Children's concentration camps - welcome to Trump's America

[Scooter]

Surge in children separated at border floods facility for undocumented immigrants

BROWNSVILLE, Texas — Life inside the biggest licensed child care facility in the nation for children brought into the U.S. illegally looks more like incarceration than temporary shelter.

The children, a mix of those who crossed into the U.S. unaccompanied and those who were separated from their parents under Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ new zero-tolerance policy, spend 22 hours per day during the week (21 hours on weekends) locked inside a converted former Walmart, packing five into rooms built for four.

It currently houses nearly 1,500 boys ranging from 10 to 17 years old.

NBC News was among the first news organizations granted access to the overcrowded Casa Padre facility.

The average stay at the center in Brownsville is 52 days. After that, minors are placed with a sponsor.

Shelter leaders said they were not notified in advance of the Department of Justice’s recently stated goal to prosecute 100 percent of immigrants crossing into the U.S. illegally. Children are automatically separated from parents referred for criminal prosecution.

The policy has led to a surge in children filling the center above its legal capacity, and has sent officials in Washington scrambling to open temporary tent cities around the country.

Dr. Juan Sanchez, the president of the nonprofit that operates the facility, South West Key, warned that the temporary locations might not have to be licensed or staffed by trained child welfare professionals if they are established on federal land, which the Trump administration has been considering.

The Department of Health and Human Services currently houses about 11,200 immigrant children and is investigating locations including U.S. Air Force bases to house the overflow.

A shelter employee asked a small group of reporters allowed inside the facility to smile at the hundreds of detained migrant kids in line for a meal because “they feel like animals in a cage being looked at.”

There were no cages or fences — only dorm-style rooms that are supposed to sleep four. Because of the overcrowding, the shelter received a variance from the state of Texas to add an additional bed to each room.

Journalists were asked not to speak with the boys in the shelter, but many indicated that they were in good spirits, despite the circumstances.

Shelter officials said the boys are permitted to speak to people by phone outside the shelter, including incarcerated parents, if the penal institution housing the parents allows calls.

Casa Padre is the same facility Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., was turned away from this month after arriving unannounced and seeking entry to inspect conditions. In the reception area, a note to staffers tells them to “Immediately notify PD,” or the police department, if media representatives approach.

The shelter has operated in the converted Walmart since March 2017 and, until recently, has mostly served young migrants who arrive in the United States without an adult.

A DHS official put the number of prosecutions for entering the United States — an offense that requires parents and children to be separated — at 60 percent, nearly doubling what it was earlier this year.

The walls of Casa Padre are covered with American history-themed art and murals of various presidents appear throughout. A painting of President Donald Trump sits on the wall of a cafeteria area. The quote next to it reads: “Sometimes losing a battle you find a new way to win the war.” (WTF?????)

Trump admin will house migrant kids in tents in Tornillo, Texas

BROWNSVILLE, Texas — The Trump administration has selected Tornillo, Texas, for the construction of tents to house the overflow of immigrant children, many of whom have been separated from their parents under a new "zero tolerance" policy, according to three sources familiar with the decision.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will erect a "tent city," full of large tents whose walls touch the ground, and is estimated to hold approximately 450 beds for children, say the sources.

It will not be the first time the U.S. government has erected tent cities to house immigrants. U.S. Customs and Border Protection used tents to house an influx of immigrants in 2014 and at the end of the Obama administration. But now the overflow of a particular immigrant population — in this case, children — is a government-created problem.

The increase of children who are alone and in need of care at the border is the product of a new Trump administration policy that on May 7 began criminally prosecuting all adult migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border between ports of entry. As a result, the Department of Homeland Security separates any children traveling with those adults before prosecution.

One shelter in Brownsville, Texas, holding nearly 1,500 boys aged 10 to 17 opened its doors to reporters on Wednesday. NBC News was among the first to tour the facility, which closely resembled a jail, only allowing children outside for two hours per day.

NBC News previously reported that the overflow of children at HHS facilities has caused backup at border stations, the first stop for immigrants crossing into the United States. As of last week, over 570 unaccompanied children were in the custody of the U.S. Border Patrol, and nearly 300 of those had been held for more than 72 hours, the limit for holding an immigrant of any age at a border station.

Acting Deputy Commissioner for U.S. Customs and Border Protection Ron Vitiello told MSNBC on Thursday that about 1,500 immigrants are being arrested each day for crossing the border illegally. Vitiello said the policy is meant to deter families of immigrants from coming to the U.S.

"If you apply consequence to illegal activity you get less of it," he said in defense of the policy. "They are only in these shelters long enough to be reunited with their family members, that's the purpose of them."

