O’Rourke on haunting photo: ‘Trump is responsible for these deaths’
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Politics
O’Rourke on haunting photo: ‘Trump is responsible for these deaths’
By David Siders, Politico 8 hours ago
O'Rourke responded to an Associated Press image of a drowned man and girl that was ricocheting around the internet.Beto O’Rourke on Tuesday blamed President Donald Trump directly for the deaths of a father and daughter who were found earlier this week along a bank of the Rio Grande.
“Trump is responsible for these deaths,” O’Rourke wrote on social media , sharing an Associated Press story and the image of drowned man and girl that was ricocheting around the internet.
“As his administration refuses to follow our laws — preventing refugees from presenting themselves for asylum at our ports of entry — they cause families to cross between ports, ensuring greater suffering and death,” O’Rourke wrote. “At the expense of our humanity, not to the benefit of our safety.”
O’Rourke, a former congressman from the border city of El Paso in West Texas, has long criticized Trump for immigration policies he has said are inhumane. The presidential candidate said on ABC’s “The View“ in May that existing barriers “contribute to death and suffering” by forcing immigrants to cross in more remote areas of the U.S.-Mexico border.
But O’Rourke’s rebuke of Trump on Tuesday was especially stark — as was the brutality of the incident he was addressing.
The man found with his daughter face down in the Rio Grande was from El Salvador and had become frustrated that his family could not request asylum at the United States border, according to the Associated Press , which was citing journalist Julia Le Duc’s reporting for La Jornada, a Mexican newspaper.
The two were caught in the current of the river instead.
“Trump is responsible for these deaths,” O’Rourke wrote on social media , sharing an Associated Press story and the image of drowned man and girl that was ricocheting around the internet.
“As his administration refuses to follow our laws — preventing refugees from presenting themselves for asylum at our ports of entry — they cause families to cross between ports, ensuring greater suffering and death,” O’Rourke wrote. “At the expense of our humanity, not to the benefit of our safety.”
I agree with Mr. O'Rourke along with many, many others.
I agree that our immigration system is terrible and needs a complete overhaul. I agree that Trump's immigration "plan" seems to oscillate between "non-existent" and "could we go back to non-existent, please".
I don't agree that Trump or anybody else in DC is responsible for people dying while trying to cross the border illegally. Barack Obama was not responsible for the roughly 400 people/yr who died attempting to cross the border during his time in office, and Trump is not responsible now.
I think Beto's statement is melodramatic, and I think we see far too much of that kind of thing these days. I also find the statement odd because Beto has not historically been a drama merchant.
No matter what immigration system we implement, there will always be some limit to the numbers we let in, and there will always be more wanting in than we can handle safely. We need intelligent, non-emotional ideas about this....not vote pandering.
The 'president' and Stephen Mililer are responsible for this manufactured crisis.
Calling this a "manufactured crises" might be the stupidest thing on the internet today.
Congrats on that and sticking to the talking points you were given. Maybe you will get a cracker.
Or I should say, the crisis that they manufactured.
Or a sticker!
C-man!
I would like an award. Preferably one in which everyone who participates get. Those are the most distinguished imo.
Which is the reason the detention centers are overflowing. There is not enough supplies, or personnel (for processing, medical examines, or judges to even look at the cases).
The only issue here is Democrats ignoring a real crisis in order to gain political points.
Wait, did you miss a memo? Thought the new Dem talking point was not that this was a manufactured crisis, but that this is a humanitarian crisis caused by the Trump administration?
Trump forced them both to try and cross the border illegally violating our laws.
TDDS is an epidemic that has no cure. Those inflicted wouldn't take treatment even if there was one.
Requesting asylum is not violating our laws but that turd Miller and the 'president' made sure to break that by their asylum purge and then separated children from their families and sent them off to detention camps.
By all means request, but do it from outside the US.
Thanks
That is not what the law says. You want that to be how it works? Change the law, until then the law says it does not have to be done from outside the US.
Thank you for debunking Vic's usual nonsense.
Tell us what the asylum law says
Why don't you look it up yourself Vic?
You don't need anyone to do your research for you do you?
You've already been linked to, and explained to, about asylum laws in multiple other comment threads. Since you apparently refused to read those, what would be the point of me doing it again?
I didn't think so.
I didn't think you'd take the time to see the facts of the matter.
It's a shame we don't all think as one...right?
