[Discussion] Separating and/or Detaining Families at the US-Mexico Border

Just figured we could collect this mess in one thread.

We really are the monsters.

HHS docs show thousands of alleged incidents of sexual abuse against unaccompanied minors in custody

The Department of Health and Human Services received more than 4,500 complaints of sexual abuse against unaccompanied minors from 2014-2018, according to internal agency documents released Tuesday by Florida Democratic Rep. Ted Deutch.

In addition,1,303 complaints were reported to the Justice Department during that same time frame, according to the documents.
Deutch addressed the documents during a high-profile House hearing Tuesday on the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy that resulted in thousands of immigrant children being separated from their parents.
He said that the documents "demonstrate over the past three years, there have been 154 staff on unaccompanied minor, let me repeat that, staff on unaccompanied minor allegations of sexual assault."
"This works out on average to one sexual assault by HHS staff on unaccompanied minor per week," he added.

This is so f*cked up. The most frustrating thing for me personally is what can I do about it, other than vote?

LeapingGnome wrote:

This is so f*cked up. The most frustrating thing for me personally is what can I do about it, other than vote?

*consults right-wing playbook*

The solution is always the free market and smaller government.

So clearly, you should start kidnapping kids. For cash. There's obviously an unmet need that the federal governement has had to step into. As an upstanding citizen, it's your duty to bolster your local economy thusly.

I'll get on making "Get your government fingers out of my child's abduction!" signs to hold up at rallies.

LeapingGnome wrote:

This is so f*cked up. The most frustrating thing for me personally is what can I do about it, other than vote?

Buy the book in my sig or watch the author's talks about On Tyranny on YouTube.

How would buying a book help?

Voting was the first step. The reason this is getting attention is that the Dems took the house and can now force hearings. The GOP has been ignoring all my of this.

LeapingGnome wrote:

How would buying a book help?

It contains a list of concrete steps everyone can do to fight back against Fascism and Populism, based on lessons learned from the people who lived through the last world-wide rise of them.

Mixolyde wrote:
LeapingGnome wrote:

How would buying a book help?

It contains a list of concrete steps everyone can do to fight back against Fascism and Populism, based on lessons learned from the people who lived through the last world-wide rise of them.

I was all set to buy this. Then Amazon told me I had already purchased it last summer, apparently after your last plug. So, step 1 accomplished.

Step 2: Read the book!

Mixolyde wrote:
LeapingGnome wrote:

How would buying a book help?

It contains a list of concrete steps everyone can do to fight back against Fascism and Populism, based on lessons learned from the people who lived through the last world-wide rise of them.

Care to give an example? This sounds like fighting against ideas/culture which while worthwhile it takes literally years and doesn't help the kids being molested in the meantime.

Nothing will help those kids right now short of chaining yourself to the door of the building they are in.

But because you asked, and because every one should read this really short book.

On Tyranny
1. Do not obey in advance.
2. Defend institutions.
3. Beware the one-party state.
4. Take responsibility for the face of the world.
5. Remember professional ethics.
6. Be wary of paramilitaries.
7. Be reflective if you must be armed.
8. Stand out.
9. Be kind to our language.
10. Believe in truth.
11 . Investigate.
12. Make eye contact and small talk.
13. Practice corporeal politics.
14. Establish a private life.
15. Contribute to good causes.
16. Learn from peers in other countries.
17. Listen for dangerous words.
18. Be calm when the unthinkable arrives.
19. Be a patriot.
20. Be as courageous as you can.

The largest operator of shelters for unaccompanied immigrant children, Southwest Key, is telling the parents of released children that they have to book their children's flights home through Copacabana Travel Management, a small travel agency located in a town of 30,000 near Atlanta.

Copacabana doesn't have a website. While Google says it's open 24 hours, callers just get a busy signal at night. And the tickets Copacabana sells cost hundreds of dollars more than what parents could buy themselves, even last minute.

Immigrant rights groups have gathered multiple stories of Southwest Key employees telling parents that Copacabana is their one and only choice. Southwest Key management claims just their employees merely suggest using Copacabana and that they don't even have a contract with the agency.

Southwest Key management also claims that Copacabana was recommended to them as "an agency best suited to meet our operational needs," though no one could say who actually recommended the agency or why a firm in a bedroom community of Atlanta was better suited than bilingual travel agencies in Texas, Arizona, or California, the states where Southwest Key operates.