The facility in Brownsville is holding children for 52 days on average and children are sometimes sent to foster homes if family members cannot be found.

"HHS is legally required to provide care and shelter for all unaccompanied alien children referred by [the Department of Homeland Security], and works in close coordination with DHS on the security and safety of the children and community," a spokesman for HHS said in a statement.

Temperatures in Tornillo are forecast to reach the triple digits before the end of the month. Jews in Auschwitz had more humane housing.

[rubato]

According to Sara Sanders and Jeffrey Sessions the bible says you have to obey the law. I don't think either one has ever actually read the bible.

Sessions quoted the first part of Romans 13, got it wrong and ignored the highlighted areas;

13 Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. 4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.

6 This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. 7 Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.
Love Fulfills the Law

8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,”[a] and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

And then there is this:

Isaiah 10: "Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless."

[Econoline]

A very interesting, very powerful, very relevant essay from The New Yorker:

• Dr. Ruth, Dr. Kissinger, and Trump’s Cruelty to Families
  By George Packer |June 12, 2018
  
  Jose, a five-year-old Honduran boy, was taken away from his father by immigration officials last month, after the two of them had crossed the border at El Paso. The father was transferred to a detention camp. Jose, all alone, was put on a plane to Michigan and placed under the care of a family of kind but anguished strangers. In his bedroom at night, he clings to pictures that he’s drawn of his family—his mother and siblings in Honduras, with its epidemic of gang violence, and his father in a U.S. prison. He won’t stop asking, “When will I see my papa?”
  
  Jose’s torment—the increasingly routine consequence of the Trump Administration’s immigration policy to separate children from parents who enter the United States without papers—reminded me of a conversation I heard a few years ago, between Henry Kissinger and Ruth K. Westheimer. We were guests at a dinner in New York for Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, whom I had profiled. Around the table were American and German foreign-policy types, and I could imagine why Dr. K. was there, but Dr. Ruth was a mystery—I only knew her as the diminutive TV sex therapist.
  
  It was the fall of 2015, the height of the migrant crisis in Europe. Germany had announced that it would admit a million refugees, most of them fleeing the civil war in Syria. Merkel had come under heavy criticism for the decision, and, during the soup course, Kissinger—ninety-two years old, eight decades removed from his own experience as a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany—let the Chancellor have it. Of course, he said, he could admire the humanitarian impulse to save one person, but a million? That would change “German civilization.” It would be, Kissinger said, like the Romans allowing the barbarians inside the city gates. Merkel listened, in her focussed way, and didn’t argue, except to say, “What choice do we have?”
  
  When Kissinger, on the Chancellor’s right, finished, Merkel turned to Dr. Ruth, on her left. Did she have anything to add? Dr. Ruth is five years younger than Kissinger and so tiny that her feet didn’t reach the floor. (She asked me to push her chair closer to the table so that she could eat her soup.) It turned out that she did have something to add. Her high, cheerful Frankfurt accent is as familiar in its way as Kissinger’s sombre Bavarian gutturals, but she began quietly, almost apologetically, as if she didn’t want to claim too much authority on a subject that had nothing to do with the orgasm.
  
  She told us the story of the Evian Conference, held on Lake Geneva, in July, 1938, where countries from around the world gathered to debate the plight of Germany’s Jews. In the end, only one country—the Dominican Republic—agreed to take in a substantial number of Jewish refugees. All the others, including the United States, made excuses.
  
  Four months after the failure of Evian, in November, came Kristallnacht. At the time, Karola Ruth Siegel was a ten-year-old Jewish girl living with her parents in Frankfurt. Nazis showed up at their apartment to arrest her father, a salesman. As they marched him off into a covered truck, he turned around and looked at Ruth, who was watching from the window. She waved, and he waved back. Then he smiled, so that she wouldn’t cry. She never saw him again.
  
  Two months later, in January, 1939, Ruth’s mother placed her on a train with other German Jewish children bound for Switzerland—part of the Kindertransport. Her mother hugged her on the platform, Dr. Ruth told Merkel and the rest of us, and, to keep herself from crying, she began to sing songs during the train ride that would bring her back to the happy time when their family was together. Dr. Ruth survived the war and the Holocaust in Switzerland. Her parents perished in the Nazi death camps.
  
  “The Evian Conference gave us no help,” Dr. Ruth said. “If not for the Kindertransport, I would not be here today. I hope something more comes from this conversation about the Syrian refugees than came from Evian.” At this point she was looking directly at Kissinger. Now I understood why Merkel had wanted her at the dinner. There wasn’t a trace of accusation in her voice—the whole time she’d been telling the story in the same half-apologetic tone—but no one, least of all Kissinger, could have missed her point: You and I were the same as each other, the same as the Syrians. I have not forgotten. Have you?
  