Wrong, as usual.
Do you know about asylum laws?
Do you???
That was my question. You beat me to it.
I know this much - once refugee status has been denied the applicant must leave. Why dosen't that part of the law (The Fucking Law) work?
"After interviewing the applicant, the asylum officer may grant the asylum status or refer the applicant to immigration court for removal proceedings, where she may pursue the application for asylum before an immigration judge."
That's a lot of due process. We have how many millions staying here who must be removed?
What were you saying about asylum law?
It is when they try to cross our borders instead one of the several embassies we have located in South America, Central America, and even Mexico.
Oh, and before you go into the whole "you can't request asylum at a US embassy or consulate garbage", there are other actions you can take there w/o making the long trip to the US.
Or just go the standard route to applying for US citizenship.
Congratulations!!! That has absolutely nothing to do with what we're talking about...
Jumping in and missing the entire point? As you pointed out, they CAN, NOT MUST...
Another LEGAL way of requesting asylum is to legally, or illegally, enter the country and then request asylum once inside.
You can't. The law says you must be present in the US to request asylum.
Thanks for the facts Jack.
What was that you were saying Vic?
Ya, and we already heard that it can be done at a US Embassy in any one of these third world countries. Jack, nobody seems to be able to answer what happens when the law is violated? In other words the US government obeys a damning law that gives migrants all kinds of due process rights, yet nobody seems concerned about the millions of migrants who are ignoring the law? The law is not working!
Everything you don't want to hear
Really? That's not what I'm reading.
I confess I'm not expert on the topic, so if you have other info, I'd love to see it.
Personally, I'd love to see us admit many times the immigrants we do today....but document them all and get them paying taxes like the rest of us. That's what they want, anyway. I'd also like us to build the barriers the Border Patrol has requested.
Thanks again for the facts Jack
What was that you were saying Vic?
And I'd like to see the US finally adopt a real immigration policy that protects the sovereignty of the nation. Something this country never had to worry about. You like to quote self destructive laws, but did you know that for about the first hundred years of this nation's existence, immigration was pretty much left up to the states. In those days we needed and wanted immigrants to settle the vast interior of the country, build the railroads and work the factories during the period of industrial expansion.
Today however, there is a major shift in population from the third world to the first world. The US has glaring deficiencies with it's immigration and asylum laws. The drug cartels and failed states of central America are playing those dysfunctional laws to encourage thousands/millions to make the long dangerous journey over our southern border.
The system is so overwhelmed that getting in is fairly easy. We have no idea who is here or how many millions are living here illegally. Only congress can fix the problem and unfortunately, all the political benefit for our elected officials seems to be to keep the crisis going. And IT IS a CRISIS!
Last night I heard Tucker Carlson who is in Japan for the G20 Summit say "Japan does not allow any immigration. It has clean streets and almost no crime."
I'm not sure the sovereignty of the nation is really all that much under threat, but I agree I'd love a real immigration plan where we got these "new hires" up and running, paying taxes, and participating in society like the rest of us.
I'm guessing the Civil War probably had something to do with it changing?
We still need and want immigrant workers. They do everything from groundskeeping to medicine to professional sports.
Yeah. We're still operating like it's 1975 and the labor unions are in control.
This is our own fault. We've been waging a "war on drugs" with our best warriors on the sideline. If you want to put drug cartels and drug dealers out of business, make them compete with Amazon and WalMart. Legalize, regulate, tax, and let the great American capitalist machine destroy the competition.
Absolutely. Has been for decades.
Correct. But that actually supports the case for granting asylum. You can at least track these people and know where they are.
Elections are won on crisis. Crisis is good for candidates.
Dude. I live in Texas. I know.
Well...I would caution using models that can't possibly work in the US as examples. Pretty soon you'll start thinking BernieCare and free money for not working are good ideas.
Before believing Tucker, I would do a fact check first.
What do clean streets and almost no crime have to do with immigrants?
The majority of crimes are not done by immigrants and I have not heard of any problems with immigrants dirtying up the streets
so do you blame obama for the migrant deaths along the border when he was President?
Which where a lot higher count than Trump's have been.
Not true or you would provide proof wouldn't you dear?
Similar to how they don't care about the black kids killed in inner city warfare. But when a black criminal gets killed attacking a cop, it's a national crises to be used against Republicans.
They exploit whoever is politically handy
Try looking at your own seed.
