Tag: Trump cruelty

Biden’s Task Force Identified More Than 3,900 Immigrant Children Who Were Separated From Their Families Under Trump

“Our efforts to reunify every family continue,” a senior Department of Homeland Security official said.

The Biden administration has identified 3,913 children who were separated from their parents at the southern border as a result of Trump’s zero tolerance policy as efforts to reunite them ramp up.

Officials believe the latest official government tally released on Tuesday accounts for nearly all separation cases, but said there is still a lot of work required to undo the damage to the families.

“Children were unjustly ripped from the arms of their mothers and loved ones and forced to separate. It is no experience any family should have to live through,” a senior Department of Homeland Security official said on a call with reporters. “Our efforts to reunify every family continue.” Continue reading.

Biden admin will allow families separated under Trump to remain in US

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The Biden administration will allow families separated at the southern border by the Trump administration to reunite and remain in the U.S., the White House announced Monday.

“We are hoping to reunite the families, either here or in their country of origin. We hope to be in a position to give them the election. And if, in fact they seek to reunite here in the United States, we will explore lawful pathways for them to remain in the United States, and to address the family needs,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said at a press briefing.

“We are acting as restoratively as possible.” Continue reading.

Let’s not mince words. The Trump administration kidnapped children.

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THE TRUMP administration’s immorality, cruelty and bureaucratic malpractice in tearing migrant toddlers, tweens and teens away from their parents in 2017 and 2018 were the work of many co-conspirators, most of them faithfully carrying out the wishes of the president himself. A draft report by the Justice Department’s inspector general has made that clear. Perhaps even more shocking is that policy’s present-day legacy: More than 500 children who, having been wrenched from their families by U.S. government officials with no plan or mechanism ever to reunite them, remain separated.

That is the case despite years of efforts to track down parents who were, in many cases, deported after their children were seized and placed with family sponsors in the United States. For all intents and purposes, these children were kidnapped by the U.S. government.

In fact, it has not even been the U.S. government that has tried to reunite these sundered families. That has been the work of a court-appointed body organized by the American Civil Liberties Union, a nongovernmental organization. The ACLU, in effect, was put in charge of trying to fix what the Trump administration shattered — the lives of hundreds of children and families. Even now, the parents of 545 separated children cannot be located, despite the efforts of lawyers and advocates, according to a new court filing. Continue reading.

Lawyers say they can’t find the parents of 545 migrant children separated by Trump administration

About two-thirds of the 1,000-plus parents separated from their kids under a 2017 pilot program were deported before a federal judge ordered that they be found.

WASHINGTON — Lawyers appointed by a federal judge to identify migrant families who were separated by the Trump administration say that they have yet to track down the parents of 545 children and that about two-thirds of those parents were deported to Central America without their children, according to a filing Tuesday from the American Civil Liberties Union.

The Trump administration instituted a “zero tolerance” policy in 2018 that separated migrant children and parents at the southern U.S. border. The administration later confirmed that it had actually begun separating families in 2017 along some parts of the border under a pilot program. The ACLU and other pro-bono law firms were tasked with finding the members of families separated during the pilot program.

Unlike the 2,800 families separated under zero tolerance in 2018, most of whom remained in custody when the policy was ended by executive order, many of the more than 1,000 parents separated from their children under the pilot program had already been deported before a federal judge in California ordered that they be found. Continue reading.

New Trump pandemic adviser pushes controversial ‘herd immunity’ strategy, worrying public health officials

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One of President Trump’s top medical advisers is urging the White House to embrace a controversial “herd immunity” strategy to combat the pandemic, which would entail allowing the coronavirus to spread through most of the population to quickly build resistance to the virus, while taking steps to protect those in nursing homes and other vulnerable populations, according to five people familiar with the discussions.

The administration has already begun to implement some policies along these lines, according to current and former officials as well as experts, particularly with regard to testing.

One of President Trump’s top medical advisers is urging the White House to embrace a controversial “herd immunity” strategy to combat the pandemic, which would entail allowing the coronavirus to spread through most of the population to quickly build resistance to the virus, while taking steps to protect those in nursing homes and other vulnerable populations, according to five people familiar with the discussions.

