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

Just figured we could collect this mess in one thread.

Gremlin wrote:

Texas Tribune: ICE guards ‘systematically’ sexually assault detainees in an El Paso detention center, lawyers say

Allegations include guards attacking victims in camera “blind spots” and telling them that “no one would believe” them in ICE detention centers, which imprison about 50,000 immigrants each year at a taxpayer expense of $2.7 billion.

I wonder how much tax revenue the US would be gaining from them if they were set free and allowed to work?

Her Rapist Threatened to Make Her “Disappear.” Instead of Asylum, ICE Put Her in a Hotel and Sent Her Back.

Under this new policy, the administration is not deporting children — a proceeding based on years of established law that requires a formal hearing in immigration court.

It is instead expelling them — without a judge’s ruling and after only a cursory government screening and no access to social workers or lawyers, sometimes not even their family, while in U.S. custody. The children are not even granted the primary registration number by which the Department of Homeland Security tracks all immigrants in its care, making it “virtually impossible” to find them, Efrén C. Olivares, a lawyer with the Texas Civil Rights Project, wrote in a court declaration arguing that the practice is illegal.

How many children that have been expelled in a way no one can find them were passed off into human trafficking?

Children. Can you imagine sending a child out of the country alone, to allow whatever the world brings? A world that already chars the child to the U.S., which has become the problem instead of salvation.

fangblackbone wrote:

I wonder how much tax revenue the US would be gaining from them if they were set free and allowed to work?

Compared to the money the people in charge made by turning them over to human traffickers? Children with no way to trace?

. Unpacking the Explosive Allegation That a “Uterus Collector” Is Terrorizing Immigrant Women

Apologize if this is discussed elsewhere. It feels like it fits here.

Holy hell, what sort of monsters have we enabled?

UpToIsomorphism wrote:

. Unpacking the Explosive Allegation That a “Uterus Collector” Is Terrorizing Immigrant Women

Apologize if this is discussed elsewhere. It feels like it fits here.

Holy hell, what sort of monsters have we enabled?

At the very least this is Tuskegee Experiment level stuff. If Trump wins we may be headed fo Dr Mengele and Unit 731.

Edit: realized my earlier post may have come off as too much gallows humor.

At this point I'm hoping that Germany, the UK, and the rest of the Allies come and liberate us so we can rejoin the free world.

Gremlin wrote:

Texas Tribune: ICE guards ‘systematically’ sexually assault detainees in an El Paso detention center, lawyers say

Allegations include guards attacking victims in camera “blind spots” and telling them that “no one would believe” them in ICE detention centers, which imprison about 50,000 immigrants each year at a taxpayer expense of $2.7 billion.

ICE deported a key witness in investigation of sexual assault and harassment at El Paso detention center

Texas Tribune wrote:

The U.S. government late Monday deported a crucial witness in an ongoing investigation into allegations of sexual assault and harassment at an El Paso immigrant detention center, the witness’ lawyers said.

The 35-year-old woman has been held in the facility, which is overseen by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, for about a year and told lawyers about a “pattern and practice” of abuse there, including that guards systematically assaulted her and other detainees in areas that were not visible to security cameras.

Several guards “forcibly” kissed her, and at least one touched her intimate parts, often as she was walking back from the medical unit to her barrack, according to her complaint filed with law enforcement agencies.

“If she behaved,” she said one guard told her, “he would help her be released.”

The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General launched an investigation into the accusations after ProPublica and The Texas Tribune first reported them last month. At least two more women have since come forward with similar allegations of assault.

The inspector general requested that ICE not deport the woman and the FBI interviewed the woman extensively, according to her lawyers. Her attorneys also sent a complaint to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas and the El Paso County District Attorney’s Office, warning of a potential criminal investigation.

...

Last Friday, lawyers filed a habeas petition in federal court asking that the woman be freed on supervised release and held in an immigrant shelter in El Paso.

They said in an interview that guards and inmates had been making intimidating comments to her following her accusations and that she felt unsafe.

She gave investigators a tour of the facility, showing where the assaults occurred in security camera blind spots, her lawyers said. Shortly after she quoted one guard telling her: “You need to watch out for yourself.”