Do your own work, but of course you never do.
It's not there dear.
That's what I thought, you have no proof.
Are you not capable of following your own sources, dear? Guess not.
This tragedy wouldn't have happened if the man had gone directly to the US Embassy in San Salvador and legally requested asylum. Blaming Trump for the deaths of illegal aliens who make stupid choices and who deliberately put their children's lives in danger is ridiculous.
True, but it was also legal - according to our own laws - to apply at our borders. The problem is that there are so many people seeking asylum that we just can't handle them all. And desperate people will do desperate things.
They weren't at a legal point of entry. According to the AP article ...
Mr. Ramirez traveled with his family thousands of miles when he could have gone to the US Embassy in San Salvador to legally request asylum. If he didn't want to do that, he could have done the same in Guatemala at our embassy there.
I wasn't aware about the embassy option. I'd probably think I'd have a better shot at the border than at an embassy if I were in that situation. Because once they touch American soil, legal or not, don't we have to consider their asylum request at least? Isn't that what all the Cubans did? Not that most of these people understand our immigration and asylum laws in detail anyway.
Every US Embassy is considered US soil
He tried to do things legally but our Fracked up immigration policy screwed his hope of saving his young family.
He risked death for a chance at the American dream and lost. We turned our backs on he and his families plight.
Don't wast money on a stupid vanity wall project for Trump, spend money on facilities & judges to help speed up processing the massive backlog of asylum clams. Spend money on trying to lower the deadly violence and crippling poverty that the asylum seekers are risking life and limb to flee from.
.
A grim border drownin....
Rescue.org
El Salvador
Off topic but here is something about the 'president'
Poignant and sad words from Charles Pierce in Esquire:
"In my life, I have watched John Kennedy talk on television about missiles in Cuba. I saw Lyndon Johnson look Richard Russell squarely in the eye and and say, "And we shall overcome." I saw Richard Nixon resign and Gerald Ford tell the Congress that our long national nightmare was over. I saw Jimmy Carter talk about malaise and Ronald Reagan talk about a shining city on a hill. I saw George H.W. Bush deliver the eulogy for the Soviet bloc, and Bill Clinton comfort the survivors of Timothy McVeigh's madness in Oklahoma City. I saw George W. Bush struggle to make sense of it all on September 11, 2001, and I saw Barack Obama sing "Amazing Grace" in the wounded sanctuary of Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
These were the presidents of my lifetime. These were not perfect men. They were not perfect presidents, god knows. Not one of them was that. But they approached the job, and they took to the podium, with all the gravitas they could muster as appropriate to the job. They tried, at least, to reach for something in the presidency that was beyond their grasp as ordinary human beings. They were not all ennobled by the attempt, but they tried nonetheless.
And comes now this hopeless, vicious buffoon, and the audience of equally hopeless and vicious buffoons who laughed and cheered when he made sport of a woman whose lasting memory of the trauma she suffered is the laughter of the perpetrators. Now he comes, a man swathed in scandal, with no interest beyond what he can put in his pocket and what he can put over on a universe of suckers, and he does something like this while occupying an office that we gave him, and while endowed with a public trust that he dishonors every day he wakes up in the White House.
The scion of a multigenerational criminal enterprise, the parameters of which we are only now beginning to comprehend. A vessel for all the worst elements of the American condition. And a cheap, soulless bully besides.
Watch him make fun of the woman again. Watch how a republic dies in the empty eyes of an empty man who feels nothing but his own imaginary greatness, and who cannot find in himself the decency simply to shut the fuck up even when it is in his best interest to do so. Presidents don't have to be heroes to be good presidents. They just have to realize that their humanity is our common humanity, and that their political commonwealth is our political commonwealth, too.
Watch him again, behind the seal of the President of the United States. Isn't he a funny man? Isn't what happened to that lady hilarious? Watch the assembled morons cheer. This is the only story now."
Exactly, Vic. That's why the US State Dept advises US citizens to register with our embassies in foreign countries when we travel abroad.
Castro shut down our US embassy in Havana for many years.
Yes Sir
While your lengthy missive addresses several irrelevant issues, it doesn't address the fact that foreign nationals who seek asylum in the USA can register for said asylum at the US embassies in their own countries.
Irrelevant?
GTFOOH!
As they flee their native country they can stop the people pursuing them long enough to swing by the local embassy, expect to be seen immediately, and to receive a decision immediately? Is that what you're saying?
