ICE RIPS 53-WEEK OLD INFANT FROM HIS MOTHER BECAUSE THIS IS TRUMP’S POLICY
President Donald Trump has ordered the Dept. of Homeland Security, the Dept. of Justice, and ICE to rip young children away from their undocumented immigrant parents. He’s made clear it’s a strategy to send a message to those who are fleeing primarily Central America, where drug gangs rule and governments are powerless to control them. His message: if you try to illegally cross the U.S. border the price you will pay is your own offspring.
As the staggering numbers of children who have been separated from their parents roll in and the media is starting to take notice, many are stunned and outraged.
Not only is ICE and Border Patrol intentionally breaking apart families for no reason other than to inflict them with a punishment that far outweighs the “crime” of trying to make their children’s lives better, it appears they have no legitimate plan to care for them, protect them and their rights, and in many cases, they have no plan to reunite children with their parents.
Worse, thousands of children have been released into foster care, and Trump’s agencies have now lost track of them. Many believe these children, who were brought to America to escape drugs, drug gangs, violence, rape, and murder, are now the victims of child sex trafficking, where they will be forced to use drugs, and be raped and murdered.
University of Texas Law professor Steve Vladeck:
Many of these immigrants have the legal right to apply for asylum. In fact, many cross the border and turn themselves over to U.S. authorities, asking for asylum. After all, some are coming from areas that have been labeled “the murder capital of the world.”
But the Trump administration frequently refuses their right to even apply.
On Friday evening, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes highlighted the Trump administration’s moral crimes.
First he posted this tweet:
And then, this clip from his show:
What St. John describes in the clip above is a small slice of what’s happening.
Here’s the transcript of an ACLU attorney begging a federal court to halt this practice:
To be clear, this is not the law. This is a Trump policy he has ordered enacted.
Harvard Law School constitutional law professor Lawrence Tribe says what the Trump administration is doing to these families and these children is unconstitutional:
Walter Shaub, the former head of the federal government’s Office of Government Ethics weighs in:
If by some miracle you are not yet convinced of these horrors intentionally inflicted on people, many of whom rightly deserve asylum, read this, via Courthouse News reporter Adam Klasfeld:
And now, President Donald Trump, apparently recognizing the quickly-growing outrage, denies any culpability for his own orders and policies – and blames Democrats:
To be clear, he’s lying.
And even if this were law, President Trump easily could order the Republican-controlled Congress to repeal it. He could also choose to not implement or enforce it. He could order his Attorney General to take it to court to have it declared unconstitutional.
But he won’t because it’s not law – it’s policy, and it’s his policy.
Notice, by the way, how he equates infants and their parents with “MS-13 THUGS” in his tweet.
Trump has ordered the DOJ and DHS to implement these actions.
“If you are smuggling a child,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions proudly announced in March, “then we will prosecute you and that child will be separated from you as required by law. If you don’t like that, then don’t smuggle children over our border,” Sessions smugly threatened, as New York magazine reported. “We are not going to let this country be invaded. We will not be stampeded. We will not capitulate to lawlessness.”
Here’s video of Sessions’ remarks:
He’s lying about the “required by law” portion, as the New York magazine article makes abundantly clear:
Under the new system, children will be treated as if they arrived in the United States alone, The Wall Street Journal reports. If they are from a country other than Mexico or Canada, they are placed with a family member or in a shelter while their case is considered. Their parents are allowed to apply for asylum once they are apprehended, but may be detained while their applications are considered.
Sessions also announced the Justice Department’s intention to criminally prosecute every immigrant who illegally crosses the border, as opposed to simply busing them back over the border.
The extreme family-separation measure, which had been reported to be under consideration in March, marks a dramatic shift from current policy, in which authorities generally try to keep detained families together by sending them to the same detention facilities.
Again, this is Trump administration policy, not law.
Here’s then-Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly – now Trump’s Chief of Staff, in March of 2017, admitting this is policy DHS was considering last year. It has now been implemented under his successor, Kirstjen Nielsen.
Ask yourself: Should the most powerful, richest nation on earth be performing these inhuman acts?
Can you sit idly by while this takes place?
More to come.