Trump about to issue executive order on separation of illegal immigrant families at border
[NOTE: I will update as news develops.]
Here’s the report:
President Donald Trump said he would be signing an executive order later Wednesday that would end the process of separating children from families after they are detained crossing the border illegally.
“We want to keep families together. It’s very important,” Trump told reporters during a White House meeting with members of Congress. “I’ll be signing something in a little while that’s going to do that.”
The AP story goes on to add that Trump has wrongly said the policy can only change by an act of Congress, but then states “Justice Department lawyers have been working to find a legal workaround for a class-action lawsuit settlement that set policies for the treatment and release of unaccompanied children who are caught at the border, or crafting an order that would defy the settlement and force it back into court to argue for changes.” In other words yes, ordinarily this could only be done by an act of Congress, but they’ve been trying to craft a way to get past this, to “work around” it, in some clever lawyerly manner. In addition, that report fails to state the Trump also said his order should be followed by an act of Congress.
It is the judicial system that has ruled that children must be separated from detained parents (liberal courts, actually):
In 2015, a federal judge in Los Angeles expanded the terms of the [Flores] settlement, ruling that it applies to children who are caught with their parents as well as to those who come to the U.S. alone. Other recent rulings, upheld on appeal, affirm the children’s rights to a bond hearing and require better conditions at the Border Patrol’s short-term holding facilities.
In 2016, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that child migrants who came to the border with parents and were held in custody must be released.
Stay tuned. This could be very interesting indeed.
My guess is that Trump—who is pretty good at reading the political winds—has decided that this is not the hill he wants to die on, and that he wants to finesse the Democrats and take away this particular emotionally-laden talking point. No doubt the opposition will find fault with whatever he does, because they want to keep this issue alive, and also because their goal is catch and release.
We should find out later today what the details are, but here’s his announcement:
A wall would aid asylum seekers.
Birth certificates and criminal records would help separate the parents from predators who identify as “parents”.
Mexico could confront immigration reform at its border.
Lifting the veil of privacy from Planned Parenthood and other abortion chambers would highlight the consequences of human rights violations, social justice adventures, and excessive immigration.
I am sure most followers of this blog understand this firestorm is almost entirely media/NGO/Democrat party (essentially a trinity of one) generated but that it likely has little impact beyond the perpetually outraged Trump haters. Most of my lefty friends are screaming non stop about it on social media. None of my centrist/conservative/apolitical friends and acquaintances have uttered a peep.
I agree with the President’s decision to issue an EO; and the tempest will likely dissipate shortly thereafter; but only to be replaced by the next contrived firestorm to impassion credulous progressives and SJWs. After all, Russiagate is getting really stale, and the Parkland gun control protests have grown redundant. Something new was needed to keep the left agitated. Once this passes, there will be another, and another….
The main goal is not so much to convince anyone who is not already a die hard convert, but to keep the faithful motivated and agitated up to election day. Will it work? Stay tuned…
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/06/the-immigration-fracas-paging-daniel-boorstin.php
“Boorstin defines a “pseudo-event” as not merely a fact or real event that happened, but a fact or event that is made into “news” of a certain kind by a deliberate and artificial process. …
In the present case, we know that “child separation” from illegal immigrant adults has been going on for a long time, possibly at a scale larger than at the moment. How did this story suddenly blow up the way it did just now? Since the media hadn’t yet toured any detention facilities at the border, where did those first pictures of kids in cages (which turned out to be from 2014) come from?
One reason Boorstin called his book The Image was the central importance he placed on visual imagery in affecting public sentiment—a development he called “the Graphic Revolution.” This is not exactly a new or profound insight and lots of examples come easily to mind (like Eddie Adams’s famous photograph of the Viet Cong guerrilla being shot in the head on the Saigon street during Tet in 1968), but Boorstin combined it with a remarkably prescient anticipation of today’s 24/7 cable TV news cycle:
..
It is not clear whether the current pull-the-heartstring images of kids behind chain-link fences and sleeping on the floor under space blankets will have the same effect on the iron-willed Trump, but that is the intent behind this pseudo-event. (So far Trump’s poll numbers seem to be holding up or maybe even improving.) News this morning suggests that Trump may be about to issue executive directions to revise or end the child-separation practice, and that Congress may attempt to vote on some related legislation tomorrow. Stay tuned. This pseudo-event has enough built up momentum behind it that the agitators and crisis entrepreneurs won’t let it die down easily or soon.”
NEO: “My guess is that Trump—who is pretty good at reading the political winds—has decided that this is not the hill he wants to die on, and that he wants to finesse the Democrats and take away this particular emotionally-laden talking point. No doubt the opposition will find fault with whatever he does, because they want to keep this issue alive, and also because their goal is catch and release.”
Have read in a couple of places (and it’s not a new idea) that the Democrats actively work at NOT solving problems because they lose the advantage of the hysteria they gin up to boost their support.
As the #WalkAway video asserted to the usual victim-groups: they promise you everything, and then do nothing for you.
Nearly every AP story is wrong.
Trump needs to crack back on Mexico. The law is that the asylum seekers should get asylum in the first country they reach and that is Mexico.
This whole issue should be phrased in terms of duty, that is, the first duty of the United States is to its own citizens and not foreigners.