Most asylum seekers are fleeing for their lives, you really think they will pause to apply at the embassy then hang around until the decision is made???
No one coming here from Central America is being pursued across nations by gangs or anyone else
How would you know?
The inconvenient truth that has been documented for decades is that illegal aliens of all races and ethnicities from many countries throughout the world pay thousands of dollars to nefarious people to transport them to the US southern border instead of choosing to legally entering our country through legal ports of entry as tens of millions of legal immigrants have done.
Who is pursuing them?
We've seen migrant caravans making their way through the entirety of Mexico without ever being chased.
The point is that most of these people don't actually meet the criteria necessary to qualify for asylum. Their home country may be dangerous, but that's not enough. Frankly most of their home countries are less dangerous than South Chicago on a Saturday night.
Now...as I've said....I think we should be letting far more of these folks in than we do. But that's going to require a change in the law.
How should I know? Ask them.
Then you haven't been paying attention. Even Trump claims that the caravans have been attacked, robbed, and the women raped enroute. Or did you forget he stated that?
No, that is a meaningless point. You don't know they don't qualify until they make the claim and see a judge.
In your opinion. Asylum laws say otherwise.
Frankly, your use of a strawman argument is embarrassing.
You should reread what you wrote because that is NOT what you just said.
You were doing so well with actual facts before.
This post is quite disappointing.
I just think the discussion is headed away from facts and in the direction of drama.
The likelihood of people without 2 nickels to rub together are being "chased" from their home country in the absence of religious or ethnic cleansing is remote at best.
Further, we seem to have already established that stopping by an embassy would not enable them to apply for asylum, so the idea that "they would have applied for asylum but they were being chased across 2000 miles of wilderness" is just emotional drama.
Hmmm.... So you are attempting to tell us that unknown persons are pursuing these penniless migrants across 2000 miles. I'm not sure that's plausible enough to be a Jean Claude Van Damme movie
Oh...so we're going with Donald Trump as the arbiter of truth now? When did that happen? Did I miss a meeting?
I'm sure it seems meaningless if you've never actually met refugees.
Do cite that law for us.
Maybe you could throttle your emotions a bit and read more carefully.
We cannot continue to allow vast numbers of people into the country with no plan. We need a plan. That plan would include spreading these people out so they don't all settle in Texas, Arizona and California. It would include documenting them, helping them with temporary housing, relocation, employment, and generally all the things one needs to do to get up and running in a new place. It would NOT include giving them lots of free shit because our feelings have run amok and awww don't they look sad.
The problem we have, and the problem we see every day of our lives in Texas, is that the US Govt does not have any sort of adequate systems for ingesting large numbers of impoverished immigrants.
Many liberals (especially young ones) are outraged by the conditions at the border, simply because they're awareness is new and they don't realize how bad it's been for decades. But this is not a new problem. It's not even a Trump problem, particularly. Trump is just following his normal M.O. of being a large dickhead about a problem until something gets done.
The fight over asylum exists because there the US Govt has ignored anything to do with illegal immigration since Reagan addressed it in the 1980s.
So you are making the claim that there is no violence in South American countries? Dude, you've crossed the line so far in trying to justify your claims that you've fallen off the adjoining cliff.
If you truly believe it, please provide links showing a lack of violence against civilians from all South American countries.
Apparently you missed a meeting and several years worth of news.
It has already been posted multiple times, don't be lazy look up the law for yourself if you want to prove me wrong. The fact that you never offer ANY EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER, shows that you argue trying to pass your opinion as fact.
WHAT??!!!!????!!??!!!
Too bad Republicans refuse to make a plan. Remember when Obama asked them for one? Then when they refused to, he put forth an executive order to try and make a plan? Then because Republicans didn't want an immigration plan, they sued him to remove his plan and still refuse to put one of their own up?
You are now trying to compare to entirely different things. People are outraged because children have been taken from their family, tortured and locked in cages. This is unique to Trump's policy.
Trump is not simply being a dickhead HE IS THE ONE WHO CAN STOP THIS OUTRAGE WITH A SINGLE PHONE CALL AND YET REFUSES TO! His administration created this policy of child kidnapping and torture.
Not my problem and not anyone else's fault but the person themselves
Do you not remember what you posted? You said "pursued".
