Thread by @kurteichenwald

1. I have largely ignored Trumpers who claim Trump's family separation policy comes from Obama. They clearly know this is false - they praise Trump for what they say is an Obama policy, and slam Obama for being weak on this. Trump is pushing this lie again, so let's examine...

2...first, a history lesson. The issue of detention of minors coming into the country illegally has been wrestled with for decades. There are 2 categories -unaccompanied minors and accompanied minors (almost always those with parents.) There were split issues of responsibility...

3...for the unaccompanied minors, the government assumed the role of parens patria - in the loosest terms, having the same care responsibilities as a parent. For those coming in with families, that role was not created, although the government was required to abide by.....

4...laws regarding humane and proper treatment. In 1997, there was a settlement between a class of immigrants and the government which established a preference for the release of children if they can be released under terms that they are protected (in other words, released into..

5...the custody of an adult with a link to the child or to a NGO for child placement). Attached is a small summary of the settlement as it appeared in a court opinion from a 2016 court opinion on terms of enforcement of the settlement....

6...the issue that emerged in 2014 was one of full families coming across the border as part of a surge of Central Americans coming up from their countries to seek asylum. Obama Administration interpreted the 1997 settlement as meaning that they had to place....

7...unaccompanied minors with the types of people or organizations listed in the settlement, but they would NOT separate families when the parents of the child were with the child. In essence, the interpretation was that the parents were best able to care for the child and that..

8...separating children from their parents raised the potential for emotional harm to the children. NOTE: This was about keeping parents and children TOGETHER for the emotional well-being of the children and for keeping the parents in charge of the children, NOT separation....

9...this was a complex question. Were children best served by remaining with their parents in one of the family detention centers that had JUST been built for this very purpose, or were they best to be released to people who were not their parents so they could be outside the...

10...center. I do not know the correct answer to that - it is a child development question, not a legal question. The Obama Administratio was coming up with an answer they believed BENEFITED the accompanied minors - allowing them to remain with their parents. However, courts....

11...in reviewing the 1997 settlement concluded differently. While the settlement was developed to deal with the phenomenon of unaccompanied minors, the words of it did not say "unaccompanied." It simply said "minors." In the 2016 opinion in the Flores enforcement, the court...

12...said that the settlement required the children's release if possible. (I have never explored this next legal question, but of course this raises the issue of whether parents WANT their children released or believe that the children would be better served staying with them...

13...until the asylum hearing. However, after the 2016 ruling, there was no question that children should - if possible - be removed from detention (presumably if the parents approved.)

Bottom line: ALL of this incorporated the interests of the children as a primary issue. It...

14...was wrestling with a complex question - are children better off emotionally with their parents in detention or separated from their parents to caring folk outside detention - and the wrestling came up with the answer of "keep families together" which the court said did...

15...not comply with settlement.

NOW, with all of that in mind, let's look at the Trump barbarism. Trump's policy was adopted with ZERO examination about the well-being of children, NOT wrestling with the child development question at all. Instead, they....

16...TOOK children as young as 1 yr away from their families and locked them up alone. This was in OBVIOUS violation of the law because of the terms of the 1997 settlement. Also, Trump created a rule that ANYONE coming to pick up the child had to have their immigration status..

17...confirmed, and if not legal, could be locked up. This meant that the pool of family members who might come to get the children locked up alone was certainly less than it otherwise might be, again violating the settlement because the government is required to focus on....

18...release of children rather than enforcement in that particular circumstance FOR THE BENEFIT of the children's developmental needs. Ripping a child away from the family and locking them up with strangers - when lockup with FAMILIES has already been deemed illegal by courts..

19...is an obvious and intentional violation of the law. Trump administration did it because they are lawless. Making it worse, rather than escalating the protections of children held alone in compliance with their obligations under the concept of parens patria, the...

20...Trump Admin turned over a lot of responsibility to outside contractors who had not been sufficiently cleared, with the result that there are significant numbers of allegations of sexual abuse of children. On top of all of that, even though the Trump Admin KNEW the policy....

21...was in direct violation of the law, they failed to keep proper records so that children could be reunited with their families once a court inevitably ruled this was illegal. That happened many many months ago, and reunification still has not occurred for huge numbers of....

22...kids. And on Monday, Trump Admin told the court that, because of the shoddiness of their record keeping, it would take as long as two years to reunify all of these children.

There is ZERO struggle to benefit kids, unlike in the Obama Admin, which was trying to take what...

23...it considered the best option for child development - keep accompanied minors with their parents, release unaccompanied minors to family here or NGOs established to aid and place children.

Family separation is barbarism. Locking children up by themselves is barbarism.....

24....Obama Admin tried to do the right thing, tried to live up to American values by doing what it calculated was best for the kids.

What Trump has done is illegal, inhumane, and undermines American values. It is on par with Japanese internment except even then....

25...kids were allowed to stay with their families. Someday, if america ever returns to decency, a president will apologize to the then grown-ups who were torn away from parents and locked up, in knowing violation of the law.

This is NOTHING like Obama. This evil is all Trump.