The United States of America is destroying any claim to moral global leadership by tearing immigrant children away from their parents without any plan for reuniting them. To this horrifying torture of thousands of children whom we are teaching to hate America, South Dakota State Senator Reynold Nesiba offers the only appropriate statesmanly response: “I denounce it.”
Unfortunately, Kristi Noem and John Thune can only babble political flak to protect an evil Administration:
“No one wants to see families broken apart, but this debate highlights the challenges that come when we don’t secure our border,” Noem said in a statement. “We must cut down illegal border crossings before our country can accurately address the problems within our legal immigration system” [Dana Ferguson, “S.D. Lawmakers Don’t Denounce Family Separation Policy, Say Congress Must Fix It,” that Sioux Falls paper, 2018.06.19].
So why must we terrify and torture children?
“This is a real issue with real consequences, it’s a function and a byproduct of an immigration system that’s been broken for way too long,” he said at a press conference Tuesday. “I’m hoping that the Democrats, at least this time around, will realize that the best solution, the best path forward is to work with us in a bipartisan way to create a new law” [Ferguson, 2018.06.19].
So why must we terrify and torture children?
“We believe we can protect our borders while also showing compassion for the children who are in this situation through no fault of their own,” Rounds wrote in a statement. “The best course of action to stop family separation at the border is for Congress to act.”
He cited legislation put forth by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, that he planned to support [Ferguson, 2018.06.19].
Rounds at least suggests he’ll vote for a plan to stop our terrifying and torturing children. But Cruz’s plan isn’t the simple denunciation and cessation of this cruel policy. It’s a questionable hodgepodge of illegal indefinite detention and rushed hearings that may deny asylum seekers due process:
Cruz’s bill has four planks. One mandates that families be detained together while their immigration cases proceed. Another calls for authorizing new temporary shelters where the families will be held. The Trump administration has also been pushing to detain families together. The problem is that Trump wants to be able to detain them indefinitely, but he can’t, following a 2015 court decision that requires children to be quickly released from detention facilities. It is unclear if Cruz’s bill would overturn the court decision and the 1997 agreement, known as the Flores settlement, that the ruling is based on.
A third plank of Cruz’s bill would fast-track asylum cases sothat they are decided within two weeks. (The administration already has a goal of adjudicating all new asylum claims within three weeks.) In theory, that would render moot the current 20-day limit for detaining children, although it would require a huge increase in the rate at which these cases are decided. The final plank calls for doubling the number of immigration judges to quickly process the cases—another Trump administration proposal. (Trump contradicted his administration’s position on Tuesday, saying, “I don’t want judges. I want border security.”) [Noah Lanard, “Cruz’s Proposal to End Family Separation Won’t Guarantee an End to Family Separation,” Mother Jones, 2018.06.19]
The proper moral solution is far simpler: the Administration needs to stop interpreting a legal settlement (not a law passed by Democrats or whatever other fantasy excuse the Administration is offering) to justify this torture and let children stay with their parents while they await adjudication of their immigration status.
…it’s neither Democrats’ law nor a law at all. So what is the Trump administration talking about?
The heart of their argument is based on a legal settlement, the Flores Settlement Agreement. The lawsuit against the former Immigration and Naturalization Service began in 1985 and was finally settled under the Clinton administration in 1997.
Human Rights First, an international human-rights nonprofit, notes the suit was brought “on behalf of immigrant children who had been detained” seeking better treatment.
Doris Meissner, who was head of INS at the time and signed the settlement, talked to NPR’s Michel Martin on Saturday’s All Things Considered. She explained that Flores is not a law, that it does have the “force of law,” but it’s a “judgment” on the part of the Trump administration on “how to implement that court decision.”
“[T]his implementation of the court decision that says children need to be separated from their parents because their parent is being prosecuted — that has never happened before in the past from the time that this settlement took place through other administrations, both Democratic and Republican administrations,” Meissner said [Domenico Montanaro, “Family Separation Is Trump’s Immigration Policy. Here’s Why He Won’t Own It,” NPR, 2018.06.20].
Senator Rounds, Senator Thune, Representative Noem: denounce this torture. Stop this torture. Stop hurting these children. Stop hurting America.
Steve Schmidt. “Former republican strategist” has had enough of the new Nazi party of trump. This is now the party of NOem, Thune and Rounds..sieg heil.
““This child separation policy is connected to the worst abuses of Humanity in our history,” Schmidt said. “It is connected by the same evil that separated families during slavery and dislocated tribes and broke up Native American families. It is immoral and must be repudiated. Our country is in trouble. Our politics are badly broken.”
