Tag: kids in cages

‘A nightmare’: Even ICE agents are fed up with Trump’s ‘dumbsh*t’ political stunts

AlterNet logoWhen President Donald Trump is hoping to rally his base, one of the things he typically does is try to remind supporters how tough he is on illegal immigration. But according to a report by The New Yorker’s Jonathan Blitzer, agents for the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are growing increasingly fed up with being used as a political football.

Blitzer notes that on June 17, Trump announced there’d be immigration raids the following week he promised would result in the deportation of “millions of illegal aliens.” But ICE, Blitzer reports, had to “scramble” in order to accommodate Trump’s announcement and wished he had given them more advance notice.

Carrying out the types of raids Trump wanted, Blizter explains, requires preparation — and ICE agents weren’t given nearly enough time to prepare. An ICE agent, interviewed anonymously, told Blitzer, “Almost nobody was looking forward to this operation. It was a boondoggle, a nightmare.”

View the complete June 25 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

Evangelical Christian Mike Pence defends imprisoning children without soap or toothbrushes

AlterNet logoChildren in immigrant detention centers are reportedly going without basic supplies like soap and toothbrushes but Vice President Mike Pence insisted on Sunday that it’s the fault of Congress.

During an interview on CNN, host Jake Tapper asked the vice president to “talk about the kids” who have been detained for crossing the border.

“Last week, legal advocates reported there are horrific conditions for children at the border,” Tapper said, pointing to reports that say children have gone without soap, toothbrushes and other itemsneeded for basic hygiene.

View the complete June 23 article by David Edwards from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

The Youngest Child Separated From His Family at the Border Was 4 Months Old

Baby Constantin spent five months of his first year in a foster home. His family got a painful look at America’s experiment with family separation as an immigration policy.

KALAMAZOO, Mich. — The text messages were coming in all day and night with only two data points: Gender and age. With each one that arrived, the on-call caseworker at Bethany Christian Services in Michigan had 15 minutes to find a foster home for another child who was en route from the border. On a brisk winter day in February 2018, Alma Acevedo got a message that caught her breath: “4 months. Boy.”

Since the summer of 2017, the 24-year-old social worker had been seeing a mysterious wave of children arriving from the border, most of them from Central America. Those who were old enough to talk said they had been separated from their parents. “The kids were just inconsolable, they’d be like, ‘Where’s my mommy? Where’s my daddy?’” Ms. Acevedo said. “And it was just constant crying after that.”

None of them had been this young, and few had come this far. When he arrived at her office after midnight, transported by two contract workers, the infant was striking, with long, curled eyelashes framing his deep brown eyes. His legs and arms were chubby, seeming to indicate that he had been cared for by someone. So why was he in Michigan?

View the complete June 16 article by Caitlin Dickerson on The New York Times website here.

DHS Secretary: Cages For Migrant Kids Are ‘Larger’ Than Dog Cages

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s Wednesday testimony on the Trump administration’s child separation policy was an unmitigated disaster.

Nielsen showed up to the hearing, which was called by Democrats who now hold the House majority, completely unprepared and unable to defend the practice of ripping migrant children from their parents at the border.

In one truly jaw-dropping exchange with Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ), Nielsen tried and failed to explain why the facilities used to house some migrant children were any different from the kinds of cages dogs are kept in.

View the complete March 6 article by Emily Singer on the National Memo website here.

Jeff Merkley requests FBI perjury investigation into Kirstjen Nielsen

Sen. Jeff Merkley is requesting that the FBI open a perjury investigation into Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen Credit: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call

At issue is testimony before Congress about family separations at border

Sen. Jeff Merkley is requesting that the FBI open a perjury investigation into Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, based on testimony she gave to Congress in December on family separations at the southern border.

Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee in December, Nielsen stated “I’m not a liar, we’ve never had a policy for family separation.”

Memos made public Thursday show that officials from the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security were exploring family separation polices as a deterrent for illegal immigrants a full year before that testimony.

 

THE LATEST: Trump Defends Family Separation Policy & Confirms He’s Considering Doing It Again

This weekend, Trump defended his family separation policy that led to at least 2,500 children being forcibly separated from their families. Trump also confirmed that he is considering a new policy to tear even more families apart. Here’s the latest:

Trump confirmed that he is considering a new family separation policy.