Wow. We are way passed Nazi levels of dehumanization.
This is not just hot air. Fascism is here in America.

fangblackbone wrote:

Wow. We are way passed Nazi levels of dehumanization.
This is not just hot air. Fascism is here in America.

When I saw the defense of Trump's comments on Otto Warmbier by his supporters, it told me that we are pretty close to a full on nationalistic mob that will defend anything their leader will do. Anything.

The Trump Administration Will Pause Hiring Of Immigration Judges Amid A Massive Backlog Of Cases

Buzzfeed News wrote:

The Trump administration will pause its hiring of immigration judges, slow its procuring of support staff, and cancel a training conference, dealing a setback to the government's efforts to cut down on a crushing backlog of cases, according to a Justice Department email obtained by BuzzFeed News.

James McHenry, director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, notified immigration court staff in an email Wednesday morning, advising that the timing of the 2019 budget process has left them "considerably short of being able to fulfill all of our current operational needs."

McHenry cited increases in costs related to transcriptions, operational needs, and interpreters.

“This challenging budget situation has led us to a position where difficult financial decisions need to be made,” wrote McHenry.

As a result of the funding issues, McHenry said, the court does not “anticipate” it will be able to hire additional judges after an already scheduled class of judges is brought on board in April. The budget costs will also impact the court's hiring of 250 attorneys needed to support immigration judges.

The pause on hiring delivers a blow to an administration that has long complained that the immigration court backlog, which has increased in recent years to more than 800,000 cases, has led to wait times stretching months and years.

Source: Leaked Documents Show the U.S. Government Tracking Journalists and Immigration Advocates Through a Secret Database

NBC San Diego wrote:

Documents obtained by NBC 7 Investigates show the U.S. government created a secret database of activists, journalists, and social media influencers tied to the migrant caravan and in some cases, placed alerts on their passports.

At the end of 2018, roughly 5,000 immigrants from Central America made their way north through Mexico to the United States southern border. The story made international headlines.

As the migrant caravan reached the San Ysidro Port of Entry in south San Diego County, so did journalists, attorneys, and advocates who were there to work and witness the events unfolding.

But in the months that followed, journalists who covered the caravan, as well as those who offered assistance to caravan members, said they felt they had become targets of intense inspections and scrutiny by border officials.

One photojournalist said she was pulled into secondary inspections three times and asked questions about who she saw and photographed in Tijuana shelters. Another photojournalist said she spent 13 hours detained by Mexican authorities when she tried to cross the border into Mexico City. Eventually, she was denied entry into Mexico and sent back to the U.S.

These American photojournalists and attorneys said they suspected the U.S. government was monitoring them closely but until now, they couldn’t prove it.

Now, documents leaked to NBC 7 Investigates show their fears weren’t baseless. In fact, their own government had listed their names in a secret database of targets, where agents collected information on them. Some had alerts placed on their passports, keeping at least three photojournalists and an attorney from entering Mexico to work.

The documents were provided to NBC 7 by a Homeland Security source on the condition of anonymity, given the sensitive nature of what they were divulging.

...

In addition to flagging the individuals for secondary screenings, the Homeland Security source told NBC 7 that the agents also created dossiers on each person listed.

“We are a criminal investigation agency, we’re not an intelligence agency,” the Homeland Security source told NBC 7 Investigates. “We can’t create dossiers on people and they’re creating dossiers. This is an abuse of the Border Search Authority.”

...

Customs and Border Protection has the authority to pull anyone into secondary screenings, but the documents show the agency is increasingly targeting journalists, attorneys, and immigration advocates. Former counterterrorism officials say the agency should not be targeting individuals based on their profession.

Any non-authoritarian states hiring decent programmers?

Mixolyde wrote:

Any non-authoritarian states hiring decent programmers?

Britain is going to need a whole bunch when all the cheap Polish coders get sent home.

USAToday: Judge: Trump administration may have to reunite thousands of additional migrant families

A federal judge ruled on Friday that thousands of additional migrant families that were separated by the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy should be part of an ongoing class-action lawsuit, and may force the administration to reunite them as well.

U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw has already ordered the administration to reunite more than 2,800 migrant children who were separated from their parents as of June 26, 2018, the date he issued his order. Sabraw wrote in Friday's order that he set that date because there was no reason to believe the government had been systematically separating families en masse before then.

But in recent months, media reports and an inspector general report revealed that the administration had an undisclosed family separation pilot program in place starting in July of 2017, which may have led to thousands of additional separations. So on Friday, he ruled that families separated during those 11 months are part of the class-action lawsuit. He scheduled a hearing on March 27 to decide whether the government will be required to identify all of the additional families, or to reunite them as well.

