Tag: Trump immigration policy

Over 500 kids still stranded and without parents thanks to Trump

The following article by Oliver Wilis was posted on the ShareBlue.com website August 25, 2018:

Over 500 migrant children are still being held in custody by the U.S. government, and away from their parents, despite court-ordered reunification.

Credit: AP Photo/Evan Vucci

At least 528 migrant children remain separated from their families, and in U.S. government shelters without their parents, despite court orders that the Trump administration reunite them.

The latest status report the government turned into the court showed that as of August 20th — almost a month after the initial deadline of July 26 — the job remains woefully unfinished.

Twenty-three of the children still being kept from their parents are under the age of 5. And 343 children are in dire circumstances because the government has deported their parents, making finding them even harder.

View the complete article here.

Stephen Miller Is an Immigration Hypocrite. I Know Because I’m His Uncle.

The following commentary by David Glosser was posted on the Politico website August 13, 2018:

If my nephew’s ideas on immigration had been in force a century ago, our family would have been wiped out.

Brendan Smialowski, AFP via Getty

Let me tell you a story about Stephen Miller and chain migration.

It begins at the turn of the 20th century, in a dirt-floor shack in the village of Antopol, a shtetl of subsistence farmers in what is now Belarus. Beset by violent anti-Jewish pogroms and forced childhood conscription in the Czar’s army, the patriarch of the shack, Wolf-Leib Glosser, fled a village where his forebears had lived for centuries and took his chances in America.

He set foot on Ellis Island on January 7, 1903, with $8 to his name. Though fluent in Polish, Russian and Yiddish, he understood no English. An elder son, Nathan, soon followed. By street corner peddling and sweatshop toil, Wolf-Leib and Nathan sent enough money home to pay off debts and buy the immediate family’s passage to America in 1906. That group included young Sam Glosser, who with his family settled in the western Pennsylvania city of Johnstown, a booming coal and steel town that was a magnet for other hardworking immigrants. The Glosser family quickly progressed from selling goods from a horse and wagon to owning a haberdashery in Johnstown run by Nathan and Wolf-Leib to a chain of supermarkets and discount department stores run by my grandfather, Sam, and the next generation of Glossers, including my dad, Izzy. It was big enough to be listed on the AMEX stock exchange and employed thousands of people over time. In the span of some 80 years and five decades, this family emerged from poverty in a hostile country to become a prosperous, educated clan of merchants, scholars, professionals, and, most important, American citizens.

View the complete article here.

White House admits 559 children still separated from their families

The following article by Eric Boehert was posted on the ShareBlue.com website August 10, 2018:

Deadline after deadline is missed.

Credit: Carolyn Kaster, AP Photo)

Trump’s national disgrace of kidnapping migrant children at the border and ripping families apart remains unresolved.

Today, weeks after a federal judge demanded the children be reunited with their parents, 559 remain separated, according to a new government filing.

“Of the 559 children, 386 remain separated because their family members are not in the U.S.; 51 because contact has yet to be made with family members; 87 because ‘red flags’ came up during the family members’ background checks; 88 because the parents are facing separate prosecution; 163 because family members ‘indicated desire against reunification;’ and 20 because ‘further review’ has shown the government didn’t actually separate them from their parents,” the San Diego Tribune reports.

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Women and LGBTQ Deportees Face Compounded Dangers Upon Return

The following article by Binh X. Ngo was posted on the Center for American Progress website August 10, 2018:

The Latinx transgender community marches through a heavily immigrant neighborhood to fight against discrimination on July 9, 2018, in Queens, NY. Credit: Andrew Lichtenstein, Getty Images

The Trump administration has led an aggressive anti-immigrant campaign that will have dangerous ramifications for vulnerable populations—especially women and LGBTQ immigrants. Many are being returned to Latin American countries such as Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala that are rife with dangers—including gender-based violence, domestic abuse, and gang violence—without stable enough institutions to protect them.

Administrative changes to asylum law and policy are making it significantly more difficult for asylum-seekers to establish claims—especially for those fleeing severe domestic abuse or gang violence. The Trump administration’s moves to shrink the grounds for asylum will ultimately re-expose many women and LGBTQ people to dangers that originally compelled them to flee. Continue reading “Women and LGBTQ Deportees Face Compounded Dangers Upon Return”

Judge halts mother-daughter deportation, threatens to hold Sessions in contempt

The following article by Arelis R. Hernándz was posted on the Washington Post website August 9, 2018:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions restated his zero tolerance policy for illegal entry from the border with Mexico on June 11. Credit: Reuters

A federal judge in Washington halted a deportation in progress Thursday and threatened to hold Attorney General Jeff Sessions in contempt after learning that the Trump administration started to remove a woman and her daughter while a court hearing appealing their deportations was underway.

“This is pretty outrageous,” U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan said after being told about the removal. “That someone seeking justice in U.S. court is spirited away while her attorneys are arguing for justice for her?”

