Who’s Really to Blame at the Border?
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
June 22,2018
So it was a ruse. The hysteria over the separation of illegal-alien asylum-seekers from their children (or their purported children) was in large part pretextual. The real target of rage was the Trump administration’s policy of prosecuting all illegal border-crossers for the federal misdemeanor of illegal entry.
In April, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a “zero-tolerance” policy for illegal entry. Henceforth, virtually all aliens caught entering the country illegally would be held for prosecution, rather than being released on their own recognizance for a later noncriminal deportation proceeding, to which few ever showed up. (This new enforcement policy would have come as a surprise to anyone who had fallen for the advocates’ decades-long lie that illegal entry is not a crime.) Under the new policy, even if the adult had brought a child with him across the border—the usual accoutrement of an asylum-seeker, for reasons explained below—the adult would still be prosecuted. The adult would be held in a U.S. marshal’s facility pending trial, while the child would be placed in a dormitory run by the U.S. Health and Human Services department, since children cannot be held in criminal lockups.
Images of child border-crossers, separated from their adult companion and crying or looking upset—and the experience would undoubtedly be traumatic for most young children—triggered nonstop coverage of Trump administration cruelty. MSNBC and CNN set up border encampments from which reporters and pundits pontificated on the child-separation crisis. Nazi and Holocaust analogies flew around the Internet; faculty petitions invoked the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. Mexico and four other Latin American countries filed a human rights complaint against the U.S. Politicians and religious leaders lined up to denounce White House racism and anti-immigrant hatred.
On Wednesday, Trump called their bluff. He signed an executive order that would house illegal-alien adults with minors in Department of Homeland Security or other government facilities. The zero-tolerance policy, however, would continue. Democratic politicians and illegal alien advocates immediately cried foul. “Make no mistake: the President is doubling down on his ‘zero tolerance’ policy,” Democratic U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, said in a statement Wednesday. “His new Executive Order criminalizes asylum-seekers . . . . Locking up whole families is no solution at all—the Trump Administration must reverse its policy of prosecuting vulnerable people fleeing three of the most dangerous countries on earth.”
The Harvard Kennedy School’s Juliette Kayyem told CNN’s Don Lemon on Wednesday night: “The real problem is Sessions’ decision to prosecute [illegal border crossers] 100 percent.” A CNN anchor on Thursday morning asked U.S. Representative Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, if his position was: don’t criminally charge each person who illegally crosses the border. Schiff responded: “We don’t have to criminalize everyone that’s coming here seeking asylum.” NPR interviewed the director of Migrant Rights and Justice at the Women’s Refugee Commission, Michelle Brané. “Families will be just as traumatized, children will be just as traumatized” under the executive order, she said on Thursday morning. “Exchanging one form of trauma for another is not the solution”; getting rid of the prosecutorial mandate is.
And the open-borders lobby possesses a powerful weapon for doing just that. The extraordinarily complex thicket of interpolated rules and rights that govern U.S. immigration policy (the result of decades of nonstop litigation by the immigration bar) contains a series of judicial mandates that defeated even the Obama administration’s tepid efforts to bring some semblance of lawfulness to the border. A long-running class-action lawsuit in the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, originally styled Flores v. Reno, has held that alien minors cannot be confined by the government for longer than 20 days. This 20-day cap contributed to the flood of Central American child-toting asylum seekers that picked up steam during President Obama’s second term. Asylum petitions typically take months, if not years, to adjudicate, given the long backlog of such cases in the immigration courts. If an adult crosses the border alone and utters the magic asylum words—a fear of persecution in his home country—he could in theory be held in detention until his asylum claim was adjudicated. If, however, he brings a child with him and makes an asylum pitch, he puts the government to a choice: detain the adult separately until his claim is heard and release the child after 20 days, or release both adult and child together.