The administration has already begun to implement some policies along these lines, according to current and former officials as well as experts, particularly with regard to testing.

The approach’s chief proponent is Scott Atlas, a neuroradiologist and fellow at Stanford’s conservative Hoover Institution, who joined the White House in August as a pandemic adviser. He has advocated that the United States adopt the model Sweden has used to respond to the virus outbreak, according to these officials, which relies on lifting restrictions so healthy people can build immunity to the disease rather than limiting social and business interactions to prevent the virus from spreading. Continue reading.

Trump Cabinet officials voted in 2018 White House meeting to separate migrant children, say officials

“If we don’t enforce this, it is the end of our country as we know it,” said Trump adviser Stephen Miller, according to officials present at a White House meeting.

WASHINGTON — In early May 2018, after weeks of phone calls and private meetings, 11 of the president’s most senior advisers were called to the White House Situation Room, where they were asked, by a show-of-hands vote, to decide the fate of thousands of migrant parents and their children, according to two officials who were there.

President Donald Trump’s senior adviser Stephen Miller led the meeting, and, according to the two officials, he was angry at what he saw as defiance by Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

It had been nearly a month since Jeff Sessions, then the attorney general, had launched the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy, announcing that every immigrant who crossed the U.S. border illegally would be prosecuted, including parents with small children. But so far, U.S. border agents had not begun separating parents from their children to put the plan into action, and Miller, the architect of the administration’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants, was furious about the delay. Continue reading.

Trump Administration Seeks To Revive Most Cruel Trophy Hunting Practices

Our nation’s iconic wildlife is under attack in another inexplicable move by the Trump administration. In the latest blow, the government is aiming to allow the worst trophy hunting and trapping practices on public lands in Alaska.

For the first time in five years, slaughtering hibernating black bear mothers and their cubs at their dens, using bait to attract and slay grizzly bears, killing wolves and coyote pups and their parents in their dens and shooting swimming caribou on over 20 million acres of national preserve lands in Alaska will be allowed.

On top of this revival of inhumane hunting techniques, the Trump administration proposed a rule that would once again allow shameful killing methods at the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. These include luring brown bears with doughnuts, candy and other tempting foods to make them easy shooting targets. It would also allow trapping of wildlife without the critical requirement to first obtain a federal permit—a change that will cause unnecessary suffering not only to animals targeted to be caught in cruel, serrated steel traps, but also to countless other species not even intended to be targets. Continue reading.

‘He Turned Purple’: U.S. Overlooks Ill Asylum Seekers

New York Times logoWhen the Trump administration rolled out its policy to force asylum seekers to wait in Mexico, officials said medical exemptions would help the sick. They haven’t.

MATAMOROS, Mexico — Maria Sam had lost count of her 9-year-old son’s seizures in the nearly three months since they applied for asylum in the United States but were told to wait on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande.

But his most recent medical episode was enough to prompt Ms. Sam, who is from Guatemala, to pack up their few belongings and return to the border post to test the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” asylum policy and its stated exemption for medical emergencies.

“Yesterday was the worst because he turned purple,” Ms. Sam said last Wednesday, as her son David clutched her jacket and they prepared to walk to the international bridge that connects this dangerous area of Mexico to Brownsville, Texas. “They had to call an ambulance and bring him to the hospital.” Continue reading.

Supreme Court allows Trump administration to move forward with ‘public charge’ rule

The Hill logoThe Trump administration can move forward with a rule to make it harder for immigrants who rely on public assistance to gain legal status while a court challenge plays out, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday.

The Supreme Court voted 5-4 along ideological lines to lift a nationwide injunction on the proposal imposed by a federal judge in New York while the case is playing out in the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.

The rule, from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), would make it easier for immigration officials to deny entry or legal status to people likely to rely on government assistance. Continue reading.

Doctors protested Border Patrol to offer flu vaccines to detained migrants. They left in handcuffs and without answers.

Washington Post logoAs police handcuffed two men in doctor’s coats and scrubs who were lying on the ground in protest of the government’s refusal to offer vaccinations to migrants held in detention, protesters gathered this week in front of U.S. Customs and Border Protection headquarters in San Diego sang in a chorus of constant chants.

“No more deaths! No más muertes!”

“Shame! Shame! Shame!”

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