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RSN | There Is No Plan: Can the 2300 Children Find Their Parents? |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=26125"><span class="small">Bill Simpich, Reader Supported News</span></a>
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Friday, 22 June 2018 11:00 |
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Simpich writes: "On May 5, the US government began separating children from their migrant parents. 2,300 youths remain in shelters and foster homes across the country. There is no system to reunite them."
A 2-year-old Honduran asylum-seeker cries as her mother is searched and detained near the U.S.-Mexico border in McAllen, Texas, on June 12. (photo: John Moore/Getty Images @jbmoorephoto)
There Is No Plan: Can the 2300 Children Find Their Parents?
By Bill Simpich, Reader Supported News
22 June 18
 n May 5, the US government began separating children from their migrant parents.
2,300 youths remain in shelters and foster homes across the country.
There is no system to reunite them.
HHS is responsible for the children. ICE has jurisdiction for the adults. There is no plan for these two agencies to work together.
Parents who are no longer detained “are entitled to get their kids back through a documented process,” U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said.
What process? The Trump’s zero-tolerance strategy is brand new. He has ordered that all immigrants illegally crossing the border will face criminal proceedings rather than civil proceedings. On its face, it makes no sense to charge refugees with misdemeanors. The devil is in the details.
Traditionally, criminal defendants are separated from their children.
Trump knew he could use this tradition as a fig leaf to hide his goal. He and his buddies figured he could use this family separation as leverage to get his policies through a divided Congress.
These families speak many languages. A number of them are Native American languages, known to few outsiders. Who will do the translation between these refugees and these HHS and ICE officials? After 9/11, only a handful of government officials even knew Arabic.
These 2300 children are now located at 100 sites scattered across 17 states. Their parents can literally be on the other side of the country – if they are still in the country.
President Trump’s executive order says nothing about reuniting the families. It does these families no good. The damage is done.
Many of this young people will be scarred for life. Think of the anguish their parents are suffering.
What Trump, his aide Stephen Miller, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions committed is far more than a mass human rights violation. It is one of the most terrible crimes anyone can imagine.
Furthermore, these men have endangered the security of American citizens around the world. Civilized nations are convinced that our country has lost its collective mind.
But punishment for Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and others cannot be the first priority.
The first priority is to reunify the children with their parents. How can it be done?
The Washington Post reported that the Texas Civil Rights Project is representing more than 300 parents and has only tracked down two children.
Natalia Cornelio, the project representative, stated many children arrive at shelters without the facility knowing that they have been separated from their parents. It is easy to mistake them as unaccompanied minors – not children seeking reunification.
Detained parents are supposed to get a flier providing a toll-free number for the HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement to help them find their children. Even this simple act is fraught with problems.
One is that many of the parents are not going to be able to read the flier.
The second is that many of the parents are not receiving the flier.
The third is that the rules are not being followed by the feds.
Families following “the rules” and going to designated checkpoints seeking asylum were treated as criminals and had their children separated from them in these last few weeks. The ACLU is seeking a national preliminary injunction to reunite the families of these asylum-seekers. Why should anyone assume that the feds will follow the rules for the rest of the 2300 children?
Additional lawsuits have been filed to reunite all of the children with their families. That is good. Every day matters. This may be the moment that immigration policy finally gets the attention it deserves. But what we need right now is a second win.
Because – right now – in the real world, not the legal world – it looks like hundreds of families will never be reunited. Parents have already been deported to countries such as Guatemala and Honduras. What will happen? Toddlers can’t tell you their name, or where their parents come from.
People of goodwill are gathering at the airports again – this time, to try to track any children being shipped around the country.
When interviewed by PBS (beginning at 2:55), Texas public defender Sergio Garcia was despondent about the prospects of effective reunification. “I would say zero.”
NBC’s approach was mordantly upbeat. “23andMe is donating kits for genetic testing to reunite kids with their parents.”
There is no plan.
There is a simple solution.