“Everybody knows, and it just made things very difficult for her,” said her lawyer, Linda Corchado.

Three days after her habeas was filed, DHS’ inspector general reversed its earlier position and told ICE that the agency could deport the woman and investigators would further interview her by telephone from Mexico if necessary, her lawyers said.

Within hours, she had been sent back even though she says she fears persecution from drug cartels there. A high-ranking cartel member sexually assaulted her and threatened her after she reported the attack to police, according to statements she gave the U.S. government.

The government “allowed their most powerful witness to be deported,” Corchado said. “How can we possibly take this investigation seriously now or ever pretend that it ever was from the outset?”

These are all crimes against humanity. I know it won't happen, but the right thing is to simply hand over everyone involved in any of this to the ICC and be done with them.

Native American women have stories to tell you about the US government, too...

UpToIsomorphism wrote:

. Unpacking the Explosive Allegation That a “Uterus Collector” Is Terrorizing Immigrant Women

Apologize if this is discussed elsewhere. It feels like it fits here.

Holy hell, what sort of monsters have we enabled?

Best case scenario--holy sh*t, how hollow those words are--it's one rogue individual and not institutional policy.

Earlier today I had a discussion with someone from Germany about the Wannsee Conference where the Holocaust was planned out in excruciating detail.

On the one hand it put things in perspective. On the other I worry about what Stephen Miller's emails have been like.

Gremlin wrote:

On the other I worry about what Stephen Miller's emails have been like.

Oh, I bet he watched the very same movie I did back in 2001, though he clearly took it as a how-to guide.

The Onion doesn't have any f*cks left to give.

Conservative Evangelical Asks God To Give Her Strength To Incorporate Forced Hysterectomies Into Belief System

The Onion wrote:

CORDOVA, TN—Praying that the Lord Almighty would help her understand the recent whistleblower reports about Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s treatment of migrant detainees, conservative evangelical woman Melissa Carson reportedly asked God Tuesday to give her strength to incorporate forced hysterectomies into her belief system. “Lord, show me how the forced removal of the uterus from multiple imprisoned women is evidence of our salvation by grace alone,” said the devout evangelical woman, scanning her Bible for a verse or two that might offer a reason for why ICE-affiliated physicians were performing hysterectomies on detained women, many of whom did not speak English and were not given information or choice about the procedures. “I know I’m asking an awful lot of you, Lord, but my religion teaches me that all life is sacred, and although I know you move in mysterious ways, I confess I am confused as to how forced hysterectomies fit into that. You are just testing me, Lord, and I know that, but I am going to need a little bit of divine help to understand this one.” At press time, Carson was praising the Lord for his guidance after remembering that the hysterectomies were completely justified because President Donald Trump was a divine being simply carrying out God’s will.

NYT: ‘We Need to Take Away Children,’ No Matter How Young, Justice Dept. Officials Said. Top department officials were “a driving force” behind President Trump’s child separation policy, a draft investigation report said.

WASHINGTON — The five U.S. attorneys along the border with Mexico, including three appointed by President Trump, recoiled in May 2018 against an order to prosecute all illegal immigrants even if it meant separating children from their parents. They told top Justice Department officials they were “deeply concerned” about the children’s welfare.

But the attorney general at the time, Jeff Sessions, made it clear what Mr. Trump wanted on a conference call later that afternoon, according to a two-year inquiry by the Justice Department’s inspector general into Mr. Trump’s “zero tolerance” family separation policy.

“We need to take away children,” Mr. Sessions told the prosecutors, according to participants’ notes. One added in shorthand: “If care about kids, don’t bring them in. Won’t give amnesty to people with kids.”

Rod J. Rosenstein, then the deputy attorney general, went even further in a second call about a week later, telling the five prosecutors that it did not matter how young the children were. He said that government lawyers should not have refused to prosecute two cases simply because the children were barely more than infants.

