‘My son is not the same’: New testimony paints bleak picture of family separation

[The Barbarian]

By the way,. We are not a nation of immigrants as if that were our defining characteristic.

Also, there is a difference between a settler and an immigrant. A settler establishes a new community in a new land. An immigrant joins that community and eventually becomes absorbed into the new culture.

Ah, so you're afraid that immigrants will turn out to be "settlers" and to do us what we did to the people living here when we "settled" the land. That seems to have always been the fear of nativists, since the No-nothings.

And I think it's an unrealistic fear. All the immigrants I know, want America to be what it is. They just want in on the game.

 

[annabenedetti]

 

[ClimateSanity]

TH claims we are a nation of immigrants.

Here is an argument that puts that claim to doubt from scholar Pedro Gonzales:

During the U.S. Senate debate of the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act, Ted Kennedy, young Joe’s great-uncle, promised: “our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually.” Today, with far more than a million new arrivals per year, it seems Ted’s words did not age well.

The liberal lion also promised that “the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset,” and America would not be flooded “with immigrants from any one country or area.” Yet in 2014, California became a Latino majority state. This, too, did not age well.

“The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs,” Kennedy assured his colleagues and fellow citizens. He was disingenuous at best. None of it worked out the way Kennedy promised in 1965.

If America has always been a nation of immigrants, why then did Ted Kennedy and others feel the need to reassure Americans that this nation would not be inundated by foreigners? This suggests that America was not, in fact, a nation of immigrants in the 1960s, and politicians aware of this spoke in this way to reassure a public equally aware of it and certainly unwilling to see America become a nation of immigrants.

 

[annabenedetti]

[h=1]Federal Judge Rules that Trump Administration Cannot Hold Migrant Families in Long-Term Detention[/h]
LOS ANGELES — The Trump administration on Monday lost a bid to persuade a federal court to allow long-term detention of migrant families, a significant legal setback to the president’s immigration agenda.

In a ruling that countered nearly every argument posed by the Justice Department, Judge Dolly M. Gee of the Federal District Court in Los Angeles held that there was no basis to amend a longstanding court decision that forces the government to avoid holding migrant children for longer than 20 days. Judge Gee said the administration’s request was “ a cynical attempt” to shift immigration policymaking to the courts.

President Trump has pledged to end previous administrations’ “catch-and-release” policy for undocumented immigrants apprehended at the border, but the ruling left the administration with few good policy alternatives.

In another setback, federal immigration authorities were preparing to return 54 young migrants to their parents on Tuesday in a secretive operation that involves transporting children hundreds of miles to undisclosed locations around the country — reversing the government’s earlier attempt to hold children and families separately.

 

[Town Heretic]

TH claims we are a nation of immigrants.

It's not a "claim" it's a statement of fact. Few of us are descendents of original peoples here.

If America has always been a nation of immigrants, why then did Ted Kennedy and others feel the need to reassure Americans that this nation would not be inundated by foreigners?

Because immigration has always been resisted by the majority who've settled in. The Irish were given fairly brutal treatment by the WASPs when they began to make their way here in waves. Today, many of the descendents of those Irish are similarly inclined toward people of color from different cultural foundations.

This suggests that America was not, in fact, a nation of immigrants in the 1960s

Again, no one is suggesting that in the moment most of American citizens are freshly minted.

and politicians aware of this spoke in this way to reassure a public equally aware of it and certainly unwilling to see America become a nation of immigrants.

Rather, assurances were being made that the Hart-Cellar Act wouldn't mean a sudden upheaval of culture and a threat to employment by peoples from non-European nations and/or southern Europeans. Hart-Cellar dismantled the northern European preference in immigration.

It helps to remember that this country was still aggressively racist at that time and that the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965. So it was less about immigrants and more about the composition that was alarming a lot of essentially bigoted white people.

As for the scholar Gonzales, what's his background? I see he's a writer and a "fellow" at a conservative media outlet. What are his academic qualifications? What degrees does he hold? Or are you playing loose with the particular?