Do you know what "arbiter" means? Are you actually allowing Donald Trump to be the arbiter of truth? I would caution you against this, but JohnRussell will do a much better job. I believe he may have every one of Trump's lies cataloged and cross-referenced.
Oh dear. Well, you do make this easy.
As for careful reading...you've misread my original post, you forgot what was in your own post, you've misread my follow up post, and apparently you've misread the requirements for asylum....if in fact you had read them at all.
Here's a question... remember when GWB begged Harry Reid to reintroduce immigration reform in 2007, only to have Democrats filibuster it? Remember when John McCain and Ted Kennedy introduced legislation in 2003? How about Cornyn and Kyl in 2005? Or Arlen Specter in 2006? Orrin Hatch co-authoring the DREAM Act in 2001? Remember Reagan granting amnesty as part of the last major reform back in 1986?
Or do your memories sort of begin with the Obama Administration?
Do you remember John Pertwee, or do you imagine Chris Ecclestone was "the first Doctor"?
We've struggled with this problem for decades, because nobody on either side of the aisle wants to face angry constituents back home.
Tortured. Citation on that? Or is that kinda like "pursued"....existing primarily in left wing imagination?
Duh...
Deeeeflection........................
Thank you for proving my point with your links.
Wow, excellent sentence to refute something I DIDN'T SAY.
Deeeeflection........................
I thought his Venutian judo was a little over the top. Favored Patrick Troughton of the originals myself, though I thought that Peter Cushing did an interesting version. But Rowan Atkinson was the funniest.
The treatment that the children are receiving violates the Geneva Convention rules for POW's. Are you claiming it only counts as torture if done to adults?
No soap - violation
No toothbrushes - violation
Preventing them from sleeping by leaving all the lights on - violation
Riiiight.
You have declared Donald Trump....you know...the NY real estate developer turned president....as the final authority of truth... And you think my noticing that is a "deflection".
Oh dear. You didn't read those carefully, either. There is a theme developing here....
Do you understand what a "citation" is?
You will certainly understand my reticence at trusting the statements of a person who has misread at least 5 things in this conversation alone.
Let me get this right.... are you actually claiming.... that "failure to provide a toothbrush".... constitutes ....."torture"?
I want to make very sure that's what you're saying here. I really hope it's not. Because that much batshit lunacy may very well break the entire internet. You are aware that the Geneva Convention defines torture as "the infliction of severe pain or suffering", yes? BTW, that means the migrants' pain and suffering, not the suffering of melodramatic Americans.
Out of curiosity, what happened to the toothbrushes the migrants brought with them?
The Geneva Convention states it is. All I am claiming is that the children are being treated worse than we are allowed to treat POW's.
I am guessing that the reason you paraphrased instead of quoted is that the actual article of the Geneva Convention does not support your claim.
Article 5 states, "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." ... The most notable treaties relating to torture are the United Nations Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols I and II of 8 June 1977.
I'd suggest you read it for yourself instead of making it up as you go.
Except .... it doesn't.
The idea that "failure to supply a toothbrush" constitutes the "intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering" is a massive great steaming pile of melodramatic horseshit which totally eclipses any sane points you may be attempting to make.
If this was the main thrust of your point, you might have lead with that. By itself, that's not a ridiculous statement. I'm not sure I agree with it, but it's at least close enough to reality that it's worthy of consideration.
It is very likely that if the "torture" melodrama subsides we will agree on intellectual, non-bullshit assessments of the situation. Ideas like "the arrival of these people is not a surprise and these facilities should be better equipped"...or..."we have a moral obligation to take good care of children while they are in our country, regardless of the circumstances of their arrival"...or.... "this is an excellent opportunity for humanitarian groups to step in and meet a need" are reasonable, mature assessments of the situation that bypass damaging, indefensible nonsense.
Sure sounds like he's making it up as he goes along. You are correct. These children are being treated worse than POWs and are violating the Geneva Convention
[Removed]
removed for context
Darn it! I didn't see what you posted. :0(
Feel free to PM me with the comment Sean. We can battle on chat!!!
The post-purge agenda: what the White House wants next on immigration
Donald Trump and Stephen Miller are pushing for a multi-pronged asylum crackdown.
President Trump said last week that he wanted the Department of Homeland Security to go in a “tougher direction.” He and top immigration adviser Stephen Miller appear to be trying to get rid of anyone who might tell them that “tougher direction” might be a bad idea — or illegal.
