The essence of evil. Listen to Jacob Soboroff who draws on the the United Nations' definition and describes what our government did to these parents and families seeking asylum in the U.S.—to ultimately, over 5,400 children—as "torture." Based on a show of hands of numerous people that met at the white house that included Mike Pompeo, Alex Azar, the American Academy of Pediatrics referred to this as "government-sanctioned child abuse," with serious, "irreversible" consequences, as noted by the American College of Physicians.

Though Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen did not raise her hand to Miller's request for a vote, we must note that

"No one in the meeting made the case that separating families would be inhumane or immoral, the officials said. Any moral argument about immigration "fell on deaf ears" inside the White House, one of the officials said."

Such appalling cruelty. Yet where is the justice?

Let's vote this brutal, fascist regime out of office, my friends.

-Angela Valenzuela

Trump Cabinet officials voted in 2018 White House meeting to separate migrant children, say officials

"If we don't enforce this, it is the end of our country as we kno

White House policy adviser Stephen Miller at the Ohio Republican 

Party State Dinner in Columbus in 2018.Leah Millis / Reuters file

Aug. 20, 2020, 2:15 PM CDT 2:15 PM CDT

By Julia Ainsley and Jacob Soboroff

WASHINGTON — In early May 2018, after weeks of phone calls and private meetings, 11 of the president's most senior advisers were called to the White House Situation Room, where they were asked, by a show-of-hands vote, to decide the fate of thousands of migrant parents and their children, according to two officials who were there.

President Donald Trump's senior adviser Stephen Miller led the meeting, and, according to the two officials, he was angry at what he saw as defiance by Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

It had been nearly a month since Jeff Sessions, then the attorney general, had launched the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy, announcing that every immigrant who crossed the U.S. border illegally would be prosecuted, including parents with small children. But so far, U.S. border agents had not begun separating parents from their children to put the plan into action, and Miller, the architect of the administration's crackdown on undocumented immigrants, was furious about the delay.

Those invited included Sessions, Nielsen, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and newly installed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, according to documents obtained by NBC News.

Trump cabinet officials voted in 2018 meeting to separate migrant children, say officials

AUG. 20, 202003:55

Nielsen told those at the meeting that there were simply not enough resources at DHS, nor at the other agencies that would be involved, to be able to separate parents, prosecute them for crossing the border and return them to their children in a timely manner, according to the two officials who were present. Without a swift process, the children would enter into the custody of Health and Human Services, which was already operating at near capacity.

Two officials involved in the planning of "zero tolerance" said the Justice Department acknowledged on multiple occasions that U.S. attorneys would not be able to prosecute all parents expeditiously, so sending children to HHS was the most likely outcome.

As Nielsen had said repeatedly to other officials in the weeks leading up to the meeting, according to two former officials, the process could get messy and children could get lost in an already clogged system.

Two years later: Family separations at the border

JULY 12, 202004:43

Miller saw the separation of families not as an unfortunate byproduct but as a tool to deter more immigration. According to three former officials, he had devised plans that would have separated even more children. Miller, with the support of Sessions, advocated for separating all immigrant families, even those going through civil court proceedings, the former officials said.

While zero tolerance ultimately separated nearly 3,000 children from their parents, what Miller proposed would have separated 25,000 more, including those who legally presented themselves at ports of entry seeking asylum, according to Customs and Border Protection data from May and June 2018.

That plan never came to fruition, in large part because DHS officials had argued it would grind the immigration process to a halt. But after Sessions' announcement that all families entering illegally would be prosecuted, the onus had fallen on DHS to act.

Nielsen claims 'there was no policy to separate families' of migrants

JULY 23, 202002:38

At the meeting, Miller accused anyone opposing zero tolerance of being a lawbreaker and un-American, according to the two officials present.

"If we don't enforce this, it is the end of our country as we know it," Miller said, according to the two officials. It was not unusual for Miller to make claims like that, but this time he was adamant that the policy move forward, regardless of arguments about resources and logistics.

No one in the meeting made the case that separating families would be inhumane or immoral, the officials said. Any moral argument about immigration "fell on deaf ears" inside the White House, one of the officials said.

"Miller was tired of hearing about logistical problems," one of the officials said. "It was just 'Let's move forward and staff will figure this out.'"

