For large numbers of migrants making the journey to the U.S. from Central America, staying in their native countries is no longer an option.
Tag: immigration
🎧 ‘The Daily’: Trump Ends His Child Separation Practice | New York Times
The president signed an executive order to keep immigrant parents and children together at the border. What happens now?
🎧 FEMA Time | On the Media | WNYC Studios
As Hurricane Florence bears down, we discover that FEMA has $10 million less in its budget. The money was siphoned off to pay for detention and removal of immigrants.On Wednesday, as Florence swirled ominously off the coast of the Carolinas, and states prepared for imminent disaster, Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) thought it would be a good time to draw everyone’s attention to the shifting priorities of this administration. Specifically, he released a budget that showed the Department of Homeland Security had transferred nearly 10 million dollars from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to Immigration and Customs Enforcement to pay for detention and removal operations.
FEMA officials maintain that the smaller budget won’t hinder their operations, but as wildfires rage and hurricanes make landfall, they have a lot on their plate. We don't think about FEMA much, until that's all we think about. Historian Garrett Graff says the agency’s, quote, “under-the-radar nature” was originally a feature, not a bug. Graff wrote about "The Secret History of FEMA" for Wired last September and he spoke to Bob about the agency's Cold War origins as civil defense in the event of a nuclear attack and how it transitioned to "natural" disaster response. Plus, they discuss the limitations to FEMA's capabilities and why it has such a spotty record. Graff is also author of Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself -- While The Rest of Us Die.
🎧 “General Chapman's Last Stand” Season 3 Episode 5 | Revisionist History
"Good fences make good neighbors. Or maybe not."
General Leonard Chapman guided the Marines Corp through some of the most difficult years in its history. He was brilliant, organized, decisive and indefatigable. Then he turned his attention to the America’s immigration crisis. You think you want effective leadership? Be careful what you wish for.
👓 The White House Unified On Old Issues — And Then Started New Fights | Five Thirty Eight
The Trump administration has deep internal conflicts. That was true when President Trump was sworn into office, and it’s true now. But the nature of those conflicts has changed: The mostly ideological fights of 2017 seem to have somewhat subsided, while issues around Russia are creating new (and maybe even bigger) fissures.
👓 Court rules children facing deportation have no right to court-appointed lawyer | The Hill
Immigrant children who enter the country illegally with their parents have no right to a government-appointed lawyer in court, an appeals court ruled Monday
🎧 ‘The Daily’: Father and Son, Forced Apart at the Border | New York Times
A 5-year-old boy named José and his father fled the violence in Honduras and headed to the United States. They were separated at the border. What has happened to them in the weeks since?
On today’s episode:
• Miriam Jordan, who covers immigration for The New York Times.
Background reading:
• Many children who have been taken from their parents as a result of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy end up in shelters or foster homes.
• Federal criminal prosecutions of migrants have skyrocketed, and the volume of cases has prompted rapid-fire hearings in which multiple defendants — in one instance, 40 people — are brought into the courtroom at once.• Republicans in the House and the Senate voiced their intention to halt the practice of separating families at the border — but clashed over how to proceed.
🎧 ‘The Daily’: How Separating Migrant Families Became U.S. Policy | New York Times
President Trump has blamed Democrats for his administration’s practice of taking children from their parents at the border. Why is one of his top aides, Stephen Miller, claiming credit?
On June 7, Julie Hirschfeld Davis and I interviewed Stephen Miller, President Trump’s senior policy adviser, in his West Wing office about the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy at the border, which has led to heartbreaking images of children being forcibly separated from their families. Here are some key points from that interview.
1. The zero-tolerance policy grew out of a desire to end what Mr. Miller calls “crippling loopholes” that attract illegal immigrants into the United States.
From where Mr. Miller sits, illegal immigration is driven by a belief among people outside the United States that those who make it across the border will be allowed to stay indefinitely. “The success rate is the predominant factor that drives illegal migration,” he told us. By instituting a zero-tolerance policy, Mr. Miller said, the administration is sending a message that should reduce the flow of illegal immigration into the country. He conceded that the policy has not reduced the immigration numbers, but said, “It’ll take a few months of sustained effort.”
2. Anything less than zero tolerance at the border creates what Mr. Miller calls “perverse” incentives for lawbreakers.
Mr. Miller used the example of speeding laws in the United States. Imagine, he said, if the police decided that speeding laws didn’t apply to people who have a child in the back seat. “Could you imagine what the consequences of that would be? Well, one thing, a lot more child endangerment,” he said, comparing the situation to the lack of enforcement of illegal border crossings under prior administrations.
3. Continuing policies in place during the Obama administration would cause what Mr. Miller called a “vicious cycle” that would increase illegal immigration.
Mr. Miller said a “giant hemispheric shift in migration patterns” was driving people toward the United States, which he said must respond with tighter borders. He said Obama-era policies would allow the number of immigrants to “spiral upward endlessly.” Using a favorite phrase, Mr. Miller said: “So you have to turn the ship. And so again, it’s a whole-of-government approach.”
4. Zero tolerance at the border will keep out dangerous illegal immigrants who would otherwise “grievously harm innocent Americans,” Mr. Miller said.
