Oh, lordy. I know that Trump’s “immigration” problem is all a lie. It’s an artificial crisis that leaves me depressed. Let me see if I can say this clearly.
First: there’s a long American tradition – and tons of laws – that allows foreigners to apply to the US for asylum. That’s legal and accepted. We’ve been that way forever because we’re mostly good people. Plus, it’s helped our country immensely. We’re all a little richer because of the refugees we host.
The first lie is to use confusing terms. The people on our southern border are refugees. They’re not criminals or immigrants. One of Trump’s most frightening lies was that the refugees are dishonest immigrants, and “mostly bad hombrès.” No, they’re not murders, rapists, or criminals. They’re not even immigrants. Trump may be a rapist, but these refugees are mostly families desperate for our help. We cannot automatically treat them as criminals, either. American law insists that we cannot assume criminality – for anyone – before they can argue their case before a judge. Until then, we can’t punish them for any supposed crimes.
Second lie: these brown people are bad because they aren’t doing what we say they should do. That’s because they can’t follow our rules. Almost nobody can get through the US waitlist at the border stations. (Again, they’re applying for asylum, not immigration. Anyone who confuses the two is lying to you.) Why? Trump throttled the pipeline at the Mexican border down to a trickle. Brown people, you know? Only a few people can get hearings. We’ve pushed the rest – tired, hungry, and destitute – back into Mexico, where they’re forced to wait without facilities until the US says we have room to evaluate their cases. They are not criminals. It’s their right to apply for asylum. Nothing criminal so far. Trump is only making a hysterical attempt to minimize the brown people who scare him.
Right, the third lie: refugees are lawbreakers. Trump managed to make this tricky by enticing them to break our laws. The Trump Republican administration ensured that most refugees can’t apply for asylum at the designated border stations. Since northern Mexico has become almost as dangerous as the cities they fled, many refugees decide to cross the border between the Customs locations. Nobody with kids wants to cross the desert with kids, but they have little option. They typically throw themselves at the feet of the first uniform they encounter in the US, begging for help. Yes, it’s a crime, but a misdemeanor that we usually ignore.
Until now. The Trump White House has decided to pretend that crossing the border and asking random CBP officers for asylum in person was a serious criminal violation. Since Trump characterized them all as criminals, there you go! That’s the third big lie. Nobody (well, nobody sane) believes that asking for asylum is a new, horrible crime, but it’s politically convenient.
Fourth, fifth, and maybe sixth lie: the border stations are being overwhelmed by the high volume of criminals who they are forced to keep in jail, so they don’t disappear into the US population. Presumably, brown people would be committing many, many crimes because they’re animals, or so I’ve heard Republicans testify. This has never been true, but that’s just the truth, so nobody bothers to repeat it.
The crowds are a new problem because it’s an artificial shortage. Until Trump, America didn’t put all these people in jail camps. Refugees were given their initial evaluations, and then we sent them to stay with family, friends, or organizations who help refugees. Why was that safe? Won’t they skip town? These people want legal asylum, and they worked hard and suffered huge risks to apply. Letting them stay with their communities worked wonderfully; applicants showed up at their subsequent hearings around 97% of the time. (FYI: most ‘bad guys’ who overstay their visas (the most usual route) have the resources to take a plane. The border refugees were never that problem.)
Again, refugees are mostly families, not immigrants, and not part of some weird criminal enterprises. I’m shocked at every Republican who lies about these poor people. The adults aren’t criminals, and their children should be protected. Instead, ideologues are doing real harm to helpless people who are only asking for our help.
Lie… what, seven? But it’s a big one. This lie is that our country is overwhelmed by the hoards of children they have to keep in jail. It’s why the kids are sleeping in military barracks or wire cages, sleeping on concrete under a foil blanket. But it’s all a lie. Separating kids is new and unneeded. It’s deliberate Republican cruelty. Most children arrived with family; it’s the Americans who separated them forcefully. Many children have family in the US. Many have other resources. And yet our government, using our money, cages them, frequently not even contacting the worried families.
Lie eight: the administration was separating children and lying. When they stopped lying, and the Trump Republican party changed the official policy. And now the White House is lying about it again; they have found a loophole, so they’re still separating hundreds of children from their parents.
Lie… oh, who cares. The Trump White House deliberately created a generation of orphans by separating kids from their parents and not keeping track of the kids and parents. Unsurprisingly, they lied under oath about this lack. And, to our everlasting shame, the Trump White House drags their feet, unwilling to provide even minimal aid to reunite families. They also defy court orders in their indifference.
And now that our government has resumed separating families, which they deny doing, they still have no documented method for reuniting families. No, they didn’t arrive alone. Every single child interviewed described the family members they came with.
So now we have an unknown, undocumented number of children, from 17 years down to toddlers, held in undisclosed facilities in squalor (which they deny) without the resources to care for them.
Add to kids sleeping on concrete floors are the dog pounds of adult refugees kept for weeks at a time in the hot border sun with aluminum foil for protection. These people are not criminals; they have not been convicted of any crime.
This is a horror. This is what America has become. This is not Trump anymore; this is us.
All of this is artificial. We don’t need to be holding these people at all. It’s a fake crisis deliberately created. They are abusing kids because it’s what they wanted.
And it’s a profit center. America is reportedly paying an average of $750 per child, per day, for the detention centers. We send some of the money to CBP and some to private contractors. I have to wonder how much is necessary, how much is profit, how much is siphoned off to other uses.
And now Donald Trump is holding these families hostage. Send him money, he swears, and Trump might consider releasing a few of them. Or maybe buy them a few bars of soap, but no promises.
Just this evening, Democrats are voting on a bill that would fund the Trump concentration camps. It doesn’t solve the problems, but it’s something.
But… this is the modern, famously corrupt Republican party. House Democrats wrote restrictions into their bill. The money can only be spent on fixing the Trump concentration camps, and all those camps must be open to Congressional review. I don’t know why that should be required, but the facilities currently turn away Senators and Congresspeople with impunity. Someone should be in jail for that crime, but it explains that second clause.
And those limits – only spend on refugees and open for inspections – was too much for Republicans. Trump promises a veto, and the Republican majority in the Senate are adamant that no bill with such restrictions will be scheduled for a vote, even though the Senate would pass it.
Trump and his Republicans just want the cash. They won’t release the hostages. What’s the profit in that?
Trump is a criminal who deliberately hurts kids. The Republican party is his co-conspirator. But, artificial or not, Trump and the Republicans have created themselves a real crisis. The Democrats are giving them money, as they should. But the money won’t solve the problem. It’s an artificial crisis created out of whole cloth. This is a crime Trump created, with knowing help from our Republicans.
