On Day 1: Joe Biden To Propose Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill To Congress

Adam Serwer explained back in 2018 that when it comes to the Trump administration, The Cruelty Is the Point: Trump’s only true skill is the con; his only fundamental belief is that the United States is the birthright of straight, white, Christian men, and his only real, authentic pleasure is in cruelty. It is that … Read more

Inspector General report critical of ‘zero tolerance’ family separation policy

With the daily, almost hourly scandals coming out of Washington, D.C., this long-running scandal was almost overlooked by the media. At any other time, it would have been the focus of media coverage for days. This is how Trump’s “chaos theory” works: overwhelm the public with multiple scandals until they are too numbed to respond any longer.

The Washington Post reports, Trump’s family separation policy was flawed from the start, watchdog review says:

The Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” crackdown at the border this spring was troubled from the outset by planning shortfalls, widespread communication failures and administrative indifference to the separation of small children from their parents, according to an unpublished report by the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General.

The report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, is the government’s first attempt to autopsy the chaos produced between May 5 and June 20, when President Trump abruptly halted the separations under mounting pressure from his party and members of his family.

The DHS Office of Inspector General’s review found at least 860 migrant children were left in Border Patrol holding cells longer than the 72-hour limit mandated by U.S. courts, with one minor confined for 12 days and another for 25.

Many of those children were put in chain-link holding pens in the Rio Grande Valley of southern Texas. The facilities were designed as short-term way stations, lacking beds and showers, while the children awaited transfer to shelters run by the Department of Health and Human Services.

U.S. border officials in the Rio Grande Valley sector, the busiest for illegal crossings along the nearly 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border, held at least 564 children longer than they were supposed to, according to the report. Officials in the El Paso sector held 297 children over the legal limit.

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An amoral indefinite detention policy for immigrant children (Updated)

The New York Times summarizes how we got here:

In May, Attorney General Jeff Sessions installed a “zero tolerance” immigration policy, in which the government sought to jail and prosecute every adult who crossed the border illegally.

For months, migrant families were separated as adults were placed in detention, and their children were sent to shelters across the country. Widespread outrage led the Trump administration to end the practice.

In July, the Trump administration lost its bid to persuade a federal court to allow long-term detention of migrant families.

If you can’t win in court, get a feckless GOP Congress to change the rules for you — if you can.

Two weeks ago the Trump administration proposed a new regulation to allow the government to sidestep the 1997 consent decree known as the Flores agreement and detain children with their parents while their cases are being considered by immigration courts.

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Morally bankrupt GOP opts for another racist ‘Willie Horton’ style campaign in 2018

While most of America on Tuesday was following news of Donald Trump’s former campaign manager being convicted by a jury on eight counts (and it would have been all 18 counts but for one rogue juror, Lone holdout on Manafort jury blocked conviction on all counts, juror says), and Trump’s former personal lawyer and consigliere (fixer) Michael Cohen pleading guilty to eight counts and implicating Donald Trump in two counts of campaign finance violations involving hush money payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, the alternate universe of FAUX News aka Trump TV was reporting that authorities in Iowa filed charges against an undocumented immigrant in connection with a recovered body believed to be that of 20-year-old University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts, who disappeared from her home a month ago. Republicans want to make Mollie Tibbetts a household name:

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich emailed Axios‘ Mike Allen to make sure that we’d be covering this story, which Fox News led with on air and online Tuesday evening, ahead of the Cohen-Manafort news. His take: “If Mollie Tibbetts is a household name by October, Democrats will be in deep trouble. If we can be blocked by Manafort-Cohen, etc., then GOP could lose [the House] badly.”

Newt Gingrich, the spawn of Satan, is channeling GOP ratfucker Lee Atwater and the infamous Willie Horton campaign ad by George H.W. Bush in 1988.

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Gov. Doug Ducey to participate in Trump middle-finger to Americans on Monday

The Trump White House is planning a “Salute to the Heroes of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs [and] Border Protection” on Monday, August 20 in the East Room. The ceremony is a politically motivated stunt to provoke ire from opponents of Trump’s zero tolerance family separation policy.

Naturally,  Arizona’s Governor Doug Ducey intends to participate in this middle-finger to Americans opposed to the political party of kidnapping and child abuse and making orphans out of innocent children. Way to make us proud, Trump troll.

Daily Kos reports, As hundreds of separated migrant kids remain locked up, White House to honor ICE and CBP ‘heroes’:

As hundreds of separated migrant children continue to remain under U.S. custody and at ongoing risk of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, Donald Trump plans to honor the border agents who kidnapped them from their parents’ arms and locked them up in cages in the first place.

Politico reports the White House has planned a “Salute to the Heroes of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs [and] Border Protection” event for next Monday, coming a few days after Trump claimed that immigration agents “have been absolutely abused.”

All right, if he wants to talk abuse, let’s talk about abuse.

Despite a federal judge’s court order, the Trump administration continues to hold more than 560 kids under U.S. custody, including two dozen kids aged five years old and under. [Contempt of court.] Not only is the administration blatantly violating a court order, it’s continuing to keep kids locked up in facilities where migrant children have already been molested, and are only there because of  Trump’s family separation policy.

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