Bring all the children into one hall.
Bring all the parents inside.
Let them find each other.
- Bill Simpich
Bill Simpich is an Oakland attorney who knows that it doesn't have to be like this. He was part of the legal team chosen by Public Justice as Trial Lawyer of the Year in 2003 for winning a jury verdict of 4.4 million in Judi Bari's lawsuit against the FBI and the Oakland police.
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A World for All of Us, Not Just the Billionaires |
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Friday, 22 June 2018 08:58 |
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Sanders writes: "To fight today's extreme inequality, we must strengthen the coalition of progressive democrats and challenge the global oligarchy."
Senator Bernie Sanders. (photo: Getty)
A World for All of Us, Not Just the Billionaires
By Bernie Sanders, The Nation
22 June 18
To fight today's extreme inequality, we must strengthen the coalition of progressive democrats and challenge the global oligarchy.
n November 19, 1863, standing on the bloodstained battlefield of Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln declared that "we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
One hundred and fifty-five years later, under an authoritarian-leaning president, a right-wing extremist Congress, and a corrupt campaign-finance system, I fear that Lincoln's vision is fading, that "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" is beginning to perish in the United States of America. Today, the richest 1 percent of American families own a greater portion of the country's wealth than the bottom 90 percent. Even more shocking, just three individuals own more wealth than the bottom half. Meanwhile, the incomes of the top earners continue to skyrocket—CEO compensation jumped as much as 937 percent between 1978 and 2016—while most Americans struggle to get by on stagnating wages.
Such extreme inequality not only threatens our economic well-being; it undermines our democracy. Since the Supreme Court's disastrous Citizens United decision in 2010, billionaires have poured huge amounts of money into the political process. In return, they are getting policies that serve their interests at the expense of working families, the environment, and our national security.
Consider the Koch brothers: After winning huge tax breaks and major rollbacks of environmental regulations, their network of advocacy groups is planning to spend up to $400 million during the 2018 elections to push their conservative policy agenda. Sheldon Adelson, meanwhile, recently cut a $30 million check to the Republicans after his company received a $670 million tax break from the Trump tax plan, and the same week that the Trump administration delivered on two of Adelson's biggest priorities: withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal and moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. And the Walt Disney Company, which pours millions of dollars into campaigns, has been rewarded with copyright extensions worth billions, all the while paying many of its employees starvation wages.
Quite simply, in the United States today, a handful of billionaires and the corporations they run exercise extraordinary power over our economic, political, and social life. Yet this is not just a domestic issue. It is a global issue, one that reaches across oceans and continents as oligarchy, authoritarianism, and kleptocracy spread from country to country, and democratic institutions fight for their survival.
In Russia, Vladimir Putin—who stands at the center of a tight circle of oligarchs and is believed by many to have great personal wealth—is not only undermining democracy at home but destabilizing countries abroad. In Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern monarchies, a handful of multibillionaire despots exerts enormous influence over global energy policy and, under Trump, over American foreign and military policy. In China, President Xi Jinping has steadily consolidated power around himself and his inner circle as his government clamps down on political freedom and aggressively promotes China's version of authoritarian capitalism abroad. And Eastern Europe, which suffered horribly from the scourge of fascism, is once again seeing the rise of demagogues like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Germany's Alexander Gauland, one of the heads of the far-right Alternative for Germany party.
Donald Trump, therefore, should not be seen in isolation. He is part of a global trend, and the oligarchic, authoritarian, kleptocratic tendency he represents should be understood as a symptom of a much broader problem: a small number of extraordinarily wealthy people, motivated by greed and power, who see the global community as their plaything.
These forces have proved adept at capitalizing on the very real concerns that hundreds of millions of people face throughout the world. In many countries, people rightly feel that the establishment has failed them. They are struggling financially, fear for their children’s future, and are grappling with the loss of social and economic status. Rather than address these grievances, however, authoritarians exploit them, creating scapegoats and pitting one group against another.
