Hostage Choice
In the “post truth” world it is difficult to find “a real” fact. President Trump’s rant on the White House lawn on Friday exemplified this, with multiple statements that simply were not true. He claimed the Inspector General’s Report on the FBI Clinton email issue completely cleared him of any wrongdoing in the Russia scandal. He claimed the Democrats have total control of the immigration debacle on the Southern border. Both of these statements are false.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kirsten Neilsen claims that there is no policy of separation at the border. She is parsing the legalities of the situation. Her stand: if migrants cross legally with an asylum claim, they are not separated from their children. If they cross in any other way, either not at a “port of entry” (cross the border illegally) or without a prior asylum claim, they are “criminals” and therefore lose their children.
The change is not in the law, it is in the policy of enforcement. Prior to April, immigrants who claimed asylum were processed as families regardless of how they crossed the border. In April, a “zero tolerance” policy, developed and pressed by White House Senior Advisor Stephen Miller, was instituted. Everyone who came across the border without the full legal niceties was considered a criminal. Criminals go into the criminal justice system, they are not processed in the immigration system. Since they are in the criminal system, they lose their kids.
So when President Trump says this is a Democratic law, and their problem to fix, it simply isn’t true. What is true is that the Miller created and driven policy has generated the crisis, putting thousands of children in Federal custody, without their parents. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said, “President Trump can stop this policy with a phone call.” So why doesn’t the President make the call?
The President and the Republicans in the House of Representatives are using the children as hostages to force their border wall agenda. A bill soon to be introduced in the House will offer to end the family separation policy, and give Dreamers special status allowing them to remain in the US; in exchange for the $25 billion border wall. Whether that bill can pass the House (the Freedom Caucus radical Republicans aren’t sure it’s tough enough) or the Senate (Senate Democrats aren’t interested in hostage blackmail) remains to be seen. But Trump and Miller are looking for a big immigration “win” before the November elections and they see this crisis as giving them the legislative leverage to get it.
First Lady Melania Trump is even part of this strategy, as she chimed in this weekend. A statement released through her spokesperson said:
“Mrs. Trump hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform,” her communications director, Stephanie Grisham, told CNN on Sunday. “She believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart.”
Steve Bannon, the architect of many of the President’s more controversial policies, returned to the political fray, saying “…It’s zero tolerance. I don’t think you have to justify it.” And, of course, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has quoted the scriptures to justify the policy, quoting Paul’s message to obey Caesar’s laws (Romans:13.)
But to the Administration, this is about politics, not children. They are betting that the Trump base will stand with the President, enforcing the “law” against the “criminals.” Administration surrogates throw the magic words “MS-13” onto the flames, as if the gang members are bringing kids with them to sneak across the border. And they are happy to have this distraction from the Mueller investigation.
To many, many others, this is seen as a moral crisis. Since April, 1174 children have been separated from their parents at the McAllen Immigration Processing Center alone. We, and this is being done in the name of the citizens of the United States so it is ‘we’, have put thousands of children in custody. We are imprisoning them, even if the prisons have clean sheets and “three squares a day.”
But they are not prisoners. They are hostages, taken to secure the President’s border wall and win seats in Congress in November. It will be up to the citizens of the United States to determine the outcomes of this action, through protest, demanding legislators to act, or at the ballot box.
What actions, what morality, are we willing to accept from our government? President Trump admires Andrew Jackson, who had no problem ordering an entire race to be moved across the country in the Trail of Tears. We are setting up camps, just as we did during World War II with the Japanese/American internment camps. We are reproducing some of the most immoral periods of our nation. In the end, it’s our choice.