“I’m not happy about this at all,” the judge continued. “This is not acceptable.”

View the complete article here.

Melania Trump’s Parents Become U.S. Citizens, Using ‘Chain Migration’ Trump Hates Image

The following article by Annie Correal and Emily Cochrane was posted on the New York Times website August 9, 2018:

Melania Trump’s parents, Amalija and Viktor Knavs, flank their lawyer, Michael Wildes, heading to their naturalization ceremony in Manhattan on Thursday. Credit: Holly Pickett for The New York Times

President Trump has repeatedly and vehemently denounced what he calls “chain migration,” in which adult American citizens can obtain residency for their relatives.

On Thursday, his Slovenian in-laws, Viktor and Amalija Knavs, became United States citizens in a private ceremony in Manhattan by taking advantage of that same family-based immigration program.

Asked if the Knavses had obtained citizenship through “chain migration,” their lawyer, Michael Wildes, said, “I suppose.”

View the complete article here.

The ACLU is suing Jeff Sessions over the Trump administration’s asylum policies

The following article by Brianna Provenzano was posted on the Mic.com website August 8, 2018:

The American Civil Liberties Union and Center for Gender and Refugee Studies filed suit Tuesday in federal court in Washington, D.C., contesting the Trump administration’s evisceration of protections for asylum seekers.

The lawsuit, Grace v. Sessions, specifically calls into question policies enacted by Attorney General Jeff Sessions in June that seek to ramp up deportations and expedite removal proceedings for immigrants.

Under the new rules, asylum officers are encouraged to categorize petitions citing credible “fears of domestic abuse or gang violence” as “personal circumstances,” which do not automatically constitute eligibility for asylum.

View the complete article here.

Border arrest data suggests Trump’s push to split migrant families had little deterrent effect

The following article by Nick MIroff was posted on the Washington Post website August 8, 2018:

For some seeking asylum, family separations were worth the risk: ‘Whatever it took, we had to get to this country’ (Zoeann Murphy, Jorge Ribas/The Washington Post)

The number of migrant families taken into custody along the U.S. border with Mexico remained nearly unchanged from June to July, according to government data released Wednesday, an indication the Trump administration’s controversial move to separate thousands of parents and children did little to deter others from attempting the journey.

U.S. border agents arrested 9,258 family members along America’s southwest border last month, down slightly from 9,434 in June and 9,485 in May.

The administration cited a springtime surge of parents crossing illegally with children as justification for its “zero tolerance” prosecution initiative, which led to the separation of approximately 2,500 families between May 5 and June 20, when public outcry forced President Trump to end the practice.

View the complete article here.

Trump’s Public-Charge Rule Would Threaten Disabled Immigrants’ Health and Safety

The following article by Rebecca Cokley and Hannah Leibson was posted on the Center for American Progress website August 8, 2018:

A Palestinian family sits together at an airport on April 17, 2018. Credit: Dogukan Keskinkilic, Getty Images

In another wave of pointed attacks, the Trump administration has proposed a radical change in immigration policy that would have widespread negative consequences for people with disabilities and their families. Under current law, most immigrants seeking a green card, which grants them authorization to live and work permanently in the United States, must pass an archaic public-charge test. An individual can be designated a public charge if they are determined likely to become primarily dependent on long-term cash assistance from programs such as Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) or institutionalized for long-term care paid for with Medicaid.

Even though the current public-charge test discriminates against immigrants with disabilities, relatively few disabled immigrants with family support in the United States fail it. But President Donald Trump is preparing to drastically expand the public-charge test, including by explicitly targeting disabled immigrants. The proposed changes harken back to a period when the federal government used the test to deny permanent residency to individuals it deemed “degenerates,” such as LGBTQ immigrants, and other groups seen as “morally deficient,” including unmarried mothers. Continue reading “Trump’s Public-Charge Rule Would Threaten Disabled Immigrants’ Health and Safety”

This judge is so anti-immigrant even the Trump administration wants him to chill

The following article by Ian Hillhiser was posted on the ThinkProgress website August 7, 2018:

If Kris Kobach had a love child with ICE, that child would be Judge Andrew Hanen.

Judge Andrew Hanen Credit: U.S. Sentencing Commission

Judge Andrew Hanen may be the most anti-immigrant judge in the United States.

During the Obama administration, Hanen didn’t simply strike down several of President Obama’s signature immigration policies, he ordered a dox attack against tens of thousands of immigrants (though this order was later stayed).

After a dispute arose between Hanen and a handful of Justice Department attorneys defending Obama’s immigration policies — Hanen claims that the lawyers intentionally deceived him, the lawyers claim that they merely misunderstood a question — Hanen ordered hundreds of government lawyers, most of whom had never appeared in his courtroom, to attend a remedial ethics course.

View the complete article here.