Trump’s hardline migrant policies pushing Dems left
2020 hopefuls abandon bipartisan overtures for executive action
The intensity of President Donald Trump’s hardline approach to immigration hasn’t just pushed the Republican Party rightward — it’s also moving Democrats in ways that are profoundly transforming the immigration debate.
Gone are hopes for a big, bipartisan immigration overhaul once envisioned in Congress. With dire conditions taking hold at the border, and deportations stoking fear in immigrant communities, groups on the left are no longer willing to engage in the tradeoffs that had long been cornerstones to any deal. That’s pushing the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates to increasingly say they’ll rely on executive action to undo Trump’s policies and revamp the system that lawmakers have been unable to fix.
“The brutality of this administration has pushed this conversation to happen,” said Cristina Jimenez, executive director of United We Dream Action.
The group formed around protecting young immigrants known as Dreamers from deportation, but now sees that issue as a starting point, or “floor”, in the debate as the nation confronts harsh images from the border, including the deaths of migrant children and adults in federal custody.
“The world is bearing witness,” Jimenez said. “You’re seeing the pressure of this moment is pushing the conversation.”
At their first televised debate, the Democratic presidential candidates gave voice to the enormous shift under way. Talk of a reviving “comprehensive immigration reform” was largely absent, replaced by calls for unilateral action. “Day One, we take out our executive order pen and we rescind every damn thing on this issue that
Trump has done,” said Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
California Senator Kamala Harris said she would immediately use executive action as president to protect young immigrants by preserving the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals programme — and by extending those deportation protections to parents and military veterans.
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and former Housing Secretary Julian Castro want to do away with the law that makes illegal entry into the United States a criminal, rather than civil, offence.
And Senator Cory Booker announced a plan yesterday to use his presidential powers to orient the Department of Homeland Security away from immigration raids on schools or churches and end Trump’s travel ban to the US by residents of certain majority-Muslim nations.
For more than a decade, Congress has tried to broker an immigration compromise by marrying two different but related concepts — a pathway to citizenship for some of the 11 million immigrants in the country illegally, and beefed-up border security and enforcement to prevent a wave of new arrivals.
But that calculus changed under Trump. He entered the campaign in 2016 decrying Mexican immigrants as “rapists” and seized control of the party with his promise to “build the wall”. As president, his focus has been on enforcement — both limiting new arrivals seeking asylum and stepping up deportations of those immigrants already here, even longstanding residents whose only crime was illegal entry.
Democratic Representative Joaquin Castro, the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said he still wants Congress to “fix a broken system”.
“I continue to hold out hope that we can work together on some kind of immigration reform legislation,” Castro said in an interview. “Part of the challenge is that for the president it is his number one go-to political punching bag issue. That makes it very hard because, even for moderate Republicans, it moves everybody to the far right.”
In one photo, one of 88 men in a cell meant for 41 presses a piece of cardboard against the window, with the word “help”. In another, a man lowers his head and clasps his hands as if in prayer. And in a third, a woman wearing a surgical mask presses both of her hands against the glass.
The images were released Tuesday by US government inspectors who visited facilities in South Texas where migrant adults and children who crossed the nearby border with Mexico are processed and detained.
As public outrage grows over the conditions in which thousands of people — some no more than a few months old — are being held by the US government, the report offered new cause for alarm.
“When detainees observed us, they banged on the cell windows, shouted, pressed notes to the window with their time in custody, and gestured to evidence of their time in custody,” the report says.
BuzzFeed first reported on a draft version of the report, which blurs most faces in the photos.
An autopsy report also released Tuesday confirmed that Wilmer Josue Ramirez Vasquez, one of five children to die after being detained by border agents since late last year, had multiple intestinal and infectious respiratory diseases, including the flu. Two of the others also had the flu.
The autopsy report says Wilmer was in “respiratory distress” on April 6 when he was taken to an emergency room.
The Border Patrol said it had detained Wilmer and his mother for three days when she told agents her son was ill. It didn’t specify if that was the first report or sign that Wilmer was sick. The agency did not respond to follow-up questions sent on Tuesday.
Pediatricians called again on border authorities to accept their offer to provide volunteer medical care to migrants in detention. US Customs and Border Protection (CPB) rejected the offer. Spokesman Roger Maier said anyone who needs medical attention beyond what government and contract staff can provide is taken to a local hospital.
The Border Patrol made 132,887 apprehensions in May, including 84,542 adults and children travelling together. Long-term facilities are full and President Donald Trump’s administration has said it has to hold people in unsuitable Border Patrol facilities for much longer than the 72 hours normally allowed by law.
Auditors from the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general visited five facilities and two ports of entry in South Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, where more people cross the US-Mexico border illegally than any other section. The dangers there were recently illustrated in images shared around the world showing a young father and daughter who drowned trying to enter the US by crossing the Rio Grande.
DHS blamed “an acute and worsening crisis” and said it had tried to expand detention capacity and improve the conditions under which migrant families are held. DHS did not immediately respond to a request for further comment from AP.
Immigrant advocates blame the Trump administration for refusing to promptly release families, children and people seeking asylum, leading to increased numbers of people detained.
The report details several potential violations of federal law or Border Patrol standards:
— Two facilities inspected had not given children hot meals until the week auditors arrived. Some adults were only getting bologna sandwiches, causing constipation and in some cases requiring medical attention.
— Of 2669 children detained, 826 had been held there longer than 72 hours. More than 50 children under the age of 7 were waiting to be moved to long-term facilities, some for more than two weeks. In one photo, women and children appeared to be sleeping on the ground.
— Many adults hadn’t showered despite having been held for as long as a month. Some were being given wet wipes.
The report was released a day after a group of Democratic congressmen visited the Border Patrol facility in Clint, Texas, where lawyers previously reported some 250 children being detained in squalid conditions.
US Representative Joaquin Castro of Texas, alleged that a woman told them she was instructed to drink water from a toilet.
Maryland Democrat Elijah Cummings said top Homeland Security leaders would testify next week on the treatment of migrant children.
Detainees banged on the cell windows, shouted, pressed notes to the window with their time in custody . . . Migrant report