Tag: Trump cruelty

Government watchdog details severe trauma suffered by separated children

The Hill logoMigrant children separated from their parents through the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy experienced more severe mental trauma than children who were not separated, according to a government watchdog report.

Separated children “exhibited more fear, feelings of abandonment, and post-traumatic stress” than children who were not separated, according to a report released Wednesday by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) inspector general.

According to the report, some children did not understand why they were being separated and sometimes thought their parents had abandoned them. Mental health staff said some children expressed so much grief and confusion over the separation that they cried inconsolably.

View the complete September 4 article by Nathaniel Weixel on The Hill website here.

Mumps outbreak in the camps: Cruelty isn’t going away

AlterNet logoIn the lead-up to both Donald Trump’s election and his first midterm elections, the Republican Party and right-wing media outlets like Fox News aggressively pushed the xenophobic myth that migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border were bringing a new outbreak of long eradicated communicable diseases like smallpox. That was baseless fear-mongering meant to play up the manufactured “crisis” in an effort to scare up votes.

Since the elections, Trump has continued to hype the manufactured crisis in order to build new detention camps, many of them for private profit. The Trump administration has recently moved to hold migrant families and children indefinitely in cages, under inhumane and unsanitary conditions. Now the federal government is willfully refusing to inoculate these migrants — who include many mothers and small children — from deadly diseases while keeping them in cramped conditions.

Since the elections, Trump has continued to hype the manufactured crisis in order to build new detention camps, many of them for private profit. The Trump administration has recently moved to hold migrant families and children indefinitely in cages, under inhumane and unsanitary conditions. Now the federal government is willfully refusing to inoculate these migrants — who include many mothers and small children — from deadly diseases while keeping them in cramped conditions.

View the complete September 4 article by Sophia Tesfaye from Salon on the AlterNet website here.

ICE rule change on U visas sparks outrage

The Hill logoThe Trump administration has quietly altered its handling of visas granted to immigrants who cooperate with criminal investigations, allowing people to be deported even while they are waiting for their visas.

The change to U visas will make immigrants far less likely to report serious crimes, say immigration attorneys, who argue it also reflects the Trump administration’s efforts to deport as many immigrants as they can from the United States.

“This is going to have a chilling effect,” Eileen Blessinger, a Falls Church, Va.-based immigration attorney, told The Hill, because “by applying, you’re essentially reporting yourself to ICE but now there’s a risk that ICE might pick you up.”

View the complete August 30 article by Zack Burdryk on The Hill website here.

Sick Migrants Undergoing Lifesaving Care Can Now Be Deported

New York Times logoLOS ANGELES — Maria Isabel Bueso was 7 years old when she came to the United States from Guatemala at the invitation of doctors who were conducting a clinical trial for the treatment of her rare, disfiguring genetic disease. The trial was short on participants, and thanks to her enrollment, it eventually led the Food and Drug Administration to approve a medication for the condition that has increased survival by more than a decade.

Now 24, Ms. Bueso, who had been told she likely would not live past adolescence, has participated in several medical studies. She has won awards for her advocacy on behalf of people with rare diseases, appearing before lawmakers in Washington and in Sacramento. Over the years, her parents have paid for the treatment that keeps her alive with private medical insurance. Continue reading “Sick Migrants Undergoing Lifesaving Care Can Now Be Deported”

Immigration cruelty may be hurting Trump — but he can’t stop

AlterNet logoThe Trump administration has sought to implement its racist ideology without democratic consensus, a process that has increased with alarming haste this summer. Seemingly every week brings a new barrage of coordinated attacks of cruelty against immigrants, both documented and undocumented. From holding children in crowded detention facilities with no deadline for release to deporting 30-year residents who were brought to the U.S. as six-month-old children to jailing U.S. citizens suspected of appearing Hispanic, summer has brought an unprecedented crackdown on whole communities.

Whether such displays of cruelty are the cause of Trump’s plummeting polling on his signature issue — Trump is now deeply underwater on immigration, with even non-college-educated white voters, a large portion of his base, evenly divided at 47-48 on the issue — or its effect is still up for debate. But the brutality is no longer in question.

