The president of the Untied States rebuked a law on Saturday that requires the separation of children from their parents at the southern border. One crucial detail escaped President Trump in his condemnation, however: there is no such law.
It appears Trump has, once again, lied on Twitter. The president called on his supporters in a tweet to pressure Democrats to "end the horrible law."
Put pressure on the Democrats to end the horrible law that separates children from there parents once they cross the Border into the U.S. Catch and Release, Lottery and Chain must also go with it and we MUST continue building the WALL! DEMOCRATS ARE PROTECTING MS-13 THUGS.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 26, 2018
Many human-rights organizations, such as the ACLU, quickly noted that not only was there no such federal law in place, it was the president's own administration that established the policy.
No law requires this — separating parents and children is your administration’s choice. Hundreds of kids as young as 18 months are in danger of suffering lifelong trauma. We won’t let you shift the blame or use families as bargaining chips for your wall. #EndFamilySeparation https://t.co/ixRFgPgCq6 — ACLU (@ACLU) May 26, 2018
Last month, the New York Times reported that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had lost track of 1,500 migrant children who showed up at the border. These minors were unaccompanied by adults and, therefore, were handed over to sponsors to supervise them. Despite this scheme, DHS still managed to lose 1,500 kids.
This problem soon became more profound and dire when the Trump administration announced a policy that would criminally prosecute parents who arrive at the Mexican border. This would place parents in the criminal system, while any attended children would become the responsibility of DHS, the same agency that has already lost 1,500 minors.
That this policy is of the Trump administration's own origin was made painfully obvious when White House chief of staff John Kelly defended the "zero-tolerance" plan to NPR, asserting that separating parents from their children could be a "tough deterrent" to border crossings.
When NPR asked Kelly about opponents of the policy who say it is "cruel and heartless to take a mother away from her children," Kelly downplayed the criticism, according to an interview transcript released Friday.
"I wouldn't put it quite that way," Kelly said. "The children will be taken care of — put into foster care or whatever. But the big point is they elected to come illegally into the United States and this is a technique that no one hopes will be used extensively or for very long."
Realizing this policy has not played well with the American people, including some of those who hold more hardline positions on immigration, Trump decided that the best answer to this political quagmire was to lie.
It's telling that Trump resorted to falsehoods and fiction as opposed to using his executive power to end the policy. Trump would rather blame Democrats than to fess up to his own mistake. He would rather have children fall off the grid than appear sympathetic to Latinos.
Evidence of the president's callousness towards the Mexican people continue to pile up. In a campaign speech last week, for example, Trump intimated that the people crossing the border were "animals." In addition, The Washington Post reported on Friday that in an Oval Office meeting in February, Trump acted as if he was at a rally and began evoking Hispanic names and describing potential crimes that they committed. Trump insisted that this would play well with the rally's crowd, as they would roar for deportations.
It would take willful ignorance not to couch Trump's remarks in the context of the policies he has prescribed at the Mexican border.
Horrifying stories of migrants losing their children at the border have now entered the national spotlight. One Honduras national described being separated from her 18-month-year-old son.
“My son was crying as I put him in the seat," the woman explained in a legal document. "I did not even have a chance to try to comfort my son, because the officers slammed the door shut as soon as he was in his seat. I was cry, too. I cry even now when I think about that moment when the border officers took my son away.”
Immigrations lawyers have resorted to desperate appeals to the court. A lawyer from the ACLU representing the Honduras national argued "something needs to be done nationally because there are 700 little kids sitting there by themselves without their parents. They are traumatized. The declarations talk about how these little kids are being taken away crying and screaming. They are just little kids."
Another story, reported by the Houston Chronicle, details one Guatemalan migrant who was separated from his son. Esteban Pastor, 28, was detained in El Paso, isolated from his son. When Pastor was deported he asked federal agents for his son's whereabouts.
One agent shrugged, while the other made a phone call.
“Your son’s not going back today,” he told Pastor.
These are the real-life consequences of Trump's policies at the Mexican border. Now, Trump has resorted to make-believe to elude responsibility.
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