ZERO TOLERANCE, Trump's campaign of fear continues to devastate families

 

With the daily barrage of lies and distractions coming from the White House, the issue of separated children has largely retreated from the foreground of most people’s top concerns about Donald Trump. However, ACLU lawyers revealed last week that the Trump administration has not reunited 545 children they separated from their parents. As horrific as that number is, even more infuriating are the facts behind it. In the Trump administration’s scandal of the week, it’s hard to keep it all straight. That’s how he gets away with so much. We can’t let Trump sweep these 545 children under the rug.

From May to June of 2018 Trump’s Justice Department instituted a “zero tolerance” policy that began criminally prosecuting every person who crossed the border without authorization. It became standard policy to seek the maximum prison sentence even when there was no underlying criminal activity. This was true even if they were seeking asylum because their lives were in danger in their home country. Overwhelmingly these people came from the Central American countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. These countries are wrecked with political instability, out of control street violence and civil war. Decades of foreign meddling and profits from the American drug trade are at the heart of their problems. Mexican economic migrants only make up a small percentage of the border crossers.

The effect of treating these asylum seekers as criminals was to separate them from their children. When someone commits a crime that’s what happens. If you commit armed robbery you don’t get to take your children to prison with you. The problem is seeking asylum isn’t a crime. The Trump administration has made following the proper asylum procedures virtually impossible for these refugees. They then use that to justify their cruel prosecutions of these people who are trying to save their families. Even economically motivated crossings have traditionally been treated as civil offenses or minor crimes resulting in deportation rather than jail time.

After reports of these separations came to the public’s attention it caused an outcry from the public. Trump’s policy of ripping babies still in diapers from their mothers' arms horrified even his normally loyal supporters. On June 26th of 2018 a federal judge ordered the government to reunite children separated from their parents under the “zero tolerance” program within 30 days. However, in the bungled attempt to implement the President’s policy they often failed to properly document the separations. Despite the 30-day requirement most reunions did not make that deadline. The government couldn’t locate the parents in the system and pair up with the correct children. In many cases the parents were rapidly deported before the reunions could occur.

Some parents had to make the painful decision to refuse reunification. They understood reunification would result in deportation to a deadly situation in their home country. Trump’s policy forced them to choose between separated but alive in America or reunited and dead in Guatemala. This continues to be the decision many asylum seekers face today. Other relatives already in America took custody of some of these children. However, this often put them in the focus of immigration officials risking additional separations. Many of these separated children are now in the foster system being raised by strangers.

The most infuriating part of this story is the fact we later found out that the program didn’t start in May 2018 as the government had previously reported. We’ve learned the administration hid a pilot program that started in the El Paso area nearly a year earlier. This fact was also withheld from the Federal judge who ordered the parental reunions. This means the President started this program on a limited scale and was so pleased with the heartbreak of the separated families that he made it a border wide policy in 2018. How is Trump not a monster?

Because Trump hid these 1,500 separations the reunions started a year later than the initial reunions. This made the process much more difficult and multiplied the emotional damage for the children involved. At every stage in the process the Trump administration has continued to resist their ability to file asylum claims. They’ve also taken the position that once someone is deported they are no longer our problem, even when their separated children are still in America. The ACLU is representing a number of charitable organizations that are attempting to reunite these children. They’re reporting they have received no assistance from the U.S. Government. The ACLU has had to resort to legal action to compel the government to turn over the little information they have on these deported parents.

Trump has politized immigration in a way no other modern President has. President Reagan often talked about America as a shining beacon of freedom for immigrants from around the world. Bill Clinton drastically increased the number of Border Control Agents. George W. Bush went against the wishes of many Congressional Republicans and pushed for comprehensive immigration reforms while President Obama annoyed some on the left with his high number of deportations. Even Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden voted for limited fencing along the border in high traffic areas. That’s not to say there has always been agreement on border security, there hasn’t. However, there’s always been an understanding that there has to be a balance between immigration and border security.

Trump has thrown all that out the window. He’s instituted a policy of terrorizing people who are fleeing for their lives. To gin up support for his campaign of fear he equated them to animals who will infest the country. He’s made unsupported claims that asylum seekers are really an invasion of criminal gang members. He’s used this rhetoric to justify spending billions of dollars on a 2,000-mile-long border wall. The facts don’t support any of this. Illegal border crossings have been decreasing for years. People who do immigrate to America are far less likely to commit crimes than native born people.

None of Trump’s immigration policies are designed to solve a problem. He has built a political base founded on fear. Comments like Democrats will open the border and let criminals out of prison are obviously ridiculous, but he’s turned this fear mongering into the bedrock of his Presidency. Trump is oblivious, or more likely, just doesn’t care that his rhetoric is destroying lives.

Don’t let Trump’s stream of nonsense obscure the outrage of his politicization of immigration on the southern border. No one is calling for open borders, just a recognition that immigrants aren’t our enemy. The human toll wrought by Trump’s misguided “zero tolerance” policy is incalculable. The damage to America’s international reputation on human rights will take years to repair. The first step in restoring our place in the world and more importantly helping these 545 children is firing the man who is responsible for tearing them from their parents' arms, Donald J. Trump.

ADDITIONAL READING: NPR — Parents of 545 Children Separated At U.S. — Mexico Border Still Can’t Be Found PBS NEWSHOUR: Why Hundreds of Migrant Children Remain Separated From Their Parents AP Explains: The Law Criminalizing Improper Border Crossings

THE TEXAS TRIBUNE: Hundreds of Migrant Kids Haven’t Been Reunited With Their Parents. What’s Taking So Long? (Oct. 4, 2018)