Already this week, Trump has followed up on his anti-immigrant campaign with attacks on U.S. service members, children receiving cancer treatments and congressional staffers attempting to engage in oversight. He’s also diverted disaster preparedness funds ahead of hurricane season to his pet project and dangled the possibility of a presidential pardon to incentivize lawlessness in fulfilling his campaign promise of building a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico.

View the complete August 29 article by Sophia Tesfaye from Salon on the AlterNet website here.

Trump officials say children of some service members overseas will not get automatic citizenship

The Hill logoThe Trump administration said Wednesday that the children of some U.S. military members and government employees working overseas will no longer automatically be considered United States citizens.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a policy that in some cases rescinds previous guidance stating that children of U.S. service members and other government employees abroad are considered “residing in the United States” and automatically given citizenship under a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

USCIS issued a clarification to the rule later Wednesday, explaining that the new rule would only affect three categories of people: Children of non-U.S. citizens adopted by U.S. citizen government employees or service members; children of non-U.S. citizen government employees or service members who were naturalized after the child’s birth; and children of U.S. citizens who do not meet residency requirements.

View the complete August 28 article by Rafael Bernal and Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

Kids in border camps are 9 times likelier to die of flu. Trump’s team won’t vaccinate them.

Customs and Border Protection will not distribute flu shots to detained children or adults and has yet to respond to medical professionals’ concerns.

More than two dozen immigrants, including children, have died in U.S. government custody since President Donald Trump took office.

The judicial branch has had to force Trump’s administration to provide basic hygiene tools like toothpaste to detained migrant children.

Now, his immigration officials are saying they will not act to prevent influenza from spreading in their cramped, overcrowded immigration jails at the U.S.-Mexico border.

View the complete August 21 article by Alan Pyke on the ThinkProgress website here.

Trump brags about indefinite child detention because he’s bringing families together

Trump boasts about his latest cruel immigration policies.

Just hours after his administration put forth a new rule to keep immigrant children detained indefinitely, President Donald Trump insisted that he was the one bringing immigrant families together. He left out the part about them being together in cages.

“If you remember, President Obama had separation,” Trump insisted to reporters on the South Lawn Wednesday. “I’m the one who brought them together. This new rule would do even more to bring them together. But it was President Obama that had the separation.”

Later, a reporter tried to question Trump directly about the “unlimited detention of migrant minors” his administration now supports. Trump doubled down: “I am the one that kept the families together. You remember that right? Just remember I said it,” he insisted. His new policy, he explained, “will make it almost impossible for people to come into our country illegally.”

View the complete August 21 article by Zack Ford on the ThinkProgress website here.

Trump officials unveil rule allowing indefinite migrant family detentions

The Hill logoThe Trump administration on Wednesday said it would unveil a new rule that would allow migrant families to be held indefinitely, ending a procedure known as the Flores Settlement Agreement that requires children to be held no longer than 20 days.

The decision is a momentous change in detainee policy that the administration has sought as a disincentive for people crossing the border.

“This rule allows the federal government to enforce immigration laws as passed by Congress,” acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan said in a statement.

View the complete August 21 article by Chris Mills Rodrigo and Rafael Bernal on The Hill website here.

The Adviser Who Scripts Trump’s Immigration Policy

Washington Post logoWith unswerving loyalty, Stephen Miller has singular control of an issue central to the presidency

At President Trump’s speeches and rallies, Stephen Miller often can be found backstage, watching the teleprompter operator. As other White House staffers chat or look at their phones, Miller’s attention remains glued to the controls.

The energy and crowd-thrilling parts of Trump’s speeches usually happen during his impromptu diversions from the planned address. When Trump veers, colleagues say, Miller sometimes directs the operator to scroll higher or lower through the speech, so when the president is ready to pick it up again, he will hit those passages and make those points.

Miller knows where he wants the president to go.

View the complete August 17 article by Nick Miroff and Josh Dawsey on The Washington Post website here.