Reading from a list of arrests in Philadelphia in May 2017, Mr. Miller recounted the crimes committed by illegal immigrants: murder, child neglect, negligent manslaughter, car theft, prostitution, racketeering, rape. “It is impossible to take moral lectures from people like the mayor of Philadelphia, who dance in jubilant celebration over ‘sanctuary cities,’ when you had innocent Americans, U.S.-born and foreign, who are victimized on a daily basis because of illegal immigration,” Mr. Miller said.
5. Trump administration officials believe Americans will support their zero-tolerance policies over what Mr. Miller calls the “nihilism” of the Democratic agenda.
Mr. Miller said he believed the issue of border security, even with the controversy over family separations, was a “90-10” issue for Mr. Trump and his Republican allies. He predicted that voters in November would reject “the Democrats’ open-borders extremism,” adding that Democrats had adopted “a point of view so radical that it can really only be described as absolute nihilism.”
On today’s episode:
- Julie Hirschfeld Davis, who covers the White House and immigration for The New York Times.
Background coverage:
- President Trump is facing a growing outcry against his administration’s “zero tolerance” border policy, which requires all migrants who enter the United States without authorization to be taken into federal criminal custody, at which point they are separated from their children.
- Stephen Miller, a top aide to the president, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions — two immigration hard-liners who are shaping Mr. Trump’s approach to immigration — have defended the policy.
- As a result of “zero tolerance,” 1,995 children have been separated from adults accompanying them at the border in six weeks.
- This episode of “The Daily” includes excerpts from an audio recording from inside a United States Customs and Border Protection facility, where children are heard crying after being separated from their parents. Listen to the full recording on ProPublica.org.
🎧 ‘The Daily’: The Truth Behind #WhereAreTheChildren | New York Times
The United States government lost track of nearly 1,500 undocumented children in the last three months of 2017, giving rise to claims that they had been separated from their families at the border. What does the confusion reveal about President Trump’s approach to immigration?
On today’s episode:
• Caitlin Dickerson, a national immigration reporter for The New York Times.
Background reading:
• An official with the Department of Health and Human Services said that the agency had not been able to contact 1,475 migrant children it had placed with sponsors in the United States. The children had entered the country as unaccompanied minors; many were fleeing violence in Central America.
• The Trump administration says it separates immigrant families only when necessary to protect the child. But the government’s own figures show this has happened in more than 700 cases.
• The number of children who were unaccounted for was conflated with the number of children who been separated from their guardians in a public outcry that gave rise to hashtags like #WhereAreTheChildren.
👓 Des Moines DREAMer dies within weeks after being sent back to Mexico’s violence | Des Moines Register
Manuel Antonio Cano Pacheco should have graduated from high school in Des Moines last month. The oldest of four siblings should have walked across a stage in a cap and gown to become a proud symbol to his sister and brothers of the rewards of hard work and education. Instead, Manuel died a brutal death alone in a foreign land, a symbol of gang supremacy in a country plagued by violent drug cartels. It happened three weeks after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement returned him to Mexico, a country he had left at age 3 when his parents brought him here without a visa.
🎧 ‘The Daily’: From Fox to Twitter to the National Guard | The New York Times
It started with a report on Fox News, and ended with calls for troops at the border with Mexico. We look at how President Trump’s approach to immigration transformed over 72 hours.
We look at how President Trump’s approach to immigration transformed over just 72 hours.
On today’s episode:
• Julie Hirschfeld Davis, who covers the White House for The New York Times.
Background reading:
• President Trump said on Tuesday that he planned to deploy the National Guard to the border with Mexico to confront what the White House calls the growing threat posed by illegal immigrants and crime.
• Three days of presidential tweets contained many false and misleading accusations. Here’s a fact-check.
🎧 The Daily: Trump’s Immigration Plan | The New York Times
The president wants merit-based migration. But what counts as merit? We also report on the shooting at a Florida school in which at least 17 people died.
This Is What It’s Like When A Father Of 4 Is Detained By ICE While Dropping His Daughters Off At School | LAist
Romulo Avelica-Gonzalez, a 48-year-old father of four U.S.-born children, remains in detention.
Don’t Cancel the Academy Awards Over Trump. Oscar Nominees, Try This Instead. | Slate
With the news that that the latest disaster in Donald Trump’s Lizard Brain Jamboree will bar Oscar nominee Asghar Farhadi from attending the Academy Awards (and Farhadi’s later decision to skip them whether he is allowed to come or not), the film community has been scrambling to find an effective response.
Google Recalls Staff to U.S. After Trump Immigration Order | Bloomberg
Alphabet Inc.’s Google delivered a sharp message to staff traveling overseas who may be impacted by a new executive order on immigration from President Donald Trump: Get back to the U.S. now.
Alphabet Inc.’s Google delivered a sharp message to staff traveling overseas who may be impacted by a new executive order on immigration from President Donald Trump: Get back to the U.S. now.
Google Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai slammed Trump’s move in a note to employees Friday, telling them that more than 100 company staff are affected by the order. Continue reading Google Recalls Staff to U.S. After Trump Immigration Order | Bloomberg