The San Ysidro border patrol detained a 9-year-old US citizen for 36 hours on Monday because they thought she was lying about her identity.

They also told her 14-year-old brother who she was crossing the border with that if he didn't sign a paper saying that his sister was really his cousin that they'd arrest him and charge him with human and sex trafficking.

Pretty sure the next page of that playbook is "why did you lie about your sister's identity and say she was your cousin. You must have brought her here for sex trafficking".

OG_slinger wrote:

The San Ysidro border patrol detained a 9-year-old US citizen for 36 hours on Monday because they thought she was lying about her identity.

They also told her 14-year-old brother who she was crossing the border with that if he didn't sign a paper saying that his sister was really his cousin that they'd arrest him and charge him with human and sex trafficking.

Reminds me of the opening to Season 3 of Fargo.

This is how quickly we devolve to fascism.

The fact that there are reputed "Christians" doing this enforcement demonstrates to me that they have a serious lack of reading comprehension.

Matthew 25

Paleocon wrote:

The fact that there are reputed "Christians" doing this enforcement demonstrates to me that they have a serious lack of reading comprehension.

Matthew 25

They've also forgotten (or never bothered with) John 13:34. The hatefulness is both sickening and disheartening.

bekkilyn wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

The fact that there are reputed "Christians" doing this enforcement demonstrates to me that they have a serious lack of reading comprehension.

Matthew 25

They've also forgotten (or never bothered with) John 13:34. The hatefulness is both
sickening and disheartening.

I am literally in a discussion in which a person is trying to say that Jesus told his followers to construct walls around Jerusalem (of course without attribution) and that the fact that heaven won't take everyone is justification enough to toss migrant kids in concentration camps.

This is what American Christianity has come to.

Paleocon wrote:
bekkilyn wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

The fact that there are reputed "Christians" doing this enforcement demonstrates to me that they have a serious lack of reading comprehension.

Matthew 25

They've also forgotten (or never bothered with) John 13:34. The hatefulness is both
sickening and disheartening.

I am literally in a discussion in which a person is trying to say that Jesus told his followers to construct walls around Jerusalem (of course without attribution) and that the fact that heaven won't take everyone is justification enough to toss migrant kids in concentration camps.

This is what American Christianity has come to.

That's insane. First, Jesus never told his followers to construct walls around Jerusalem (not to mention Jerusalem already had walls before Jesus was on earth as a human being). Second, heaven would take everyone, but God isn't going to force people to be with him who don't want to be with him. And third, there is no scriptural justification anywhere for putting any kids in concentration camps. Just the opposite, in fact. Of course, the person had no attribution because there is none. None whatsoever.

And if the person is referencing God telling ancient Israel to construct walls, God's instructions were very specific to them and them alone for a particular purpose, and has nothing whatsoever to do with current day U.S.

I find that discussion hilarious given that the Romans were occupying Jerusalem when Jesus was around. Perhaps they should read their Bible, or actually bother learning the story behind their professed savior.

If I squint maybe they mean some bit in Revelations about the holy city having a wall with twelve gates? Except:

24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. 25 On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. 26 The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. 27 Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Yeah, doesn't sound like a place that excludes immigrants. Kind of the opposite, in fact:

44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

For that matter, I realize that some evangelicals don't think Catholics are Christian (low-key anti-Catholic hate has a long history in the US) but most of the refugees from South and Central America are Christians--not that it should matter, but you'd think it'd at least be a mitigating factor. (Turns out racism trumps religion for a lot of people.)

I mean, I've heard people claim that it's Christian to exclude immigrants because Jesus would want us to take care of our family instead.

37 “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.

40 “Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. 41 Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. 42 And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.”

I don't know who these people are following, because it certainly isn't who they tell me they're believing in.

33 “‘When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. 34 The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.

I'm surprised anyone is still surprised at humans being hypocrites. It's just what we are.

Gremlin wrote:
27 Nothing impure will ever enter it...

Read "impure" as "non-white" (or even "non-American").

There you have it.

(Yes, I'm taking an extremely limited selection out of context, changing the meaning of it by reinterpreting one of the words, and completely ignoring the rest of the available data. That's how these people do it, right?)

cheeze_pavilion wrote:

I'm surprised anyone is still surprised at humans being hypocrites. It's just what we are.

Or that they use religion as an excuse to be good or bad to each other. It's pretty convenient to do both.