The Obama administration usually chose the second option. Word coursed through Mexico and Central America that taking a child across the border was a get-out-of-jail-free card that would exempt its holder from both criminal prosecution and detention. This child-release lever, coupled with Obama’s announcement in 2012 that he would grant amnesty to the so-called Dreamers, meant that Obama soon had his own family border crisis on his hands. In 2014, 70,000 adult-child units and 70,000 unaccompanied minors were apprehended illegally crossing into the U.S. The administration tried building large family detention centers to hold the children and their accompanying adults, but the same Flores decree that has bedeviled the Trump White House stymied that effort. In 2015, a federal trial judge, Holly Gee, herself appointed by Obama and the very definition of an activist jurist, vastly expanded the scope of the original decree and ordered the administration to release the detained minors. The Department of Homeland Security warned that ending family detention would trigger another border surge. Judge Gee dismissed this concern as “fear-mongering,” according to the Associated Press.
It is to Judge Gee that the Trump administration will now make its appeal to lift the 20-day confinement cap. The chance that she will agree to do so is zero. Unless that ruling is overturned on appeal or Congress changes the relevant law, the administration will have two choices: try to get asylum hearings down to 20 days, or abandon its universal prosecution policy and resume catch-and-release at the border for adults with children. Streamlining the asylum process would require both narrowing the standard for granting asylum, pursuant to its original intent (something that Sessions has already begun to do), and increasing judicial resources. (Bizarrely, Trump has denounced such an increase in judicial manpower.) Even then, meeting a 20-day limit on asylum detentions will be a stretch. Resuming catch-and-release, of course, would violate one of Trump’s key electoral promises. Fifty years of litigation and lobbying are now reaping rewards unforeseen even by the open-borders establishment. Trump has ducked one showdown, but an even bigger one lies ahead.
Underlying this episode were several cardinal principles of left-wing activism: that favored victim groups must never be held responsible for their actions, and that policy should be made based on immediate claims of need, with no regard to long-term consequences. The reigning assumption during the family-separation meltdown was that the adults who brought children with them across the border had no responsibility for their subsequent plight. The only actor with agency was the federal government; it alone bore the blame for alien minors being placed in detention facilities. Yet the but-for cause of the child separation was the adult’s decision to cross illegally into the U.S., child in tow. If you don’t want to be separated from your or another person’s child, don’t cross the border illegally. Likewise, any whisper of immigration enforcement inside the border is inevitably greeted with cries that such enforcement would cause illegal aliens to be “fearful.” If you don’t want to fear deportation, don’t assume the risk of deportation, however slight that risk may be, by illegal entry.
Obeying the law, however, is something that must never be demanded of politically correct victims. If lawbreaking carries negative consequences, the fault lies with the legal system, not with an individual’s decision to break the law in the first place.
This principle is at work in the ongoing attacks on the criminal-justice system as well: the overrepresentation of blacks in prison is attributed to allegedly racist actors and institutions, not to lawbreaking by the criminals. Non-legal forms of distress are also covered by the no-agency rule. If single mothers experience elevated rates of poverty, the fault lies with a heartless welfare system, not with their decision to conceive a child out-of-wedlock. The father, of course, is as good as nonexistent, in the eyes of the single-mother welfare lobby. If teen mothers are stressed out, the problem lies in the absence of daycare centers in high schools.
The “progressive” solution to these dilemmas is to confer an immediate benefit on the alleged victim that will alleviate the problem in the short term, perverse incentives be damned. Illegal aliens with children must be exempt from immigration rules. The likelihood that such a policy will encourage more illegal aliens to come is out of sight, out of mind (if not covertly viewed as an affirmative good). If having more out-of-wedlock children puts a strain on a single mother’s welfare check and food stamps, then the government should increase the allotment to reflect the additional births. If that single mother and her children show up at a shelter claiming homelessness, give them an apartment. If such free housing encourages more single mothers to flood the shelter system, contract for more apartments.