“Those two cases should not have been declined,” John Bash, the departing U.S. attorney in western Texas, wrote to his staff immediately after the call. Mr. Rosenstein “instructed that, per the A.G.’s policy, we should NOT be categorically declining immigration prosecutions of adults in family units because of the age of a child.”

The Justice Department’s top officials were “a driving force” behind the policy that spurred the separation of thousands of families, many of them fleeing violence in Central America and seeking asylum in the United States, before Mr. Trump abandoned it amid global outrage, according to a draft report of the results of the investigation by Michael E. Horowitz, the department’s inspector general.

The separation of migrant children from their parents, sometimes for months, was at the heart of the Trump administration’s assault on immigration. But the fierce backlash when the administration struggled to reunite the children turned it into one of the biggest policy debacles of the president’s term.

Though Mr. Sessions sought to distance himself from the policy, allowing Mr. Trump and Homeland Security Department officials to largely be blamed, he and other top law enforcement officials understood that “zero tolerance” meant that migrant families would be separated and wanted that to happen because they believed it would deter future illegal immigration, Mr. Horowitz wrote.

Resistance hero Rod Rosenstein.

Trump Cabinet officials voted in 2018 White House meeting to separate migrant children, say officials

NBC News wrote:

In early May 2018, after weeks of phone calls and private meetings, 11 of the president's most senior advisers were called to the White House Situation Room, where they were asked, by a show-of-hands vote, to decide the fate of thousands of migrant parents and their children, according to two officials who were there.

President Donald Trump's senior adviser Stephen Miller led the meeting, and, according to the two officials, he was angry at what he saw as defiance by Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

It had been nearly a month since Jeff Sessions, then the attorney general, had launched the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy, announcing that every immigrant who crossed the U.S. border illegally would be prosecuted, including parents with small children. But so far, U.S. border agents had not begun separating parents from their children to put the plan into action, and Miller, the architect of the administration's crackdown on undocumented immigrants, was furious about the delay.

Those invited included Sessions, Nielsen, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and newly installed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, according to documents obtained by NBC News.

Nielsen told those at the meeting that there were simply not enough resources at DHS, nor at the other agencies that would be involved, to be able to separate parents, prosecute them for crossing the border and return them to their children in a timely manner, according to the two officials who were present. Without a swift process, the children would enter into the custody of Health and Human Services, which was already operating at near capacity.

Two officials involved in the planning of "zero tolerance" said the Justice Department acknowledged on multiple occasions that U.S. attorneys would not be able to prosecute all parents expeditiously, so sending children to HHS was the most likely outcome.

As Nielsen had said repeatedly to other officials in the weeks leading up to the meeting, according to two former officials, the process could get messy and children could get lost in an already clogged system.

Miller saw the separation of families not as an unfortunate byproduct but as a tool to deter more immigration. According to three former officials, he had devised plans that would have separated even more children. Miller, with the support of Sessions, advocated for separating all immigrant families, even those going through civil court proceedings, the former officials said.

...

At the meeting, Miller accused anyone opposing zero tolerance of being a lawbreaker and un-American, according to the two officials present.

"If we don't enforce this, it is the end of our country as we know it," Miller said, according to the two officials. It was not unusual for Miller to make claims like that, but this time he was adamant that the policy move forward, regardless of arguments about resources and logistics.

No one in the meeting made the case that separating families would be inhumane or immoral, the officials said. Any moral argument about immigration "fell on deaf ears" inside the White House, one of the officials said.

"Miller was tired of hearing about logistical problems," one of the officials said. "It was just 'Let's move forward and staff will figure this out.'"

Frustrated, Miller accused Nielsen of stalling and demanded a show of hands. Who was in favor of moving forward? he asked.

A sea of hands went up. Nielsen kept hers down. It was clear she had been outvoted, according to the officials.

In the days immediately following the meeting, Nielsen had a conversation with Kevin McAleenan, then the Customs and Border Patrol commissioner, in her office at the Ronald Reagan Building and then signed a memo instructing DHS personnel to prosecute all migrants crossing the border illegally, including parents arriving with their children.

Lest anyone's feeling sorry for Miller this week.

