Not that it should surprise anyone, but the reporting on family separation at the border has been pretty shoddy and incomplete. 1/
2/ What few outlets are reporting is that prior to this family separation policy, families caught crossing illegally that tried to claim asylum were released within a few days. The parents were given ankle monitors and told to report to an asylum hearing months away.
3/ Almost all these families would be headed for somewhere north of the border, as far north as New York and Pennsylvania. When they got to where they were going, they'd usually cut the ankle monitor off. Few would ever show up to the asylum hearing.
4/ When the Trump admin says it "has no choice" but to separate families, it means it cannot by law detain children for very long. So the choice is either separate families or release families with ankle monitors that'll be removed and orders for a hearing that'll be ignored.
5/ None of this is to say that separating families is sound policy. But our immigration and border situation has been neglected for so long by Congress and successive administrations, all the available options are bad.
6/ What's missing in the coverage so far is any kind of nuance or granularity about what the options are for families caught crossing illegally. Releasing them w/ankle monitors is a de facto open borders policy. Separating families is inhumane and cruel. Both are undesirable.
7/ In addition, there's been very little discussion of the ways that migrant flows are driven by cartels that profit massively from ferrying ppl across the Rio Grande. Minimum fare is $3K/person.
8/fin More on this in my March dispatch from the border at @FDRLST - thefederalist.com/2018/03/08/on-…
