IMMIGRATION WAR CRIMES CHANGE MINDS
“A judge says ‘enough’
“Turn that plane around.”
That’s what a federal judge in Washington told government lawyers in an immigration case Thursday.
The judge was not happy when he was told that a woman, known in court papers only as “Carmen,” and her daughter — expected in his courtroom to appeal the Justice Department’s refusal of their asylum request — had just hours before been spirited out the country by the government and put back on a plane to El Salvador.
In short, they’d been deported, despite their scheduled day in court in a lawsuit filed last week by the American Civil Liberties Union.
To qualify for asylum, migrants must show they have a fear of persecution in their native country based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a “particular social group,” a category that in the past has included victims of domestic violence and other abuse. But in June, Attorney General Jeff Sessions vacated a 2016 decision by the Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals that said an abused woman from El Salvador was eligible for asylum.
The appeals board is typically the highest government authority on immigration law, but the attorney general has the power to assign cases to himself and set precedents.
The Washington Post reported that Carmen and her daughter fled El Salvador in June, fearing they would be killed by gang members who demanded she pay them each month or suffer consequences. Several co-workers at the factory where Carmen worked had been murdered, and her husband also is abusive, according to court filings. When Carmen arrived in America in June, she and her daughter were detained and set to be deported after “failing” their initial “credible fear interview” by an asylum officer. Thus, Carmen become a test case.
“This is pretty outrageous,” U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan said after learning of Carmen’s deportation, according to the Post. “That someone seeking justice in U.S. court is spirited away while her attorneys are arguing for justice for her? I’m not happy about this at all. This is not acceptable.”
Then he threatened to hold Attorney General Jeff Sessions in contempt.
Bring it, judge.
Caging children is war crime
Of course, the treatment of Carmen and her daughter is by no means the most egregious of Trump administration actions against immigrants — legal or illegal.
As of Thursday, 559 migrant children remained separated from their families after being ripped or tricked away from their parents’ arms by our government, according to The Washington Post.
Many were put in cages. In America. If we were at war, we’d be calling those actions war crimes.
To date, 1,992 children have been reunited with their families, but only after a federal judge ordered the government to make the reunifications by July 26. The government claims many parents can’t be found — most because they’ve been deported. The children not returned remain in government custody. “The reality is, for every parent who is not located, there will be a permanently orphaned child, and that is 100 percent the responsibility of the administration,” U.S. District Judge Dana M. Sabraw told the government at an Aug. 3 hearing.
Look who’s for tolerance
On the same day 559 brown-skinned migrant children from Central America and South America wondered why they were being kept from their parents, and on the same day that angry judge threatened to hold the Trump administration’s highest law enforcement official in contempt, Donald Trump’s Slovenian in-laws became U.S. citizens — and the newest example of “chain migration” that Trump and his administration have claimed “must end.”
The government phrase for what Trump labels chain migration is “family reunification.” It is a long-standing federal policy that makes it easier for citizens and legal residents of the U.S. to have their families join them here. But Trump has said it breeds terrorism and crime.
Clearly, the Trump administration thinks “family reunification” is only a good policy for white-skinned immigrants. Remember the president saying we need more immigrants from Norway? By many reports, Trump’s thinking — and that of his base — is driven by a demographic projection that by 2050 at the latest, non-Hispanic whites will be a minority in the U.S.
Gallup reports that a record-high 75 percent of Americans, including majorities across all party groups, think immigration is good for the U.S. The poll also found a record-low number of Americans — only 29 percent — think immigration into the U.S. should be decreased.
Another poll by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 64 percent of Americans regard increasing demographic diversity as mostly positive. But the same poll found deep partisan divisions: 85 percent of Democrats said it was positive, compared to 59 percent of independents and 43 percent of Republicans. Within that cleavage, the survey found little in the way of gender, age or ethnic differences. Instead, the real drivers were educational and religious differences among white Americans.
Those least favoring diversity were 50 percent of whites without college degrees and 42 percent of white evangelical Protestants. That would be Trump’s base.