Lawyers say they can't find the parents of 545 migrant children separated by Trump administration

I'm doomscrolling at this point. Time to pull the ripcord and watch some 90s hip hop videos.

“If care about kids, don’t bring them in. Won’t give amnesty to people with kids.”

Huh... weird... Never saw any pro-life protect the kids movements outrage on this... must have flown under their radar...

*headdesk*

Demosthenes wrote:
“If care about kids, don’t bring them in. Won’t give amnesty to people with kids.”

Huh... weird... Never saw any pro-life protect the kids movements outrage on this... must have flown under their radar...

*headdesk*

Based on arguments I've had with them, those same people seem to believe that the kids are better off without their "criminal" parents, the excuse being that when we put our own criminals into prison, the kids are also separated from their parents for their own well-being and safety.

It's a bunch of nonsense of course, but there it is, their "pro-life" reasoning, as such. We are apparently doing these kids a favor.

The Intercept: ICE MEDICAL MISCONDUCT WITNESS SLATED FOR DEPORTATION IS A U.S. CITIZEN, SAYS LAWYER
In recent weeks, after Alma Bowman became a key witness for medical misconduct at an immigration jail, ICE moved to deport her.

ALMA BOWMAN, a 54-year-old woman in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, was scheduled for deportation on Monday. For over two years, Bowman has been held at Georgia’s Irwin County Detention Center, the site of growing concern about medical neglect and coerced gynecological procedures performed on nearly 60 women. She has been a key witness, for attorneys and journalists, of a doctor performing the allegedly unnecessary or overly aggressive procedures.

She is also a U.S. citizen, according to her lawyer and documentation reviewed by The Intercept.

It's going to take years and years for all the sh*t ICE did under Trump to come out, isn't it?

The people that know where the bodies are buried... Are buried in the desert next to the bodies. It's the only way I could understand not a single voice of conscience breaking through the deluge of crimes we DO find out about.

So f*cking tired.

This entire administration belongs in The Hague.

NBC: Lawyers can't find the parents of 666 migrant kids, a higher number than previously reported
Last month lawyers ordered to find migrant families separated by the Trump administration said they couldn't find parents for 545 kids. Now they say it's 666.

WASHINGTON — Lawyers working to reunite migrant families separated by the Trump administration before and during its "zero tolerance" policy at the border now believe the number of separated children for whom they have not been able to find parents is 666, higher than they told a federal judge last month, according to an email obtained by NBC News.

About one third of those children were under 5 at the time of the separation, according to a source familiar with the data.

In the email, Steven Herzog, the attorney leading efforts to reunite the families, explains that the number is higher because the new group includes those "for whom the government did not provide any phone number." Previously, the lawyers said they could not find the parents of 545 children after they had tried to make contact but had been unsuccessful.

Personally, I think the entire ICE staff should be investigated by the Hague for crimes against humanity. Anyone who went along with that bullsh*t should be permanently out of a job with the government, and anyone who actually gave orders should be in prison. The senior implementers should be jailed for life, IMO.

ICE needs to be abolished. Hell, I'd be okay with Homeland Security being dismantled as well. Especially since they seem to be aligning themselves with right wing militia groups instead of prosecuting them.

fangblackbone wrote:

ICE needs to be abolished. Hell, I'd be okay with Homeland Security being dismantled as well. Especially since they seem to be aligning themselves with right wing militia groups instead of prosecuting them.

Well that's false and/or Id like to see the source. I certainly dont agree with much of the policies WRT immigration and senior level direction, but I know a whole lot of folks actively working the HVE/White Supremacy/Militia problem and I can guarantee it isnt aligning themselves.

SpyNavy wrote:
fangblackbone wrote:

ICE needs to be abolished. Hell, I'd be okay with Homeland Security being dismantled as well. Especially since they seem to be aligning themselves with right wing militia groups instead of prosecuting them.

Well that's false and/or Id like to see the source. I certainly dont agree with much of the policies WRT immigration and senior level direction, but I know a whole lot of folks actively working the HVE/White Supremacy/Militia problem and I can guarantee it isnt aligning themselves.

What are they waiting for? More dead liberal protesters or what?