Separating immigrant families and imprisoning children

[seer]

I'm not seeing an answer to my question in any of this. I understand we have to hold and process. I would like to see source data for the 300% claim - I have seen this made over and over again and I am finding no source for the claim. Even if true, how does this translate into "take all children from their families," for illegal crossers? There is no indication that parents who have documentation that proves the children are their own are being allowed to stay with their children.

And the housing and care situation for the children is abysmal. It is unfathomable that this is being done in our names (U.S. Citizens).

I had mixed feelings, until I began to dig into the conditions.

I'm going by memory of the news conference on the 300% you can watch it here:https://www.c-span.org/video/?447252...gration-policy

And nonsense Carp, the conditions are not abysmal, the kids are safe and well fed. And the bottom line is that it is the parents fault for illegally entering this country.

[carpedm9587]

I'm going by memory of the news conference on the 300% you can watch it here:https://www.c-span.org/video/?447252...gration-policy

Your source for the number is the HHS secretary implementing the policy? Sorry, Seer, but that number is going to need a bit more support than that. My "bias radar" is pining wildly. It's not false because she said it (that would be the genetic fallacy) but it is suspect until it is supported.

And nonsense Carp, the conditions are not abysmal, the kids are safe and well fed. And the bottom line is that it is the parents fault for illegally entering this country.

My understanding is:

The kids are being kept in chain-link holding areas in many facilities
Staff can provide toys and things, but are not permitted to tough, hold, or console them with anything other than words
The children are of varying ages, from toddler to teen. I was not able to determine whether infants were also separated.
The U.S. lost track of 1475 children in 2017.

To be fair, ABC did a survey of one center and found conditions more like a homeless shelter. Their visit was announced, but the physical facility could not have been altered just for their visit.

The argument being made is that the kids did not break the law, so they do not deserve to be detained in the same way their parents are being detained.

I still find myself with mixed feelings on this one, but I am leaning towards "kids belong with their parents."

[Sparko]

Wait a sec.

I thought you guys were complaining about children being separated from their parents?

According to the article Charles posted the families are being kept together like you guys wanted.

Source: ibid

The Border Patrol said close to 200 people inside the facility were minors unaccompanied by a parent. Another 500 were "family units," parents and children.

© Copyright Original Source

So you have children who are not accompanied by parents who are there alone, but those who were accompanied by parents were kept together. Apparently if the kids had parents they were kept together.

Isn't that what you wanted? What are you complaining about?

Also, Bush and Obama did the same thing. So where was the outrage then? We are talking about over 20 years of this going on, yet Trump is the one getting blamed for it?

[Sparko]

What would you do if the alternative was that the children would likely die if you stayed? The idea that any parent is OK with "dragging those kids 2000 miles across a foreign country filled with danger" is so absurd and shows both a lack of understanding of their situation and a lack of basic empathy. Trying to portray some of those who are worst of as bad parents and supporting the separation of innocent children from their parents is about as far from basic Christian values as I think you can get.

Prove that they would die if they stayed. Thousands of families in those countries are NOT running away and subjecting their families to danger. Why do you suppose that is, if it is so dangerous to stay? And why don't they stay in Mexico where they can speak the language, it is not against the law to sneak across the border, and there are plenty of places where the standard of living is comparable to the USA?

You are making up stuff and then pretending to be outraged by it. You don't have a clue what the living conditions are where the people come from. You don't even know the countries they are coming from. Your knowledge of the situation is zero.

[seer]

Your source for the number is the HHS secretary implementing the policy? Sorry, Seer, but that number is going to need a bit more support than that. My "bias radar" is pining wildly. It's not false because she said it (that would be the genetic fallacy) but it is suspect until it is supported.

OK, I don't have the actual numbers, but you do agree that trafficking of children does happen, and we have no real idea if the adults really are the parents of the children until it can be confirmed.

My understanding is:

The kids are being kept in chain-link holding areas in many facilities
Staff can provide toys and things, but are not permitted to tough, hold, or console them with anything other than words
The children are of varying ages, from toddler to teen. I was not able to determine whether infants were also separated.
The U.S. lost track of 1475 children in 2017.

To be fair, ABC did a survey of one center and found conditions more like a homeless shelter. Their visit was announced, but the physical facility could not have been altered just for their visit.

The argument being made is that the kids did not break the law, so they do not deserve to be detained in the same way their parents are being detained.

I still find myself with mixed feelings on this one, but I am leaning towards "kids belong with their parents."

The parents are breaking the law, they are sent to Federal adult detention centers. Children should not be sent there. And again, this is the parents fault for breaking our laws. We need to go back to the laws where we could immediately deport those who illegally come in then this problem would be solved. And I blame both parties for this.

[Sparko]

I just want to repost the article I posted earlier from when Obama was president:



================

Kids in Cages (Fundamentally Transforming America)http://www.whatwouldthefoundersthink...orming-america

[carpedm9587]

I just want to repost the article I posted earlier from when Obama was president:



================

Kids in Cages (Fundamentally Transforming America)http://www.whatwouldthefoundersthink...orming-america

And a marvelous example of "whataboutism."