Frustrated, Miller accused Nielsen of stalling and demanded a show of hands. Who was in favor of moving forward? he asked.

A sea of hands went up. Nielsen kept hers down. It was clear she had been outvoted, according to the officials.

In the days immediately following the meeting, Nielsen had a conversation with Kevin McAleenan, then the Customs and Border Patrol commissioner, in her office at the Ronald Reagan Building and then signed a memo instructing DHS personnel to prosecute all migrants crossing the border illegally, including parents arriving with their children.

Nielsen did so despite her stated reservations in the Situation Room and her having been warned in a legal memo by DHS General Counsel John Mitnick — which was also sent to her chief of staff at the time, Chad Wolf, who is now the acting secretary of DHS — that the decision would result in separation of families. Of the practice, Mitnick wrote, "a court could conclude that the separations are violative of the INA, Administrative Procedure Act, or the Fifth Amendment Due Process clause."

Less than two months later, Trump signed an executive order halting family separations and a federal judge in California ordered family reunifications on the grounds that the separated families' due process rights were violated.

At the time, no plan was in place to track the children who had been separated or to create a system to reunite thousands of separated families, according to the two former officials.

According to an invitation list obtained by NBC News, those expected to be in attendance at the meeting included: Sessions, Nielsen, Miller, Pompeo, Azar, Undersecretary of Defense John Rood, then-White House chief of staff John Kelly, White House deputy chief of staff Chris Liddell, then-White House counsel Don McGahn and Marc Short, who was then director of legislative affairs and is now chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence.

November: Emails show how Stephen Miller promoted anti-immigrant views

NOV. 14, 201903:44

Asked about the show-of-hands vote, Judd Deere, a White House spokesman, said, "This is absolutely not true and did not happen."

In response to a request for a comment about the meeting and the show of hands, HHS spokesman Michael Caputo said, "This never happened."

The State Department and DHS referred NBC News to the White House. Sessions, Nielsen, Kelly and John Bolton did not respond to requests for comment. McGahn and Rood could not be reached for comment.

Before Trump ended zero tolerance by executive order on June 20, 2018, over 2,800 children had been separated from their parents. When a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to begin reuniting the families it had separated, it became clear that there was no method to track both parent and child as they moved through the system. As a result, some took months to reunite, and, in hundreds of cases, parents were deported from the U.S. without their children.

On May 4, Gary Tomasulo, who was then the senior director for border and transportation security on the National Security Council, sent an email to the deputies and lower-level staffers tasked with carrying out immigration policy, telling them that their bosses had agreed to the new zero tolerance prosecution and separation policy and that they needed to develop plans to support it.

At the time, some of the subordinates to the Cabinet secretaries who were responsible for carrying out zero tolerance had raised moral objections, according to a source familiar with the discussions.

In the email, obtained by NBC News, Tomasulo told the deputies and other subordinates that their bosses "acknowledged that there are no easy solutions, but remained committed to collectively do everything possible to develop innovative solutions that leverage the full resources, capabilities, and authorities of the U.S. government."

He went on to say, "I ask that if you are unable to participate in these meetings, the message of commitment and resolve expressed by our principals is communicated and internalized by those that represent your departments and agencies."

Julia Ainsley

Julia Ainsley is a correspondent covering the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice for the NBC News Investigative Unit.

Jacob Soboroff

Jacob Soboroff is a correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC and author of the New York Times bestseller "Separated: Inside an American Tragedy."

 

Parents separated from their kids in 2018 finally reunited on judge’s orders. It's 18 months too late.

This piece is tragic and devastating.  One key quote:

According to the Los Angeles Times, more than 4,000 children have been taken from their parents as part of the "zero tolerance" policy implemented by the Trump administration in the spring of 2018. 

This occurred in the spring of 2018 alone.  According to the EveryLastOne.org website, a staggering number of more than 69,000 migrant children are currently locked away in U.S. detention centers!  

I bet most Americans don't know that we have this many children in jail.  I didn't.  But I do see it growing.  The size of this group is only growing as a population and not getting smaller.  Never declining.  Very worrisome.

This is slavery, the colonial, for-profit, war machine, turned on children and families.  We will look back at some point and realize in significant and many ways just how injurious and impactful this moment was toward peoples native to this continent.  The U.S. policy of "Indian Removal" continues.  This, despite our tenacity and the extraordinary contributions that we are poised to make as Indigenous peoples at this critical juncture of history.  

