1. Deceitful Rhetoric on Illegal Immigrant Family Separation
Media & Democratic "focus" on illegal immigrant families being separated at the border conspicuously tugs at people's heartstrings without making any effort at all to offer alternatives. Coincidence? I think not.
Media & Democratic "focus" on illegal immigrant families being separated at the border conspicuously tugs at people's heartstrings without making any effort at all to offer alternatives. Coincidence? I think not.
2. Who made any policy or issued any executive orders which made it attractive for illegal immigrants to cross the border accompanied by children? Was it Trump? No, it was Obama. Obama's actions willfully unleashed this phenomenon.
3. Once an illegal crosses the border accompanied by a child, consider all possible alternatives:
a) Immediately deport without due process.
b) Build five-star accommodations (at great expense, considering the number of arrivals) to house them while reviewing their case.
...
a) Immediately deport without due process.
b) Build five-star accommodations (at great expense, considering the number of arrivals) to house them while reviewing their case.
...
4. Alternatives continued ...
c) Hold them together confined in, of necessity, less than great accommodations while under review. Reasonable for the adult, but is it reasonable for the child?
d) Place the child in the loving custody of a relative, sometimes a parent, in the U.S.
c) Hold them together confined in, of necessity, less than great accommodations while under review. Reasonable for the adult, but is it reasonable for the child?
d) Place the child in the loving custody of a relative, sometimes a parent, in the U.S.
5. Alternatives continued ...
e) Place the child in the custody of a willing foster parent while the adult is processed.
f) Release them both on the streets to fend for themselves.
g) Release into the U.S. immediately with generous unconditional welfare.
h) What else?
e) Place the child in the custody of a willing foster parent while the adult is processed.
f) Release them both on the streets to fend for themselves.
g) Release into the U.S. immediately with generous unconditional welfare.
h) What else?
6. Guess which alternative is the current policy? You got it. It's a combination of (d) and (e). If the critics find this policy unacceptable, and reasonable people can make that case, please pitch in with your preferred alternative.
7. Virtue-signalling by foaming at the mouth about the current policy without offering any alternatives is despicable and deceitful -- precisely the preferred stance of the critics so far as I can tell. Then they wonder why Trump won, and will again, in a landslide.
The END.
The END.
A few additional things to bear in mind regarding separation of illegal immigrant families at the border.
1. The Trump administration isn’t changing the rules that pertain to separating an adult from the child.
1. The Trump administration isn’t changing the rules that pertain to separating an adult from the child.
2. The rules have remained the same as they were under Obama and even prior to Obama. Separation happens only if officials find that the adult is falsely claiming to be the child’s parent, or is a threat to the child, or is put into criminal proceedings.
3. The issue of separation only arises when the adult is put into a criminal proceeding, i.e. in all likelihood, when the adult is a repeat offender (illegal entry is a misdemeanor, illegal re-entry a felony).
4. The past practice had been to give a free pass to an adult who is part of a family unit. The new Trump policy is to prosecute all adults. The idea is to send a signal that we are serious about our laws and to create a deterrent against re-entry with a child.
5. When a migrant is prosecuted, he/she is taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals. In no circumstance anywhere in the U.S. do the marshals care for the children of those they take into custody. The child is taken into the custody of HHS, who cares for them at temporary shelters.
6. The criminal proceedings are exceptionally short, assuming there is no aggravating factor such as a prior crime. The migrants generally plead guilty, and they are then sentenced to time served, typically all in the same day, and reunited with the child.
7. Where it becomes much more of an issue is if the adult files an asylum claim (guess who trains economic migrants to file such claims?). In that scenario, the adults are almost certainly going to be detained longer than the government is allowed to hold their children.
8. That’s because of something called the Flores Consent Decree from 1997. It says unaccompanied children in the U.S. can be held only 20 days. A ruling by the Ninth Circuit extended this 20-day limit to migrant children.
9. So even if the Trump admin wants to hold a family unit together, it is forbidden from doing so. Trump has asked the Congress to change the law. So far, Democrats refuse to cooperate, because they see a political issue to be exploited rather than a problem to be solved quickly.
10. If you have any doubt about where Trump stands on the issue, watch this. Yes, he takes the opportunity to plug politics as well, but the essence of what he is saying is absolutely correct, and his message is crystal clear. Let us solve the problem.
11. There is a significant moral cost to not enforcing the border. There is obviously a moral cost to separating a parent from a child and almost everyone would prefer not to do it.
12. But, under current policy and with current resources, the only practical alternative is letting family units who show up at the border live in the country. Not only does this make a mockery of our laws, it creates an incentive for people to keep bringing children with them.
13. Needless to say, children should not be making this journey that is fraught with peril. But there is now a premium on bringing children because of how we have handled these cases. Children are considered chits. 
14. So once again, vacuous virtue-signalling on the cheap, by expressing outrage at the separation of families at the border, without offering any sane alternatives, should be left to deranged and opportunistic politicians. The rest of us should take the time to THINK!
The END
The END
There’s a better way to claim asylum. Every indication is that the migrant flow to the United States is discretionary. It nearly dried up at the beginning of the Trump administration when migrants believed that they had no chance of getting into the United States.
Now, it has picked up again because the message got out that, despite the rhetoric, the policy at the border hasn’t changed.
This strongly suggests that the flow overwhelmingly consists of economic migrants who would prefer to live in the United States, rather than victims of persecution in their home country who have no option but to get out.
Even if a migrant does have a credible fear of persecution, there is a legitimate way to pursue that claim, and it does not involve entering the United States illegally.
First, such people should make their asylum claim in the first country where they feel safe, i.e., Mexico or some other country they are traversing to get here.
Second, if for some reason they are threatened everywhere but the United States, they should show up at a port of entry and make their claim there rather than crossing the border illegally.
For example:
For example:
This says all you need to know about crass hypocrisy on this issue.