First, Trump withdrew the nomination of Ron Vitiello to permanently head Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Then on Sunday night, he pressured Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to resign and named Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan acting secretary in her stead. (The official who was supposed to succeed Nielsen under federal vacancy law, Undersecretary Claire Grady, resigned Tuesday evening — presumably so that McAleenan could serve as acting secretary instead.)
The administration appears to be putting out rumors that two more DHS figures — the general counsel and US Citizenship and Immigration Services director — are “heading out the door .”
Neither has left yet, and USCIS officials told staff on a call Tuesday that director Francis Cissna is not resigning — raising the possibility that the rumors are coming from somebody who wants both top officials gone.
This wasn’t just a personality clash. According to multiple reports, there are things Trump wanted done that Nielsen wouldn’t do. Reports from Axios published Tuesday morning, and from NBC News and other outlets later in the day, identify both a new agenda that the White House wants to move forward with ASAP (leading with making it harder for asylum seekers to pass their initial screenings to avoid immediate deportation) and some options the administration wants to keep on the table — like reinstating a version of the family separation policy of 2018.
Some of the policies being tossed around are general wish-list items, such as finalizing a regulation that would make it easier to deny green cards to legal immigrants who might use public benefits.
The general vibe of the post-purge asylum crackdown is that the White House is tired of hearing from DHS officials that the things it wants to do are illegal. The general counsel, John Mitnick, is supposed to be in charge of evaluating legality of policy — and a White House source described Mitnick as a “chickenshit lawyer” to Philip Wegmann of RealClearNews for his uneasiness about White House ideas.
Cissna, meanwhile, is generally seen as an immigration hawk who shares the Trump/Miller agenda of cracking down on asylum seekers and reducing legal immigration into the US. But as one source (who asked to remain unnamed so as not to get in the middle of the personnel dispute) described him to Vox, “Francis is a careful, by-the-book lawyer and not likely to push the envelope.”
Miller, who has no legal training, is ready to start pushing that envelope.
It’s not yet clear whether the officials left at DHS will be willing to do the White House’s bidding. Even if they were, it’s not clear whether any of the policies they want would, in fact, be deemed legal by federal judges. But it’s very clear that the White House is no longer interested in being told not to try.
Forcing asylum officers to allow fewer migrants to pass screening interviews — or giving those interviews to Border Patrol officers instead
The White House’s frustration with Cissna, who is someone generally on their side, is apparently rooted in the role his agency plays in the process for immigrants who come to the US seeking asylum without papers. The administration appears to believe that more migrants should be deported without being allowed to apply for asylum at all.
The Trump White House has long maintained that there is widespread “fraud” among asylum seekers. Officials routinely argue that only 10 to 15 percent of Central American asylum applicants are ultimately given asylum by a judge, using it as evidence not only that the remaining 85 to 90 percent aren’t ultimately eligible for asylum but that many or most of them were lying their way into the US the whole time. (The real approval rate might be as high as 24 percent — and even that is somewhat misleading because it doesn’t count other forms of legal status that applicants might get.)
So the administration’s proposed solution is to get tougher with the screening interviews people have to pass in order to apply for asylum to begin with.
Somebody who comes to the US without papers is eligible to be deported without trial unless they tell an official they’re afraid of being returned to their home country. If they say that, US law requires the government to give them an interview with a trained asylum officer to see if they have a “credible fear of persecution” that could make them eligible for asylum in the US.
The “credible fear” standard written into US law is deliberately generous. The standard for ultimately approving an asylum application, as a Supreme Court case put it, is that there’s a one-in-10 (or higher) chance that the asylum seeker would be persecuted if returned to their home country. The standard for credible fear, which allows them to apply in the first place, is only a “significant possibility” that the migrant would ultimately meet that one-in-10 standard.
Asylum officers are supposed to “take into account the credibility” of the asylum seeker, “and other facts known to the officer,” in making their assessments. This is where it seems like the White House wants to get tougher; a White House official told Axios that they want to “apply greater rigor and scrutiny to these [asylum] claims rather than credulously accepting what’s said.”
But right now asylum officers don’t simply “accept what’s said.” Training put out by the Trump administration in 2017 encourages asylum officers to probe the asylum seeker’s credibility, and requires asylum seekers to meet a higher standard to prove their identity than had been required under Obama. It didn’t affect approval rates.