Yes, I am Indigenous and re-Indigenizing. So we speak Spanish and we call ourselves "Mexican," "Mexican American," "Latina," or "Latinx," but we are the descendants of peoples native to this continent—as Indigenous and Afro-Indigenous peoples alike. San Diego State University Professor Dr. Margarita Machado-Casas is currently researching Afro-Indigeneity in Mexico, Nicaragua, and other places in Central America.  This area of research promotes bridge-building across our African American and Latinx communities in an urgent moment in our collective histories.

I think that most people with a pulse would agree that the U.S. government's actions are  "unforgivably cruel," as expressed herein.  Those precious little lives need us.  Their parents, families, and communities cry for justice.  This 69,000 figure needs to stop growing immediately, period, lest there be no real policy limit for innocent people sentenced to enduring trauma. What could be more urgent?!

Let's all support organizations like Raices, Border Angels/Angeles de la Frontera, and EveryLastOne that are on the front lines of this struggle.  And let's all be sure to register to vote and then to get out and actually vote these soulless people that are behind these policies, out of office.


-Angela Valenzuela

#FreeTheChildren #FamiliesBelongTogether #FamiliesTornApart

Parents separated from their kids in 2018 finally reunited on judge’s orders. It's 18 months too late.

Annie Reneau

Every Last One/Facebook

David Xol hadn't been able to hug his son Byron in a year and a half. When they were finally reunited last week in Los Angeles, on orders from a federal judge, Xol dropped to his knees and tearfully held his son for three minutes straight. Byron, now 9 years old, beamed.

The father and son had arrived together on U.S. soil in 2018 and Xol. Charged with illegal entry, Xol signed a document that border agents told him would allow him and Byron to be deported together. But then they took Byron away anyway and deported Xol to Guatemala alone.

Byron, age 7 at the time, was held in government facilities for 11 months, until the family's lawyer convinced a federal court to force the U.S. to let Byron go live with a foster family in Texas. Holly and Matthew Sewell took him in last May.

According to the Los Angeles Times, more than 4,000 children have been taken from their parents as part of the "zero tolerance" policy implemented by the Trump administration in the spring of 2018. From teens to infants, children who have already been through hardship were subjected to further trauma at the hands of the U.S. government. And make no mistake, being separated from parents in a foreign land with no idea where they've gone or when you'll see them again is, by definition, trauma.

RELATED: The trauma will be long-lasting for kids separated at the border. Here's what you need to know.

Research has proven this over and over, but every parent knows it on a gut level. I still remember the terror on my son's face the time he thought he'd lost us in public once, and that was only for a few minutes. Children can endure all kinds of challenges when they are secure in their parents' care. Taking away that security without necessity isn't just wrong—it's unforgivably cruel.

"People want to make this a heartwarming story, but it's not. It's devastating," Holly Sewell, Byron's foster mother, told the LA Times. "There is just no good reason why we had to do this to this child and this family. And he symbolizes thousands of others who have been put in this exact same position."

Xol was one of nine parents who arrived in Los Angeles to be reunited with their children last week after a federal judge found that the U.S. government had illegally prevented them from seeking asylum. Let's repeat that for those who are inevitably going to show up in the comments of this article saying, "They should go through the process legally!" The U.S. government broke the law here.

According to the law, one has to be on U.S. soil or at a port of entry in order to request asylum; it can't be done from an embassy or consulate in another country. And one's immigration status, by law, has no bearing on whether or not they can request asylum. Here's the actual wording from the U.S. Customs and Immigration Services website:

"To obtain asylum through the affirmative asylum process you must be physically present in the United States. You may apply for asylum status regardless of how you arrived in the United States or your current immigration status."

In addition, at the time these parents arrived, no other country they may have passed through on their way to the U.S. had "safe third country" status, meaning asylum-seekers didn't have to request asylum in those countries. For many asylum-seekers, the U.S. is the only safe option, and for those with family already in the U.S., the option that makes the most logistical sense as well. Legally, these parents were allowed to request asylum and had the right to go through that process.

Even if you have an issue with someone entering the country illegally and then legally requesting asylum, taking their children away from them is a punishment that does not fit the crime (which is technically a misdemeanor on first offense). Family separation is cruel and unusual, both to the parents and to the children. And when you add on the reported depraved conditions of detention facilities and the fact that children have died in them on our watch, it's even worse.