Strangely, after Trump issued his recent executive order, a few media voices tentatively raised the problem of the unintended consequences of purportedly humane rules. CNN anchor John Berman asked Schiff on Thursday morning if exempting illegal aliens with children from detention “incentivized” such illegal crossings. Schiff ducked the query: “Well, it’s not a simple question as whether somebody has a child or not.” But the problem of perverse incentives will not go away. America’s loss of sovereignty over its borders and the incursion of millions of barely literate campesinos and their progeny is the result of years of victim-favoring policies that ignore personal agency and court the consequences.
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Denial and deflection.
Gosh, what a surprise...
I'm sure you're speaking for yourself Bob.
May I suggest some....
UPS can track your package, to within 30 feet, anywhere on the planet....but our government can't keep track of 2000 kids? WTF?!
Mr Frost, my friend, I hope they didn't get abducted by some sex traffickers. You know it has happened before.
I'm sure the government knows where those 2000 kids are. It's just "We the People" that don't.
I've been told it's "On a need to know" bases. I DO know, "I" DON'T have a NEED to know.
Yet they are hiding those locations from other Congressmen?
Are they ?
Maybe it's just Democrats ?
I've watched a couple Republican Congressmen and Women say they've been there and what they saw. But I guess one has to get off one TV station to get a better viewing.
Yes, you should get off your 1 channel, otherwise you would know that SOME locations are known, but not all of them.
That was wonderful.
"otherwise you would know that SOME locations are known, but not all of them."
Says ………. ?
Yeah, maybe because they are minors who are entitled to privacy and not have cameras pointed at them.
Good point. If these nuts knew everywhere they were they would be on site making up more propaganda, after all they are totally dedicated to anything that harms the future of this country.
Did the government put them in the places they are at now ?
That's correct. Even in 2014, the Obama Administration shipped "migrants" all over the US and didn't inform governors and mayors about the locations of their new "residents".
They couldn't do it 2 years ago either. Go figure.
Another conservative yawner casting blame while suggesting not even one solution.
I figure the problems are too much wealth concentration and the social upheaval and crime it permits.
These 'refugees' are seeking safety, security and opportunity. It is an American shame that coming to our shores is now a prosecutable crime. Is it time to prosecute the prosecutors?
I, personally have already made suggestions on several articles. And the law is being adhered to right now, which is a good start, but I would like to know what your suggestion is to stop illegal immigration, if you by some chance have one, bb.
It's only the ones that are doing it illegally that are being prosecuted. Cry me a river. The solution is to administer the law so the illegals get the message and start trying to get in legally.
It is not illegal to request asylum.
it is OK to deny it
...and those that are requesting asylum through the legal channels are not being split up or prosecuted. What's your point?
Yes, but they are not processing the request, they are just arresting and jailing them.
This is completely untrue. All asylum requests are being treated as illegal crossings, hence the "zero tolerance" part to Trump's policy.
Oh give me a frigging break. If they go through the proper channels they are kept together until their request is approved or rejected. EXACTLY THE SAME AS WHEN BO WAS PREZ!!
Just exactly what do you BELIEVE are proper channels? They approach a border agent and request asylum, what else do you expect them to do?
The difference is that with Trump's zero tolerance policy they are immediately arrested, separated from their family, thrown in a detention facility. Processing for asylum generally takes months, and Trump is now advocating taking away their Constitutional rights by just deporting them without due process.
So exactly when did you thing they would have their asylum hearing??? Remember, both Sessions and Trump have stated that merely being afraid for your life and the lives of your family, is not enough to grant asylum for (unless you're from Norway).
People coming through proper points of entry and requesting asylum were not being seperated. It was those who tried to sneak across the border and got caught. And if they want to travel freely while requesting asylum, they can do so IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY. Your back door open borders ruse isn't going to fly.
Most asylum claims are completely bogus. They’re being detained pending an asylum hearing. If they are not detained, then they will run off and hide out in sanctuary cities where they will not show up for the hearing or leave the country when ordered to do so. They should be held or, if released, it should be on a $1 million cash bond posted by the states/cites that are protecting them. If they don’t show up for hearing, then the entire amount of the bond should be forfeited to the federal government to fund ICE.