The White House might try to sway asylum officers — one idea is to force them to compare asylum seekers’ testimony to State Department country reports, for example — but it can’t force them to flunk a certain number of asylum applicants.
“I think they’ve hit the limit of everything they can do on the credible fear side” under existing law, one congressional staffer told Vox.
The White House appears to disagree.
In particular, they believe that having Customs and Border Protection officers do the screening interviews, rather than professional asylum officers from US Citizenship and Immigration Services, will result in fewer people being found “credible” and passing the screening.
Last week, an official in the Border Patrol agents union told the Washington Times that they would start conducting some screening interviews in as little as two weeks. But more recent reports don’t have that timeline.
The law doesn’t bar Border Patrol officers from doing this, but it does say that the person conducting the screenings has to have “had professional training in country conditions, asylum law, and interview techniques comparable to that provided to full-time adjudicators of applications.”
Given that asylum officers — the “full-time adjudicators” — are given several-weeks-long training courses and weekly professional development seminars, it’s extremely unlikely that an already overloaded Border Patrol corps will be able to meet that standard.
Additionally, asylum seekers are allowed to appeal to an immigration judge if they fail their screening interviews. And while judges are overturning fewer negative determinations than they used to , they may well have a more lenient credibility standard than Border Patrol agents do.
“Binary choice”: forcing parents to choose between family separation and family detention
The most well-developed policy option on the table is something it and DHS have been considering, on and off, for several months: a partial reinstatement of widespread family separation for families who enter the US without papers.
This doesn’t appear to be something the White House is pushing for as actively as it’s pushing for changes to asylum screenings. But reports earlier in the week indicated that Trump has become re-enamored of family separation, and that Nielsen refused to put it back on the table — while McAleenan, her temporary successor, hasn’t ruled it out.
Bringing back some family separation would be possible despite a court ruling preventing the government from deciding to separate parents and children . That’s because of the way that court ruling, made by Judge Dana Sabraw in June 2018, interacts with a 2015 ruling that prevents the government from detaining families indefinitely .
The government is allowed to ask parents to choose between detention or separation — a possibility the Trump administration refers to as “binary choice.”
The administration was openly considering this plan in fall, as the number of families apprehended at the US-Mexico border began to reach unusual levels. Now the numbers are truly unprecedented. But the administration hasn’t pulled the trigger on “binary choice” even as the numbers have become truly unprecedented.
Possibly, ICE simply doesn’t have the space to implement binary choice, because it only has a few thousand spaces in family detention facilities — if half of the 53,000 parents and children apprehended in March chose detention over separation, ICE would have to release most of them anyway. That may explain why it’s not the White House’s first choice right now. But it appears to be one the White House wants back on the table.
Finalizing a regulation that could allow the government to detain families for as long as necessary
In theory, the administration doesn’t need to use “binary choice” to expand family detention. It just needs to finalize a regulation already in the works.
The Flores agreement , the lawsuit (first settled in 1997 and modified in 2015) that stops the federal government from keeping children in indefinite detention, was supposed to be a stopgap until Congress or the executive branch came up with laws or regulations (respectively) to address the needs of children in immigration custody. Instead, several presidents just let the court agreement serve that purpose.
But last fall, the Trump administration published a draft regulation that would allow families to be detained together for as long as necessary until their court cases were completed.
Before finalizing the regulation, the administration is obligated to read through the public comments submitted on the draft, and to address anything important raised in them. But it doesn’t need to change the regulation just because a lot of people disapprove of something.
The public comment period closed before the midterm elections. Several months later, the final regulation still hasn’t been published, and it’s not clear why.
It’s possible that Judge Dolly Gee (who has overseen the Flores settlement since its inception) will rule that the regulation doesn’t address her original concerns about care of children, and will stop it from going into effect. But the administration would be able to appeal that, just like they appeal every other adverse court ruling on immigration. The fact that they haven’t tried might be explained, again, by the lack of capacity — or by someone in DHS objecting who might now have left.
Issuing work permits to asylum seekers while they wait for their cases to be decided
The last part of the asylum crackdown, as identified to Axios, involves giving fewer work permits to asylum seekers while they are waiting for their cases to be approved or denied.
Under federal regulation, an asylum seeker can apply for a work permit five months (150 days) after sending in her full asylum application. The work permit isn’t valid after her asylum claim is denied, and she has to demonstrate that she’s still seeking asylum if she tries to get it renewed. But given the length of time that immigrants who aren’t in detention have to wait for resolution of their asylum claims, that could be years.