 

[ok doser]

Few of us are descendents of original peoples here.

and the "original peoples here" came here from elsewhere

 

[Town Heretic]

and the "original peoples here" came here from elsewhere

That's true enough, but they didn't come to lands already populated. So we have people with the original claim, we overcome them, mostly take their land, then establish property rights...for us. lain:

 

[ClimateSanity]

America was not founded by native Americans. They did not create our society. Ergo, they are not settlers. Their society was removed and replaced.

 

[Town Heretic]

America was not founded by native Americans.

No, the land was inhabited by them. We didn't discover America. We came across a lot of land and slapped that word on it.

Then we told the rest of the world it had been "discovered."

If someone "discovered" your wallet and wrote a title on it I'm betting you wouldn't find that a compelling argument for their rights to it.

They did not create our society.

Or Belgian waffles.

Ergo, they are not settlers.

So there are two words you don't appear to understand how to define or use right there. :think:

Their society was removed and replaced.

Then if we're removed and replaced?

 

[ok doser]

That's true enough, but they didn't come to lands already populated.

Many did

See: waves of population movement


As well, many europeans found mostly empty lands when they arrived

so we have people with the original claim..

What "people"? They certainly didn't see themselves as one homogeneous "people"

and what "original claim"? They certainly dint respect their brothers and cousins claim to the lands, they recognized the rule of force

Turns out europeans were way better at that game

 

[Kit the Coyote]

So here is an interesting twist, while trying to reunite all the 5 and under children with their families, the DOJ discovers one of the children may be an American Citizen taken over a year ago and they LOST the mother.

One child “cannot be reunified at this time because the parent’s location has been unknown for more than a year,” the filing said. “Defendants are unable to conclusively determine whether the parent is a class member, and records show the parent and child might be U.S. citizens.”

Border officials may have taken child of US citizen into custody

 

[annabenedetti]

So here is an interesting twist, while trying to reunite all the 5 and under children with their families, the DOJ discovers one of the children may be an American Citizen taken over a year ago and they LOST the mother.



Border officials may have taken child of US citizen into custody

The children should never have been separated from their parents and, in many cases, flown to the far reaches of the country - and the criminal negligence of having a system that can't even keep track of where parents and children are should be prosecutable. Trump's base doesn't care.

This is from a comment following a WaPo article on the situation:

"The children should be held incommunicado indefinitely from the scheming parent(s) and only have there whereabouts made known (if they've not been released from custody already) when the parents have made a verbal and written affirmation forswearing their eligibility for legal residency and citizenship in the US and outlying territories for a period of 50 years. This grifting of the United States is destabilizing our own country from within. A message has to be sent and heard loud and clear. Just one more, just one more, just one more passenger in the lifeboat! Please, Senor! For mercy's sake!"


Probably written by a MAGA hat-wearing Trump supporter who goes to bible study on Wednesday nights and church on Sunday. They have no mercy for anyone but their own kind.

 

[Kit the Coyote]

The children should never have been separated from their parents and, in many cases, flown to the far reaches of the country - and the criminal negligence of having a system that can't even keep track of where parents and children are should be prosecutable. Trump's base doesn't care.

This is from a comment following a WaPo article on the situation:

"The children should be held incommunicado indefinitely from the scheming parent(s) and only have there whereabouts made known (if they've not been released from custody already) when the parents have made a verbal and written affirmation forswearing their eligibility for legal residency and citizenship in the US and outlying territories for a period of 50 years. This grifting of the United States is destabilizing our own country from within. A message has to be sent and heard loud and clear. Just one more, just one more, just one more passenger in the lifeboat! Please, Senor! For mercy's sake!"


Probably written by a MAGA hat-wearing Trump supporter who goes to bible study on Wednesday nights and church on Sunday. They have no mercy for anyone but their own kind.

So to make it even worse, I was reading a story a week ago that part of the reason why it being so hard to reunite the families is some officials in the border patrol were intentionally destroying the records created to enable the tracking of the families. Their idea was it would be easier to prosecute deportation if they weren't being tracked as families and frankly didn't care if the families were ever reunited.