In order to fight this trend, we need to strengthen the global coalition of progressive democrats. While authoritarians promote division and hatred, we will promote unity, inclusion, and an agenda based on economic, social, racial, and environmental justice. But the first step in winning this fight is to correctly identify the challenge. Internationally, we must have the courage to take on the global oligarchy and bring power to the many, not the few. This world belongs to all of us, not just a handful of billionaires.
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FOCUS: Trump's Family Separation Policy Is as Damaging to America as Abu Ghraib |
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Thursday, 21 June 2018 11:15 |
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Fuchs writes: "Donald Trump's policy of ripping children away from their parents at the border is a new black mark on America that could also undermine US national security."
'It is difficult to imagine something crueler than taking a child away from parents.' (photo: John Moore/Getty)
Trump's Family Separation Policy Is as Damaging to America as Abu Ghraib
By Michael H Fuchs, Guardian UK
21 June 18
The torture of detainees at the Iraqi prison shattered America’s image as a defender of human rights – and separating families only further undermines it
 he words “Abu Ghraib” have become synonymous with torture, a black eye for America that has damaged US national security.
Donald Trump’s policy of ripping children away from their parents at the border is a new black mark on America that could also undermine US national security.
America’s power comes from its values: freedom, the rule of law, respect for human rights. Whatever problems America may face at home, America’s democratic system enables itself to correct wrongs in the pursuit of a fair, just society. Whatever mistakes the United States makes in its foreign policy, America still endeavors to infuse its foreign policy with these values. When America does not live up to these values, it is less safe.
The experience of the Iraqi prison Abu Ghraib is instructive. After the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, it used Saddam Hussein’s jail as a place to torture Iraqi prisoners. The torture of prisoners – the picture of a US soldier holding a naked Iraqi on a leash, for instance – became international symbols that shattered America’s image as a global defender of human rights.
These illegal acts hurt US national security. Abu Ghraib was used as a rallying cry by terrorist groups who were fighting American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. As one US military interrogator wrote: “I learned in Iraq that the No 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo … The number of US soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on September 11, 2001.”
Today, America is in a moral crisis as its government takes children away from undocumented migrants and asylum-seekers at the US border. It is difficult to imagine something crueler than taking a child away from parents. These people are often fleeing violence and danger and are in search of a better life. The sounds of children crying in US jails while guards crack jokes are eerily evocative of US guards at Abu Ghraib posing smiling for pictures with naked Iraqi prisoners in humiliating positions.
As George Takei – who was imprisoned by the US government in an internment camp as a child during the second world war – pointed out, not even those Japanese-Americans imprisoned during the war were separated from their parents. In America today, border agents reportedly told parents their children were getting bathed and then never came back, evoking Nazis taking away children in death camps and telling people being led to the gas chambers that they were going to take a shower.
This inhumane policy will also damage US security. Ripping children away from their families invites criticism from the international organizations charged with upholding human rights. The United Nations high commissioner for human rights has called Trump’s policy “unconscionable”.
Ripping children away from their family decimates America’s ability to hold accountable human rights abusers. The Trump administration’s condemnations of human rights violations in other countries seems meaningless, and those countries are likely to point to the US policy as a counter-argument. Furthermore, just as the world grapples with an ongoing refugee crisis, others may try to emulate this policy and point to the US as a model for this horrific behavior.
Ripping children away from their families could also become a rallying cry for America’s adversaries. Like Abu Ghraib, the images of children in cages and the sounds of crying children make for powerful propaganda for anyone opposed to America – terrorist groups, authoritarian countries, and others who seek to paint a picture of an evil America.
Perhaps most damaging of all, ripping children away from their families will tarnish America’s image. Without living up to its values, America’s massive economic and military is far less potent. If allies do not believe that America upholds fundamental moral standards, support for those alliances will crumble. If partners no longer see America living up to its democratic ideals, America will surrender its ability to work with those countries to solve global problems.