"Obama did it" is not an excuse for Trump doing it. If it's wrong (and I am leaning towards that position), then it is/was wrong for either man.

I'm also a bit concerned that this is an apples-to-oranges comparison. Wasn't there a massive influx of children being sent by their parents (unaccompanied) across the border for a period of time, and it temporarily overwhelmed the resources to house them? I seem to remember that incident, but I amy be mis-remembering.

[carpedm9587]

OK, I don't have the actual numbers, but you do agree that trafficking of children does happen, and we have no real idea if the adults really are the parents of the children until it can be confirmed.

Yes - kids are trafficked. There is no information I can find linking these kids to trafficking. If someone can find it, I'd like to see it. Meanwhile, the fact that Trump's administration lost track of 1475 immigrant children last year would seem to me to also be a big red flag to trafficking.

And I still would like to see numbers around what percentage of these parents have documentation proving parentage.

The parents are breaking the law, they are sent to Federal adult detention centers. Children should not be sent there. And again, this is the parents fault for breaking our laws. We need to go back to the laws where we could immediately deport those who illegally come in then this problem would be solved. And I blame both parties for this.

The law being broken is a misdemeanor. Federal detention centers are not, to my knowledge, widely used for misdemeanors. I could be wrong about that. Can anyone name other misdemeanors that result in detention in a federal detention center?

[Sparko]

And a marvelous example of "whataboutism."

"Obama did it" is not an excuse for Trump doing it. If it's wrong (and I am leaning towards that position), then it is/was wrong for either man.

I'm also a bit concerned that this is an apples-to-oranges comparison. Wasn't there a massive influx of children being sent by their parents (unaccompanied) across the border for a period of time, and it temporarily overwhelmed the resources to house them? I seem to remember that incident, but I amy be mis-remembering.

Yes, and that is what started this policy of separating the children if the adults could not prove they were the parents. It started under Obama.

From wikipedia (I know, not the best source but it seems to have a good summary)

2014 American immigration crisis

The 2014 American immigration crisis was a surge in unaccompanied children and women from the Northern Triangle of Central America (NTCA) seeking entrance to the United States in 2014. According to U.S. law, an unaccompanied alien child refers to a person under 18 years of age, who has no lawful immigration status in the U.S., and who does not have a legal guardian to provide physical custody and care.[1] The surge increased rapidly, doubling in volume each year previously,[2] reaching extreme proportions that provoked a response form the U.S. government in 2014 when tens of thousands of women and children from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras migrated to the United States.[3] Many of the children had no parent/legal guardian available to provide care or physical custody and quickly overwhelmed local border patrols.[4]

In 2015, the proportion of migrants from Guatemala had increased, while that of migrants from El Salvador and Honduras had decreased.[5] As of September 2017, the number of unaccompanied alien children apprehended at the U.S. border from the three countries of the Northern Triangle (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras) dropped from 2016, marking a change from the increase in apprehensions in 2016 from 2015.[6]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_A...gration_crisis

So despite Starlight's skepticism, there are a lot of unaccompanied women and children who are being trafficked across the border. Separating them is for their own safety. They don't separate actual families (if you go look at Charles' new thread on the topic, the article he posts in the OP makes that distinction.

And despite the current outrage, this has been going on for many years and nobody complained until now. The outrage is manufactured as an attack on Trump, when this is just the standard policy that has been in place for years. It is not "whataboutism"

[seer]

Yes - kids are trafficked. There is no information I can find linking these kids to trafficking. If someone can find it, I'd like to see it. Meanwhile, the fact that Trump's administration lost track of 1475 immigrant children last year would seem to me to also be a big red flag to trafficking.

But why are these kids being lost (as they were under Obama too)? Because we send them out with parents or family member who never show up for their court dates, besides this lost children thing is not Trump's fault:

In the past few days there's been a flurry of emotion, and misinformation, regarding child immigrants in the United States

Some people began to conflate Wagner's comment and the new policy, forming the idea that these children were forcibly separated from their families at the border and then lost. In fact, ORR officials couldn't locate the children between October and December of 2017 -- way before this new policy took effect.

In fact, unaccompanied child immigrants don't come over the border with their families -- hence the designation of "unaccompanied." Some of the 1,500 children could have been separated from the groups with which they entered the country, but it would not have been as a result of the Trump administration's new policy. For instance, if a child comes with an adult and it can't be verified that the adult is a parent or legal guardian, the adult and child would be separated.

"The way it has worked historically is, when a child comes into the US without a parent or legal guardian, if there is a parent or guardian or relative already here, they would be placed with that person as a 'sponsor' while they are undergoing immigration hearings," says Jennifer Ward, an immigration and family services expert who spent 10 years as executive director of a refugee resettlement agency in Tennessee.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/29/us/im...rnd/index.html

The law being broken is a misdemeanor. Federal detention centers are not, to my knowledge, widely used for misdemeanors. I could be wrong about that. Can anyone name other misdemeanors that result in detention in a federal detention center?