Washington Post: “President Trump confirmed Saturday that he is considering a new family separation policy at the U.S.-Mexico border because he believes the administration’s earlier move to separate migrant children from parents was an effective deterrent to illegal crossings.”

Continue reading “THE LATEST: Trump Defends Family Separation Policy & Confirms He’s Considering Doing It Again”

THE LATEST: Hundreds of Children Separated from Families for Longer Than Court-Mandated Limit

More than 130 children remain separated from their families because of Trump’s cruel policy, which the DHS Inspector General says was flawed from the start due, in part, to the Trump administration’s indifference to family separations. Now, we’ve also learned that the Trump administration kept hundreds of children detained for longer than the court-mandated time limit of 72-hours, including for as long as 25 days in the case of one child. Here’s the latest:

The Trump administration left at least 860 immigrant children in holding cells longer than the court-mandated time limit.

Washington Post: “The DHS Office of Inspector General’s review found at least 860 migrant children were left in Border Patrol holding cells longer than the 72-hour limit mandated by U.S. courts, with one minor confined for 12 days and another for 25.”

More than 130 children remain separated from their families, and the majority of their parents have already been deported.

MSNBC’s Jacob Soboroff: “BREAKING: New numbers just released by Trump administration on remaining separated migrant kids. ➡ 136 *still* in custody, not eligible for reunification or discharge. ➡ 3 of those kids are under 5 years old. ➡ Parents of 96 of those kids already deported.” Continue reading “THE LATEST: Hundreds of Children Separated from Families for Longer Than Court-Mandated Limit”

Past 48 Hours: Trump Pushes Anti-Immigrant Agenda, Lost Track of 1,500 Immigrant Children

The Trump administration continues to push its anti-immigrant agenda. Here’s some of the worst developments over just the past 48 hours alone:

The Trump administration lost track of 1,500 more immigrant children.

New York Times: “The Trump administration is unable to account for the whereabouts of nearly 1,500 migrant children who illegally entered the United States alone this year and were placed with sponsors after leaving federal shelters, according to congressional findings released on Tuesday.”

Trump suggested he would use unilateral executive powers to continue to push his anti-immigrant agenda before the midterms.

The Hill: “President Trump hinted in an interview with Hill.TV that he will use his executive powers to do more on immigration before the midterm elections. ‘I’ll be doing things over the next two weeks having to do with immigration, which I think you’ll be very impressed at,’ the president said during an exclusive 45-minute Oval Office interview on Tuesday with Hill.TV.”

Continue reading “Past 48 Hours: Trump Pushes Anti-Immigrant Agenda, Lost Track of 1,500 Immigrant Children”

THE LATEST: Families Suffer Continued Trauma From Trump’s ‘Unconscionable’ Family Separation

Hundreds of children remain separated from their families because of Trump’s cruel policy. Even after families are reunited, they continue to suffer from trauma. That is why the United Nations’ human rights chief recently denounced Trump’s family separation as a human rights violation and called it “unconscionable.” Here’s the latest:

The UN’s top human rights official denounced Trump’s family separation policy as a human rights violation and called it “unconscionable.”

The Hill: “The United Nations’s new top human rights official is calling the Trump administration’s family separation policy ‘unconscionable.’ Michelle Bachelet in her first speech on Monday denounced the practice as a human rights violation.” Continue reading “THE LATEST: Families Suffer Continued Trauma From Trump’s ‘Unconscionable’ Family Separation”

Trump administration to circumvent court limits on detention of child migrants

The following article by Nick Miroff and Maria Sacchetti was posted on the Washington Post website September 6, 2018:

Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen. Credit: Cliff Owen, AP

The Trump administration took the first official step Thursday toward withdrawing from a court agreement limiting the government’s ability to hold minors in immigration jails, a move that could lead to the rapid expansion of detention facilities and more time in custody for children.

The changes proposed by the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services would attempt to terminate the Flores Settlement Agreement, the federal consent decree that has shaped detention standards for underage migrants since 1997.

The maneuver is almost certain to land the administration back in court, while raising the odds that the government eventually could petition the Supreme Court to grant the expanded detention authority lower courts have denied.

View the complete article here.