The Trump administration has already abandoned America’s traditional support for human rights abroad. Trump embraces dictators, as evidenced by his defense of Kim Jong-un’s brutal repression in North Korea. And on Tuesday the administration announced it is withdrawing the United States from the UN human rights council, the main international organization charged with defending human rights. Perhaps the Trump administration fears that the forced separation of immigrants’ children from parents will make the United States a subject of the council’s criticism.
One “solution” now being floated by congressional Republicans would trade the separation of families for the incarceration of families. But warehousing thousands of children for months or years in jail-like facilities operated by private prison companies would be even worse. If these policies continue, it would seem likely that the Trump administration is willing to go to any lengths to turn America into a place that actively deters others from coming.
This land has always attracted people seeking a better life. This is a nation of immigrants, and immigration makes America stronger. But policies like forced family separations can deal powerful blows to the United States’ image as a beacon for those around the world yearning for a better life. Whatever one’s views on immigration policy, it seems an unqualified negative to turn America into a country known for its state-sanctioned human rights abuses instead of its admirable ideals.
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RSN: The Courts Should Be Able to Intervene at the Border |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=63"><span class="small">Marc Ash, Reader Supported News</span></a>
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Thursday, 21 June 2018 10:47 |
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Ash writes: "There is broad agreement among Constitutional experts that federal law grants the president vast discretion to shape and set immigration policy. Those powers, however, are not limitless."
'Where are the children?' Mounting public pressure is pouring light into the dark world of US immigrant detention. (photo: US Customs and Border Protection)
The Courts Should Be Able to Intervene at the Border
By Marc Ash, Reader Supported News
21 June 18
here is broad agreement among Constitutional experts that federal law grants the president vast discretion to shape and set immigration policy. Those powers, however, are not limitless.
Central to all immigration law is a homeland security argument. The law contemplates that protecting the border may require quick and decisive action that is best administrated by the executive branch, specifically the president. From the federal statute:
"Whenever the president finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate."
What the law does not appear to grant the president is the authority to subject individuals already in custody to extreme and extrajudicial punitive measures for the purpose of creating a deterrent to an entire class of potential asylum-seekers.
In addition, a court that is hearing challenges to the current state of affairs could consider the lack of transparency by the government. The public and the press on its behalf have a legitimate interest in knowing what the government is doing, specifically in this regard – who is being detained, where those individuals are being detained, and under what conditions. This would be necessary in accounting for the whereabouts of the children spirited away from their parents.
The practice of forcefully removing children from parents while in custody could easily be construed as torture or a human rights violation. This is serious stuff and not essential to “suspending entry” into the country. An American court if it found the separation of children from parents - even as non-citizens - inconsistent with U.S. law could order these families reunified.
The administration’s statements and the president’s own statements clearly articulate political motivations for separating families at the border. To subject these detainees to patently abusive and otherwise unnecessary treatment to achieve political objectives is a matter a judge might well consider.
It should not be assumed that administration’s position here is legally unassailable.
Marc Ash is the founder and former Executive Director of Truthout, and is now founder and Editor of Reader Supported News.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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light from Houston that was scheduled to land at LaGuardia did not land and we were told was “rerouted” to Newark Airport. Online it says “rerouted.” Hundreds of protesters had shown up at LaGuardia. One final flight from Houston supposed to land at LGA in 15 minutes, Terminal C. People are here standing by. We learned a few hours ago that over 300 of these Trump-kidnapped children have already arrived in NYC and have been placed in foster homes, with some being held at an ICE-contracted facility in Harlem. The mayor also just found this out and is furious that they’ve been sent nearly 2,000 miles away from their parents. Don’t be fooled by Trump’s executive order on Wednesday. He has no intention of halting his master plan. The bill he’s going to try to get passed in the next few days has been called “the worst immigration bill in a century.” Of the children he’s already snatched, the White House said today they will NOT be reunited with their parents. Everyone— please do NOT halt the protests. We are fighting a sociopath and a liar.