No it's not illegal to ask for asylum, but to discourage all this illegal immigration goes a long way toward keeping these children safe fr all those who will harm them.
Doesn't matter, they ALL must be processed.
Now please explain why they are being separated from their children, with the children being shipped out of state (often), and no contact allowed.
Currently the government of the United States is doing these children harm.
It isn't rocket science, is it??
Nope, not at all. And it looks like sixpick finally got a clue (maybe an epiphany) and bailed.
More than the supposed HARM they were receiving at Home ?
Wow......
What is the harm going on now ?
Air Conditioning ?
Food ?
Drink ?
Clothing ?
A place to rest ones head peacefully ?
What !
I saw that, but just ignored it. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know what he is doing?
If you truly think this way... I hope you don't have any children.
3 successful children and 3 grandchildren. Gramps and Nana's place, is the place to go.
Now....tell me ....... what is sooooo bad that is going on at the border of "Illegal" immigrants.
Fake Pictures and News Reports ?
You're ok with separating kids from their parents?
Are they the "Parents" ? I didn't know "Illegals" came over with FULL documentation in hand.
Thank Goodness for Mexico's brilliant accounting huh. Seems EVERYONE is passing through that Upstanding country....and they keep impeccable records.
These days......YEP !
Just ask Nancy, Chuck, ALL other Liberal politicians, and most Liberals walking the streets.
You don't surprise me. You sadden me, though.
That's exactly what happened with that Honduran woman who brought her toddler daughter (via coyote) without her husband and 3 older children knowing about it (the fake news Time Mag cover toddler story).
At first when she was caught, the woman said she was seeking asylum, but when her husband found out what she'd done, he made it known to the world that he had a good job in Honduras and she just wanted to get to the US with the baby who couldn't verbalize the details.
So, obviously you do not know the Constitution. They have the same rights as any American citizen.
Yes, sometimes children of Americans are taken away if the only parent is convicted of a crime, and there is no family member to take the child.
BUT THE DIFFERENCE IS:
And they can be processed in detention at the border. Otherwise, they would run off to hide out democrat sanctuary cities.
If the parents are put in jail, then the children are separated immediately since children can’t be jailed. If they’re put in detention, then by court order they must be removed in 20 days whether they’re with their parent or not. I don’t know where they’re moved to but I assume that they have to house them where facilities and personnel are available.
This all came about because Obama tried to keep children with parents in detention but the court said he couldn’t do it. Obama decided to release the parents and children which led to a catch and release policy. Now parents are crossing the desert using their children as literally a “get out of jail card.” That’s the parent’s fault not ours. Wherever we put the children, it’s better than the damn desert their parents dragged them across and I assume better than the terrible situation they (often falsely) claim to be fleeing.
The only problem is those trying to cross the border
The ones that CREATED the problem are to blame of course. It is the group of people that are ENCOURAGING illegal immigration by creating "sanctuary cities" and exasperating the problem that are to blame. Never mind the damage they are doing to the country...all in the name of growing the constituent base!
Trump’s options are limited. If he holds the illegals at the border, then he has to remove the children (by court order) within 20 days whether they are accompanied by their parents or not. That’s to avoid imprisoning children. Or he can let the parents leave with their children and they will abscond to sanctuary cities. He’s chosen to keep the parents. Obama choose to let the parents go, which led to a catch and release policy. Illegal aliens know about the catch and release policy so they bring their children as literally “a get out of jail card.” This has to stop.
And then one day the children will come home and find they have now been separated from their parent or parents. We don't want that.
Discouraging illegal immigration should be of the highest priority.
Who’s Really to Blame at the Border?
People like Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the Democrats in this country.
One tells people "Go, it's your right?", the other says "Come on Over, It's your right?" !