantial deterrent effect,” previously released documents shared by NBC show.

As a pilot program began in 2017, people who swam or walked over the border or who approached CBP officers at border gates were taken into custody to be prosecuted for illegal entry — a misdemeanor the first time — and their children were taken from them.
 
annabenedetti

annabenedetti

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On May 16, 2018, a Refugee Resettlement email exhorted staff to find the parents of children in their custody — one day after then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen testified in Congress that “we do not have a policy to separate children from their parents.”

“It is very important to locate the separated parent for all UAC [unaccompanied alien children] in your program,” a Refugee Resettlement supervisor wrote. “For parents in ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] custody, you should be able to locate them and have a phone call with that parent as soon as possible.”

That assumption proved far too optimistic.

CBP, it turned out, was sending children to Refugee Resettlement with little information about parents. Infants and sobbing toddlers were too young to know parents’ names, as Public Integrity previously reported, much less the “alien number” that ICE assigns adult detainees and enters into a detention database.
 
annabenedetti

annabenedetti

like marbles on glass
Preparing for a blanket separation policy, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke out in defense of family separations in May 2018. “If you don’t like that, then don’t smuggle children over our border,” he said.

This argument is so familiar. Truth-smacking, it was called. People would say how they rejoiced at the thought of people in Hell, or how they rejoiced at the suffering of people they deemed 'not worthy' of mercy. By chance today, I found an excellent expansion on what I've historically seen here at TOL:


I understand why it’s hard for normal people to believe that white evangelical Christians are sadists. Normal people have never been, as I was a long time ago, on the inside of that shadowy religious world. But the sooner they understand this, the sooner normal people will see that white evangelical Christian support for Donald Trump isn’t rooted in hypocrisy, contradiction or merely straying from the straight and narrow. The reason they support a fascist president is simple: They’re sadists.

The word “sadist” is off-putting. I get that. But if you’re thinking of sex, you’re thinking in the wrong way. If you’re thinking of “pleasure,” as in sexual pleasure, you’re thinking the wrong way. The pleasure white evangelical Christians derive from the suffering of human beings deemed less human than they are is not about sex. It’s about the pain, humiliation or even violence out-groups deserve by dint of being out-groups. Gay men, for instance, deserve their punishment because they are gay. Punishment for being gay is “divine justice.” From such “justice” comes pleasure—which is sadism.

I didn’t come up with the term. Richard Rorty did. I’m only pushing it as far to the fore as I can, because I don’t think normal people understand what they are facing, and if they don’t understand, they will keep treating sadists as if they have a legitimate place in a liberal democracy. Cruelty is the point, as Adam Serwer powerfully and famously put it in The Atlantic. But normal people must understand the animating force behind that cruelty. Sadists are sadistic not because they are cruel. It’s much simpler than that. They are cruel because being cruel to people deserving cruelty feels good.


The Cruelty Is the Point
President Trump and his supporters find community by rejoicing in the suffering of those they hate and fear.

This isn’t incoherent. It reflects a clear principle: Only the president and his allies, his supporters, and their anointed are entitled to the rights and protections of the law, and if necessary, immunity from it. The rest of us are entitled only to cruelty, by their whim. This is how the powerful have ever kept the powerless divided and in their place, and enriched themselves in the process.​
 
quip

quip

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" It’s about the pain, humiliation or even violence out-groups deserve by dint of being out-groups. Gay men, for instance, deserve their punishment because they are gay. Punishment for being gay is “divine justice.” From such “justice” comes pleasure—which is sadism.


Sadists are sadistic not because they are cruel. It’s much simpler than that. They are cruel because being cruel to people deserving cruelty feels good."

Yes. But don't you feel so much safer and secure now?
:cigar:
 
annabenedetti

annabenedetti

like marbles on glass
quip said:
" It’s about the pain, humiliation or even violence out-groups deserve by dint of being out-groups. Gay men, for instance, deserve their punishment because they are gay. Punishment for being gay is “divine justice.” From such “justice” comes pleasure—which is sadism.


Sadists are sadistic not because they are cruel. It’s much simpler than that. They are cruel because being cruel to people deserving cruelty feels good."

Yes. But don't you feel so much safer and secure now?
:cigar:
Click to expand...


No. :(

I feel like I was so naive for so many years, trusting so implicitly in the goodness of people (particularly people in power) who didn't deserve that trust. I thought I was on the "right side" when I didn't really have any idea of what the "right side" was doing in the service of obtaining and maintaining political and cultural power.

Even now I keep falling into the trap of thinking they've only been this way "since Trump."
 
G

Gary K

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What's your excuse for Obama doing exactly the same things you claim Trump is guilty of? Only Obama could have cared less about the ultimate destination of those unaccompanied kids. His administration was told by a CBP employee that more than 3000 kids had been released to known sexual predators and/or child traffickers. You know what the outcome was? The whistleblower was fired. The kids? No move was ever made to help them.

So what's your excuse? Or will you just deny the entire situation so you can stick your head even deeper into the sand?
 
ok doser

ok doser

lifeguard at the cement pond
The best place for these kids AND their parents is in their home countries. How about we do something to make them safe and stable?
 
robycop3

robycop3

Member
Now, just WHO separated & caged those people ? The OBAMA ADMIN ! But the Dems don't wanna talk about that FACT.
 
G

Gary K

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The Merkley docs that anna linked to in her first post on this thread are very possibly fraudulent. There is nothing in those docs that shows the origin of them in any way, shape, or form. To take them at face value when nothing is known as to their origin is foolish. When we read official government docs there are always indications as to where they came from. These files have no identifying text or government department seals anywhere to be found. Oh, and one more thing. The links do not go to a government website, so they are not working docs in any department of government they were provided to NBC by a third party.

Here's a link go an official document coming from the CBP. https://www.cbp.gov/document/enviro...al-assessment-ea-and-finding-no-significant-3 Clicking on the link will download a pdf copy of the document so you can read the document. Then go to the link that anna provided to documents in her opening post and take a look at the files she alleges are true documents of CBP policy. You will find there is no CBP, or any other government department seal, name of organization, or any other identification as to where they come from. Looks fishy as all get out to me.
 
annabenedetti

annabenedetti

like marbles on glass
You're not an expert on government documents.

Also, nowhere do I allege these are "true documents of CBP policy." The documents were from DHS/DOJ.

From Sen. Merkley's press release:

"This document, created by senior Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice officials, reveals the step-by-step process that the Trump Administration undertook in December 2017 to devise and implement a formal policy of deterring asylum seekers using the threat of family separation."

By all means, find some proof from anywhere that DHS/DOJ contested the veracity of these documents.
 
God's Truth

God's Truth

New member
annabenedetti said:
Maybe "the Dems" are just tired of the false equivalency. The Obama administration never had as its policy aim to separate children from their parents to punish the parents and as a fear tactic to scare other migrants.
Click to expand...

People who break the law and get caught are usually separated from their children.
 
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