The longer NOem says nothing, the more damage she does to her state. Regarding Thune and Rounds, they have no one who would primary them, no one, so that makes their silence on trump even more sinister and shows complete complicity in his evil acts. Between the three of these phony baloney’s, not one bit of legislation to help our state. The three are teats on a boar that show only irrelevance. That is another reason to send a strong voice to Washington that actually knows law and will stand for it.
Thune may give new meaning to the word “feckless,” but he sure was looking tall and tan in the photo op yesterday.
Der Spiegel in Germany has this editorial up about Germany’s relationship with trump. It is not good:
“No, this US President has never been a partner, he is a bitter opponent. We should finally start to treat him accordingly. An appointment of the US ambassador and formal protest can only be a first step. Relations with this US government should be kept to a minimum. It is no longer necessary to continue pretending to be friendly. Germany and the European Union should give up any polite self-restraint in the public assessment of this US government. The line of conversation to her may not break, but it can not be more than a thread. We knew for a long time that we can not rely on the USA under Donald Trump anymore. At least now it is clear: we have to protect ourselves from him.” http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/donald-trump-der-feind-im-weissen-haus-kommentar-a-1213919.html
These are our trading partners that we are kicking in the teeth. These countries have invested billions in the US building plants to manufacture products that keep Americans employed. Yet NOem, Thune and Rounds do not have the business savvy to see this and allow trump to run stupid among our closest friends. What are they getting out of it? How are they getting paid to be stupid?
Loren,
It is funny that you mentioned that, because I had had the same thought. Perhaps, Lavallee’s Ten Haken should take note and run quickly to the nearest tanning booth, because it is all about image you know…
Noem can no longer claim to be pro-life or pro-family
No Nobel for trump, boo hoo. America’s concentration camps were just to much to bear for the folks who make the call for the Nobel Peace Prize.
“US President Donald Trump is “no longer the moral leader of his country or the world”, the human rights watchdog, the Council of Europe, said Wednesday amid global outrage over the White House’s policy of separating migrant children from their parents.
“What is happening at the (US-Mexico) border where he (Trump) is separating children from their parents is a sign that he is no longer the moral leader of his country or the world,” the Council of Europe’s secretary general, Thorbjorn Jagland, told Norwegian broadcaster TV2.
“Everything he does excludes him from the role American presidents have always had,” Jagland said during a trip to Moscow.
“He can not speak on behalf of the so-called free world.”” https://au.news.yahoo.com/trump-no-longer-moral-leader-free-world-top-142035527–spt.html
Nesiba gets it right. NOem, Thune and Rounds are in the gestapo corner making swastika’s. trump voters, you have been conned by the con.
Rounds, Thune, Noem, my Congressweasel Lewis and any other one who is silent is no less complicit than the guards who followed orders at Dachau, Birkenau, etc. They are truly that filthy, that rancid.
The GOP, if it survives this, can NEVER speak of appeasement again. They are the party of Chamberlain,
GOP does NOT DESERVE to survive this.
Please link us to the torture?
From the American Academy of Pediatricians report- Studies of detained immigrants, primarily from abroad, have found negative physical and emotional symptoms among detained children,55–57 and posttraumatic symptoms do not always disappear at the time of release.56 Young detainees may experience developmental delay58 and poor psychological adjustment, potentially affecting functioning in school.59 Qualitative reports about detained unaccompanied immigrant children in the United States found high rates of posttraumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, and other behavioral problems.60 Additionally, expert consensus has concluded that even brief detention can cause psychological trauma and induce long-term mental health risks for children
PTSD, stress, anxiety,depression, suicidal ideation ? How much more torture do these kids need?
Since Jason doesn’t understand that the mere separation of parents from their children are a huge issue. (MFI defines it perfectly)….
there is this….
https://apnews.com/afc80e51b562462c89907b49ae624e79
there is this…
http://www.newsweek.com/migrant-children-separated-parents-border-were-forced-take-drugs-lawsuit-988069
There is quite a bit out there, Jason. Current sitting lawmakers are being denied entrance into these facilities. Why? If there is nothing to hide, why?
If you are using filtered media outlets (such as Fox, Breitbart, Drudge, Limbaugh, Hannity) as your source? of course you will never hear anything about this
drumpf administration has been dumpimg anchor babies…genuine American citizen babies… in Mexico with their mothers, but no American birth certificates according to the Hill.
https://thehill.com/latino/537579-multiple-newborn-us-citizens-removed-to-mexico-without-birth-certificates-report
This has got to be illegal, unconstitutional and reprehensible as hell, even for swamp dwelling magats!