The Immigration Debacle

Administration Outlines Plan to Reunite Children

POSTED AUGUST 19, 2018

With 559 immigrant children still separated from their parents as of August 10, the Trump Administration outlined its plan to reunite them.  Judge Dana Sabraw, who issued the initial order to reunite the children and their parents, praised the plan and the collaborative efforts between the ACLU and the government.

KTLA.com, August 10: "Sabraw also called the plan to reunite the separated children with their deported parents 'impressive' and commended the government and the ACLU for their efforts, adding that it appears both sides “are really working collaboratively.”  Lee Gelernt, an attorney for the ACLU, said his team received the reunification plan late Thursday and wanted more time to look it over with a steering committee made up of nongovernmental agencies working with the government to help reunite families.

Judge Threatens Jeff Sessions With Contempt, Orders Deported Mother and Daughter Returned to United States

POSTED AUGUST 10, 2018

It's about time.  Sessions closing the border to asylum seekers fleeing gang and domestic violence is one of the several horror shows in the Trump Administration's enforcement of immigration policies.   One of Trump's other policies has hundreds of children still separated from their parents.  The full extent of the damage done to these children may never be known.  Time to turn attention there, start handing out fines and prosecuting the incompetents responsible.

Slate Aug 9: "A federal judge threatened Attorney General Jeff Sessions with contempt of court on Thursday after the government broke a promise not to deport a mother and daughter fleeing gang and domestic violence in El Salvador until the judge had a chance to rule on their case.  “Turn that plane around,” U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan reportedly told the government after learning that it had deported a pair of plaintiffs, Carmen and her daughter J.A.C.F. “We are complying with the court’s order, and upon arrival in El Salvador, the plaintiffs will not disembark and will be promptly returned to the United States,” the Homeland Security Department responded in a statement." 

Trump administration says ACLU — not government — should find deported parents 

POSTED AUGUST 4, 2018

Evidently Donald and his legal team never read "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten".   One of the first learning's in kindergarten is "Clean up your own mess."  With hundreds of parents and children still separated by Trump's "zero tolerance" ruling, the Trump Administration filed court papers saying that the ACLU should go find the deported parents.  Not the government.  Unbelievable.

USA Today, Aug 3: "The Trump administration believes that the responsibility for finding parents who were deported after they were separated from their children should rest with immigration advocacy groups, not with the federal government, according to a court document filed Thursday. The administration reunited more than 1,400 children with their parents by a July 26 deadline imposed by U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw. But the judge gave the government more time to reunite more complicated cases, including an estimated 431 children whose parents had already been deported. Justice Department lawyers wrote on Thursday that the government would turn over whatever identifying information it could on the parents who were deported, including last known phone numbers and addresses. But they wrote that the ACLU "should use their considerable resources and their network of law firms, (non-governmental organizations), volunteers, and others" to establish contact with the deported parents.

Trump Administration Was Warned of Likely Consequences of Child Separation, Did It Anyway

POSTED JULY 31, 2018

Slate, July 31: "Trump administration officials appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday to answer questions about the government’s family separation policy. While much of the hearing was a master class in seeking to avoid blame, there was one incredibly revelatory moment. 

Sen. Richard Blumenthal asked the panelists if any of them had warned the Trump administration of how devastating the policy of splitting up families in order to prosecute all undocumented border crossings might be. It turned out, there had in fact been a dire warning of the likely consequences for the children involved."

Despite Today’s Court-Ordered Deadline, More Than 900 Migrant Children Remain Separated from Parents

POSTED JULY 26, 2018

DEMOCRACY NOW, JULY 26: "It has been nine weeks since the Trump administration sparked a national crisis by forcibly separating more than 2,500 migrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. Most were seeking asylum from violence in their home countries of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Instead, the parents were charged in federal court with a crime for illegally crossing the border, then held in jail and detention. The children, some still breastfeeding, were sent to shelters around the country. Today is the deadline federal District Judge Dana Sabraw set to reunite these families. But the process has been chaotic, and the government admits at least 900 children have yet to be reunited, and some 463 separated parents have been deported—even as their children remain in U.S. detention centers. Officials say the parents voluntarily agreed to leave their children behind. But in court papers filed Wednesday, the ACLU argued many parents say they were coerced or misled into signing forms they could not read, and were confused about what they were agreeing to. We speak to two immigration lawyers, Ofelia Calderón and Carlos García. They are both representing and providing pro bono assistance to parents separated from their children, some of whom have still not been reunited by today’s court-imposed deadline."

Hundreds of Immigrants Deported Without Their Children

POSTED JULY 24, 2018

As Judge Sabraw's Thursday deadline for reuniting migrant children separated from their parents approaches, the extent of the cruelty and incompetence of Trump's "no tolerance" policy becomes ever clearer.  

Elliott Hannon writing in Slate on July 23 notes "We still don’t know the full extent of the damage done to thousands of undocumented families by the Trump administration’s separation policy, but we are getting a clearer picture of the absolute menace and sheer incompetence driving the White House’s immigration policy. The latest twist, revealed in a court filing Monday, is that the U.S. government believes that potentially hundreds of parents that were forcibly separated from their children have already been deported without their children. "

“The Trump administration said that 463 parents of migrant children are no longer present in the United States, indicating that the number of mothers and fathers potentially deported without their children during the ‘zero tolerance’ border crackdown could be far larger than previously acknowledged,” the Washington Post reports. 

Department of Justice graphic below is from July 23.  The ACLU disputes the government figure of parents waiving reunification.