The administration believes that work permits are a “pull factor” encouraging asylum seekers to come. That’s probably true, though it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not also victims of persecution. But the regulations are pretty clear about asylum seekers being allowed to apply for work permits, and any direct order from USCIS to start denying those permits would probably be struck down as a violation of the regulations.
It’s not clear if the White House envisions passing a new regulation — which would take months — or if it wants USCIS to just quietly start denying work permits based on whether the applicant is an asylum seeker who just got to the US or has some other form of legal status. We may be about to find out.
That Miller is pure scum along with the 'president'
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Fox’s Shep Smith Torches Trump: We Treat Migrant Children Worse Than Prisoners of War
Fox News anchor Shepard Smith on Tuesday strongly objected to President Donald Trump’s assertion that migrant children detained in border detention centers are being treated “very well,” pointing out that the conditions these children face would be in violation of the Geneva Convention.
After his acting Customs and Border Protection chief John Sanders revealed he resigned from his position amid furor over reports of squalid and filthy conditions at overcrowded detention camps, the president insisted to reporters that he is “very concerned” with the issue. At the same time, he claimed the conditions were “much better than they were under President Obama.”
Shortly after Trump made his comments, Smith told Fox News viewers that because Trump said “we’re treating the children very well,” he was going to provide actual reporting on “how those children are being treated.”
Highlighting the “horrendous conditions” at a detention facility in Clint, Texas, the Fox News anchor noted that one lawyer said children less than 10 years of age were taking care of infants and toddlers.
“Their clothes covered in snot,” Smith added. “No access to toothbrushes or toothpaste or soap. Basic necessities for any of us and all the more so for children.”
Referencing a segment from his Monday broadcast, Smith went on to highlight just how awful these kids’ living conditions were.
“We reported accurately here yesterday that were these prisoners of war instead of innocent children, those withholding of those items would be violations of the Geneva Convention,” he declared. “That is what the president considers treating well, the children of migrants that came across the border without documents.”
Smith concluded by reporting that despite the Clint facility being incapable of providing children toothbrushes and soap, 100 children that were transferred elsewhere had been returned to the center.
“Those are the facts,” the anchor added.
Regardless of whom we wish to point the finger of blame at, all of us will be remembered for this and we are all to blame.
The only one to blame for these tragic deaths is the father and mother. They chose to illegally invade this country instead of complying with our laws.
escaping gang violence or seeking economic opportunity are not legitimate reasons to be considered for asylum or refugee status under both International and US law
Who are refugees and displaced persons?
They are men, women and children fleeing war, persecution and political upheaval. They are uprooted with little warning, enduring great hardship during their flight. They become refugees when they cross borders and seek safety in another country. They are displaced when they are forced to flee their homes, but remain within the borders of their native country.
The 1951 United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, as amended by its 1967 protocol defines a refugee as a person who "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country..."
What is the difference between a refugee and a migrant?
Refugees are forced to flee their homes and seek safety in another country, often times without warning. Migrants are people who make a conscious decision to leave their countries to seek a better life elsewhere.
There is no right to be granted asylum nor do you have the right to choose your country of asylum
8 U.S.C. 1158 - ASYLUM
The burden of proof is on the applicant to establish that the applicant is a refugee, within the meaning of section 1101(a)(42)(A) of this title. To establish that the applicant is a refugee within the meaning of such section, the applicant must establish that race, religion, nation- ality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion was or will be at least one central reason for persecuting the applicant.
The Attorney General may by regulation establish additional limitations and condi- tions, consistent with this section, under which an alien shall be ineligible for asylum under paragraph (1).
As a pastor I am surprised at your intolerance of those fleeing for their lives from horrific conditions.
Tell me what Jesus would do regarding these immigrants won't you?
First of all, if Jesus was back it would be to rule over creation. There wouldn’t be the violence and poverty that leads people to invade our country.
Secondly, if one take the logical conclusion to the left’s premise that anyone living in unfavorable conditions in their home country has a right to come here, we would soar to a population in the billions within a very short time frame.
third, as I’ve posted, poverty and gang violence are not legitimate standards for asylum or refugee status under both International and US law.
if leftists want to help these people, then raise the funds and organize assistance to change conditions in their home countries