 

[annabenedetti]

So to make it even worse, I was reading a story a week ago that part of the reason why it being so hard to reunite the families is some officials in the border patrol were intentionally destroying the records created to enable the tracking of the families. Their idea was it would be easier to prosecute deportation if they weren't being tracked as families and frankly didn't care if the families were ever reunited.

UPDATE (05/29/2018):The ACLU and partners submitted public comments opposing Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s request to the National Archives and Records Administration last year. As a result of the campaign and overwhelming opposition from the public, NARA decided to review ICE’s proposal more closely. As of now, ICE has not made a new proposal regarding the destruction of these records. Government agencies with a long and well-documented record of abuse should not be permitted to destroy records about those abuses. We will continue to keep a watchful eye for attempts by ICE and CBP to destroy records about their own wrongdoings.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently asked the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), which instructs federal agencies on how to maintain records, to approve its timetable for retaining or destroying records related to its detention operations. This may seem like a run-of-the-mill government request for record-keeping efficiency. It isn’t. An entire paper trail for a system rife with human rights and constitutional abuses is at stake.

ICE has asked for permission to begin routinely destroying 11 kinds of records, including those related to sexual assaults, solitary confinement and even deaths of people in its custody. Other records subject to destruction include alternatives to detention programs, regular detention monitoring reports, logs about the people detained in ICE facilities, and communications from the public reporting detention abuses. ICE proposed various timelines for the destruction of these records ranging from 20 years for sexual assault and death records to three years for reports about solitary confinement.

For years, advocates and communities across the country have denounced human rights abuses in the detention system. Many of the records that ICE proposes for destruction offer proof of the mistreatment endured by people in detention. Given the Trump administration’s plans to increase the size and scope of the system substantially, it is all the more disturbing that the agency wants to reduce transparency and accountability.

NARA has provisionally approved ICE’s proposal and its explanations for doing so are troubling. In cases of sexual assault and death, for example, NARA states that these records “do not document significant actions of Federal officials.” It’s hard to believe that the actions of a federal official are not significant in the death or sexual assault of an individual who is in federal immigration custody. NARA also posited that in cases of sexual assault, that the “information is highly sensitive and does not warrant retention.”

Keeping these documents available is necessary for the public to understand and fully evaluate the operation of a system that is notorious for inhumane and unconstitutional conditions affecting hundreds of thousands of people every year. Even 20 years is far too short for keeping the record of a death or sexual assault of an individual in government custody.Recent reports by advocacy groups document sexual assaults in detention without adequate investigation or remedy, sub-standard medical care, the overuse of solitary confinement as well as threats and physical assault by custody staff. Since October 2016, there have been 10 deaths in immigration detention. Many of the records used in these reports and analyses would not have been made available without sustained public pressure to force ICE to maintain and divulge this information.

The impacts of detention are devastating on immigrants, their families and communities. For an individual who has been sexually assaulted in detention or for a family member whose loved one died in detention, having a full and thorough record of ICE’s actions, its policies and investigation can be an important step toward vindicating their rights.
If the Trump administration has its way, the number of immigrants in detention will increase, detention conditions will deteriorate further and more people will be subjected to life-threatening circumstances and denied their most basic rights. ICE shouldn’t be allowed to purge important records and keep its operations out of the public eye.​

 

[ok doser]

in the future, perhaps they should implant tracking chips with ID in every illegal, of any age, who crosses the border

 

[Kit the Coyote]

in the future, perhaps they should implant tracking chips with ID in every illegal, of any age, who crosses the border

Which would not have stopped any of the things we are talking about. If the records associated with the chips are destroyed, they are useless. If the child of a US Citizen is chipped then they will be dealing with false positives for the rest of their lives.

 

[ok doser]

they can chip dogs and cats

why not illegals?

 

[ok doser]

... didn't care if the families were ever reunited.

wouldn't the kids be better off with middle class foster parents?

 

[Kit the Coyote]

they can chip dogs and cats

why not illegals?

Because again, it would not effectively address the problems being discussed. To really do that you would need to do exactly the opposite, chip all legal citzens.

 

[Kit the Coyote]

wouldn't the kids be better off with middle class foster parents?

So all the children being held should be made US citizens?