Tag: Trump immigration policy

HHS Official Says Separated Migrant Kids Suffer ‘Extraordinary Trauma’

Cmdr. Jonathan White, a career public health official at the Department of Health and Human Services, told Congress on Wednesday that children separated from their families face “extraordinarily severe” trauma leading to likely lifelong harm of both a mental and physical nature.

Children were taken away from their families as part of the Trump administration’s attempt to discourage crossings at the border. The practice instead backfired, with the U.S. government thrust into the role of holding on to children who have been taken from their families.

White testified to a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee at a briefing titled “Oversight Hearing: Mental Health Needs of Children in HHS Custody.”

View the complete September 18 article by Oliver Willis on the National Memo website here.

Eric Trump’s Four-Pinocchio claim that the Obamacare website cost more than Trump’s border barrier Add to list

Washington Post logo“President Trump’s wall costs less than the Obamacare website. Let that sink in, America.”

— Quote attributed to comedian Tim Allen in an Instagram post by Eric Trump

Eric Trump, one of the president’s sons, has quite a following on social media, so his posts attract a lot of attention. This particular one achieved nearly 80,000 likes within days.

But there are two big problems. First, it’s factually incorrect. Second, while Allen is a conservative, he did not say this. A query to the Trump Organization, where Trump is executive vice president, for comment did not receive a response.

The Facts

First, let’s deal with Allen. There was a Tim Allen — unrelated to the actor — who on Aug. 25 posted a lengthy diatribe on Facebook that included this line. This Tim Allen describes himself as a jewelry technician who lives in Franklin, Va. But that did not stop thousands of people from distributing his post as coming from the actor.

View the complete September 16 article by Glenn Kessler on The Washington Post website here.

‘This Takes Away All Hope’: Rule Bars Most Applicants for Asylum in U.S.

New York Times logoMEXICO CITY — Thousands of people fleeing persecution, most from Central America, line up at the United States’ southern border every day hoping for asylum. They wait for months, their names slowly crawling up a hand-drawn list until they are allowed to present their case to American immigration authorities.

After the United States Supreme Court issued an order this week, almost none of them will be eligible for asylum.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed the Trump administration to enforce new rules that bar asylum applications from anyone who has not already been denied asylum in one of the countries they traveled through on their way to the United States.

View the complete September 12 article by Azam Ahmed and Pualina Villegas on The New York Times website here.

Justice Sotomayor issues powerful dissent to the Supreme Court’s ‘extraordinary’ move unleashing Trump’s harsh asylum rules

AlterNet logoJustice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a forceful dissent issued Wednesday as the Supreme Court lifted an injunction on President Donald Trump’s aggressive new asylum rules.

In lifting the injunction, the court allowed the administration to broadly deny asylum to immigrants who passed through another country — such as Mexico — and weren’t denied asylum there. The Supreme Court didn’t rule on the merits, but it issued a stay overturning injunctions upheld by lower courts as legal challenges to the policy make their way through the system. Eventually, the case will likely come before the high court.

It would only take five justices to grant the stay, but the unsigned order did not say how the court voted. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined Sotomayor’s dissent.

View the complete September 12 article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet website here.

Supreme Court says Trump administration can begin denying asylum to migrants while legal fight continues

Washington Post logoThe Trump administration can begin denying asylum requests from migrants at the southern border who have traveled through Mexico or another country without seeking protection there, after the Supreme Court on Wednesday lifted a lower court’s block on the new restriction.

The justices put on hold an injunction from lower courts in California that halted the new rule pending additional legal action; there, a district judge had said it probably ran afoul of a federal statute and administrative law requirements.

President Trump’s policy is a dramatic change in the way the federal government treats those seeking safe haven in the United States , and is one of the administration’s most significant efforts to deter migrants at the southern border. It is one of multiple tools immigration officials have deployed to prevent entry by families and others fleeing violence and poverty in Central America .

View the complete September 11 article by Robert Barnes on The Washington Post website here.

Suddenly Trump’s Base May See Unhappy Consequences Of His Rule

Perhaps the most ridiculous thing that President Donald J. Trump has done in the last several days was to use a faked weather map as a prop to justify his erroneous tweet about Alabama’s possibly being in the path of Hurricane Dorian. The alterations to the official “cone of uncertainty” from the National Hurricane Center were not only amateurish, but they were also — quite literally — criminal.

But that wasn’t the most stunning thing that Trump has done or said recently. Admittedly, rating the irrational moves of an increasingly unhinged chief executive involves lots of debate, many close calls and frequent concessions to personal bias, but my vote for most stunning move of late goes to the president’s insistence on building his infamous wall before next year’s presidential election, even if that involves criminal acts and the use of eminent domain.

According to The Washington Post, Trump has told his aides to pursue the wall at all costs: “Take the land,” he’s reportedly said. Ignore environmental regulations. And if his Cabinet officers and high-ranking aides must break the law to do it, Trump has strongly suggested he will issue presidential pardons.

View the complete September 8 article by Cynthia Tucker on the National Memo website here.

Dems eye payback against Trump’s immigration tactics

A fight with Trump over his border wall, however, could fracture the Democratic caucus.

Democrats say they’re no longer willing to throw cash to President Donald Trump for his border demands.

But they still can’t escape making a deal with Trump — a scenario that could divide the caucus over exactly how far to take their fight against the president.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) are preparing to rebuff Trump’s requests for additional wall money this month as payback for Trump’s summer of hard-line immigration moves — a position that’s in contrast to the billions of dollars that Democrats have handed over for border fencing and security since the start of Trump’s term, according to half a dozen lawmakers and aides.

View the complete September 8 article by Sarah Ferris and Heather Caygle on the Politico website here.

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.

Unconfirmed by Senate, Cuccinelli sees power, influence grow on immigration

The Hill logoKen Cuccinelli is wielding immense power as the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), where he has rolled out multiple significant and controversial policies in recent weeks.

In nearly three months on the job, Cuccinelli — who was not confirmed for the position by the Senate — has emerged as the point person for President Trump’s immigration agenda.

He’s been at the forefront of a wave of initiatives to restrict legal immigration and limit access to government benefits for certain groups, while cracking down on illegal immigration.

View the complete September 1 article by Brett Samuels on The Hill website here.