I think we have been doing that for a long while, but in the past we let them out relatively quickly with court dates. That is what is really changing here, we are trying to stop catch and release, or discourage it.

A recent report from the Department of Justice shows that of the nearly 12,500 illegal alien adults who were apprehended with children at the U.S. border and released between July 18, 2014, and May 26, 2015, whose immigration cases have been completed, at least 84 percent did not appear in court for the final decision.


The report states that 35,695 illegal alien adults with children were apprehended illegally at the U.S. border and were subsequently released without being detained between July 18, 2014 and May 26, 2015. Of these, 12,441 have had final rulings on their immigration cases.

About 11,516 of these adults were given orders of removal by an immigration judge. Among these, 10,436 -- about 84 percent of the total number of completed cases -- were ordered removed in absentia, meaning they did not show up to court as scheduled.

https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article...l-case-hearing

[carpedm9587]

Yes, and that is what started this policy of separating the children if the adults could not prove they were the parents. It started under Obama.

From wikipedia (I know, not the best source but it seems to have a good summary)

2014 American immigration crisis

The 2014 American immigration crisis was a surge in unaccompanied children and women from the Northern Triangle of Central America (NTCA) seeking entrance to the United States in 2014. According to U.S. law, an unaccompanied alien child refers to a person under 18 years of age, who has no lawful immigration status in the U.S., and who does not have a legal guardian to provide physical custody and care.[1] The surge increased rapidly, doubling in volume each year previously,[2] reaching extreme proportions that provoked a response form the U.S. government in 2014 when tens of thousands of women and children from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras migrated to the United States.[3] Many of the children had no parent/legal guardian available to provide care or physical custody and quickly overwhelmed local border patrols.[4]

In 2015, the proportion of migrants from Guatemala had increased, while that of migrants from El Salvador and Honduras had decreased.[5] As of September 2017, the number of unaccompanied alien children apprehended at the U.S. border from the three countries of the Northern Triangle (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras) dropped from 2016, marking a change from the increase in apprehensions in 2016 from 2015.[6]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_A...gration_crisis

So despite Starlight's skepticism, there are a lot of unaccompanied women and children who are being trafficked across the border. Separating them is for their own safety. They don't separate actual families (if you go look at Charles' new thread on the topic, the article he posts in the OP makes that distinction.

And despite the current outrage, this has been going on for many years and nobody complained until now. The outrage is manufactured as an attack on Trump, when this is just the standard policy that has been in place for years. It is not "whataboutism"

The argument "this has been going on for years, so why the outrage now?" is not "whataboutism." It is its own fallacy - that something that has been going on for a long time doesn't merit examination.

The argument, "look, Obama did it too" is "whataboutism."

As for the current situation, every time I think I've landed on what I think, I get new information that contradicts the last piece of information. At this point, I frankly have no idea what to think. I DO believe that intentionally separating children from parents for a misdemeanor infraction is indefensible. If the argument is "don't want to imprison children," then why not put the parents with their children in the shelters?

In any event, I'm still in an "on-the-fence" position...which is probably evident from my back and forth positions...

[seer]

The argument "this has been going on for years, so why the outrage now?" is not "whataboutism." It is its own fallacy - that something that has been going on for a long time doesn't merit examination.

The problem is the left's outrage is purely political, it is not about the children since they never expressed this kind of outrage with Obama.

As for the current situation, every time I think I've landed on what I think, I get new information that contradicts the last piece of information. At this point, I frankly have no idea what to think. I DO believe that intentionally separating children from parents for a misdemeanor infraction is indefensible. If the argument is "don't want to imprison children," then why not put the parents with their children in the shelters?

I really don't have a problem with parents and children being housed together - until they are shipped back.

[carpedm9587]

The problem is the left's outrage is purely political, it is not about the children since they never expressed this kind of outrage with Obama.

And I am suggesting this may be apples to oranges. As far as I know, the Obama situation was due to the resources being overwhelmed and desperately looking for temporary lodging. Perhaps it also happened otherwise, but I have not seen information to that effect. If it did - Obama is equally culpable.

And I am shocked that the left would actually politicize a situation to paint their opponents in a bad light. I cannot remember that ever being done by the right!

(and yes, that was flagrant whataboutism... )

I really don't have a problem with parents and children being housed together - until they are shipped back.

Unless there is a credible asylum claim...

[seer]

And I am shocked that the left would actually politicize a situation to paint their opponents in a bad light. I cannot remember that ever being done by the right!

Finally some sanity on you part!

Unless there is a credible asylum claim...

Agreed, but I think half of South America would have credible asylum claims with all the failed states down there..

[Sparko]

And I am suggesting this may be apples to oranges. As far as I know, the Obama situation was due to the resources being overwhelmed and desperately looking for temporary lodging. Perhaps it also happened otherwise, but I have not seen information to that effect. If it did - Obama is equally culpable.

It was not just some temporary measure. It was the law. and has been the law since 2002.


Homeland Security Act 2002


more info on it:

https://www.americanimmigrationcounc...-and-responses