Thread by @juliettekayyem

THREAD: there was a plan. So let me explain why failure to admit and disclose it compounded cruelty. For record, policy is abhorrent and as we know now ineffective (did not serve as deterrent). But let's assume it's a legitimate one for Trump to take. At least for this thread 1/

https://twitter.com/OpenTheGov/status/1044576842232057857

Secretary Nielsen lied. To you. And me. Period. And that lie meant that three major operational necessities were not put in place. 2/

First, as children were ripped from their parents, receiving facilities under HHS or social services were not made aware of the change in policy. They were equipped to deal with unaccompanied minors, those late teen boys arriving in 2015 mostly, and their needs. But 3/

Babies and infants are different. Duh. And so these receiving entities, and their employees, who couldn't imagine that a government would take babies from parents and were not told otherwise were flat footed in serving needs. 4/

Remember that audio of all the babies crying. Yeah. That audio. That was at a facility unprepared for what was happening. 5/

Second, the failure to adopt a policy meant that the handoff between DHS to HHS was not clear nor was responsibility. In the early days, neither agency could identify where the children were, etc. It's not a minor point. These are children. 6/

Third and most significantly for those of you who followed my commentary this summer know, it was clear they had no plan for reunification. It seemed shocking. I mean who does that and I couldn't understand why until... 7/

I heard this from @mikiebarb in @daily nytimes.com/2018/08/21/pod… 8/

And this nytimes.com/2018/08/24/pod… 9/

It turns out that border databases had been created to provide a drop screen that agents would choose from based on the immigrants status: visa, student, unauthorized border crossing and even unaccompanied minors. 10/

You see where I'm going with this. There was no data field for child taken from parents, no field to collect info about parents, no data that would assist for unification. 11/

And no one created it because of course there was no policy that was understood to have changed the immigration standards. 12/

I obviously am outraged by the policy. Nielsen and Trump created it, lied to the public about whether it was happening, and thought that lie wouldn't have an impact on the ground, turning an inherently cruel policy into an unforgivable one. End. 13/13