However, one bright spot in this whole scenario is the humanity it has uncovered, as thousands have rallied behind these families to provide them legal protection and representation. The fact that ordinary Americans have to pool our own resources to protect vulnerable people from our own government is enough to make your head spin, but that's where we are.

RELATED: This group raised $1 million in just 9 hours to help kids at the border. Here's how.

Together Rising is one organization who has made an ongoing push to keep families together.

"Although it is a travesty that the administration of this country tore these families apart, Together Rising is committed to representing the heartbroken, angry women of this nation who are standing up to bring these families back together," says Glennon Doyle, founder and president of Together Rising, a grassroots fundraising organization. "Together, we have raised more than $8.5 Million — including $80,000 in 90 minutes this week — to equip boots on the ground warriors, like the heroes at Al Otro Lado, who are finding and reunifying these families, and supporting, and advocating for detained children."

 

The combined efforts of various non-profit, advocacy, and legal aid organizations to defend the rights of these parents and children are making a difference one family at a time, and bravo to all of them. But how frustrating is it that the U.S. government isn't solving the problems it caused itself? How is it possible that they didn't keep meticulous records of what parents and children were separated, or where they were sent after these separations? Why are we having to raise money and voices and red flags and scramble together lawyers in order to reunite the families our government unjustly tore apart?

There are simply some lines we all have to agree not to cross, no matter what. Cruelty to innocent children is one of those lines. Our country has committed this injustice on our watch, and if we don't speak out and do something to remedy it, then who and what are we? 

Check out this not only rational, but a simple and radical solution.  I'm reminded of a recent CNN Interview of Former Attorney General Eric Holder by David Axelrod where he was asked about working class white resentment.  He said that they would share a lot in common with many people of color, generally, and that they should join forces with them against the "fat cats" who do not need support.  That's the spirit of this piece.  Why not join forces on this one?

-Angela Valenzuela

A rational solution to the border catastrophe

AUGUST 2019

Despite massive public outrage, Trump announced he was going ahead with his intention of rounding up thousands of immigrants in cities around the U.S. starting on July 14. At this writing, this specific plan seems to have foundered — perhaps due partly to advocates who mobilized to spread information to immigrants around the country about their rights.

But raids and deportations are daily events, and they will continue in one form or another. Moreover, the administration is now moving to end asylum protections for most Central American migrants.

Trump is absurdly claiming “problem solved” as more people are tossed into the criminally overfilled prisons called detention centers. Photos of refugees packed into cages and children callously separated from their families show the devastation behind his sound bites.

Meanwhile, Democratic and Republican politicians bicker over exactly how deplorable the concentration camps are as both parties vote for billions of taxpayer dollars to the Border Patrol and ICE.

The refugees at the U.S.-Mexico border were forced there due to war, corruption, famine, drought, physical abuse and economic devastation. And they will keep coming until conditions change. In the meantime, U.S. businesses — in particular agriculture, the service industry and construction — desperately need these workers. (See “The case for open borders”.)

Lockdown at the border and raids in cities are used to terrorize undocumented workers and stop them from pressing for higher pay and decent working conditions.

Business owners don’t want immigrant laborers joining unions or organizing side by side with U.S.-born workers. The profit system relies on an underclass of workers who are low-paid, jobless, or underemployed, and have no protection to challenge inequality and misery. The threat of deporting these often militant workers is essential to the bottom line.

That’s why opening the borders is in the interest of every working and poor person. That means the raids stop and those who have been incarcerated are released. It means ending the militarization of the border and providing asylum for refugees.

The money spent warehousing human beings could be used to build much-needed infrastructure like low-income housing, schools, roads, medical centers, and mass transportation. The cash is there. In 2012, for example, the U.S. allocated $18 billion for border “security.”

And of course the damage created by current policies needs to be reversed. Families must be reunified. Children who were adopted out by predatory agencies or “lost” in custody must be found and returned.

Since the U.S. government has zero credibility in regard to caring for those it detains, independent international observers must be allowed to monitor and intervene as needed. Doctors Without Borders could assess what medical care is required.

This is a disaster created by capitalism that must be treated like the humanitarian crisis it is. Emergency relief now!

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