  The room fell silent. Then the conversation moved on to American politics. The Presidential primaries were a few months away, and, though Trump had become a media sensation, he wasn’t an obvious front-runner. Merkel wanted to know whether he could win. The American experts around the table were in agreement—not a chance. Trump would fade quickly, and the Republican Party would consolidate around a mainstream candidate—Jeb Bush, maybe Ted Cruz. The experts’ long experience in politics and foreign policy had given them no reason to believe that, in a couple of years, President Trump’s government would separate thousands of refugee children from their parents. Not in order to rescue them, as the Kindertransport had done, but to show such unashamed cruelty that other parents would no longer try to save their children from danger by crossing America’s borders.
  
  Dr. Ruth said nothing for the rest of the evening. She had told us what she wanted us to hear.

[Burning Petard]

Thank you, Econoline, for posting that.
Who is the barbarian?

snailgate.

[Econoline]

Who is the barbarian?

Perhaps Dr. Kissinger thinks he knows.

But Dr. Ruth knows.

[Econoline]

[Scooter]

It certainly created a firestorm in the comment sections of the paper - it's all anyone can talk about.

And management posted some mealy mouthed explanation of why he was let go; they were too gutless to state flat out that they had terminated him, nor could they bring themselves to admit that it was because they didn't like the content of his work.

[BoSoxGal]

When I was freaking out in the days after the election, everyone told me not to be melodramatic, it wouldn’t be that bad.

Well, I told you so.

[rubato]

Republicania is a worse place than we ever thought it could be. Thanks Republicans! You've fucked us all back into the 19th century!

yrs,
rubato

[RayThom]

... you will be assimilated.

[Lord Jim]

Republicania is a worse place than we ever thought it could be. Thanks Republicans! You've fucked us all back into the 19th century!

yrs,
rubato

Because only Republicans voted for Trump! Like all those Republican Obama voters who provided Trump with his margin of victory in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin!

[Bicycle Bill]

Republicania is a worse place than we ever thought it could be. Thanks Republicans! You've fucked us all back into the 19th century!

yrs,
rubato

Because only Republicans voted for Trump! Like all those Republican Obama voters who provided Trump with his margin of victory in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin!

Not THIS Wisconsin voter!!

-"BB"-

[rubato]

9/10 Republican voters voted for Trump. Own it, it's yours.

Trump is an honest expression of the Republican party who have lied about the scale and importance of illegal immigration for a generation, who whipped up populist hatred of foreigners, who whipped up resentment against other countries ( like white supremacists whip up resentment against imaginary foes like Jews &c). They have made a systematic use of lying; Trump just pulled the levers they created and left out for him to use.



yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

by Laura Bush June 17 at 8:45 PM

Laura Bush is a former first lady of the United States.

On Sunday, a day we as a nation set aside to honor fathers and the bonds of family, I was among the millions of Americans who watched images of children who have been torn from their parents. In the six weeks between April 19 and May 31, the Department of Homeland Security has sent nearly 2,000 children to mass detention centers or foster care. More than 100 of these children are younger than 4 years old. The reason for these separations is a zero-tolerance policy for their parents, who are accused of illegally crossing our borders.

I live in a border state. I appreciate the need to enforce and protect our international boundaries, but this zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart.

Our government should not be in the business of warehousing children in converted box stores or making plans to place them in tent cities in the desert outside of El Paso. These images are eerily reminiscent of the Japanese American internment camps of World War II, now considered to have been one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. history. We also know that this treatment inflicts trauma; interned Japanese have been two times as likely to suffer cardiovascular disease or die prematurely than those who were not interned.

Americans pride ourselves on being a moral nation, on being the nation that sends humanitarian relief to places devastated by natural disasters or famine or war. We pride ourselves on believing that people should be seen for the content of their character, not the color of their skin. We pride ourselves on acceptance. If we are truly that country, then it is our obligation to reunite these detained children with their parents — and to stop separating parents and children in the first place.

People on all sides agree that our immigration system isn’t working, but the injustice of zero tolerance is not the answer. I moved away from Washington almost a decade ago, but I know there are good people at all levels of government who can do better to fix this.

Recently, Colleen Kraft, who heads the American Academy of Pediatrics, visited a shelter run by the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement. She reported that while there were beds, toys, crayons, a playground and diaper changes, the people working at the shelter had been instructed not to pick up or touch the children to comfort them. Imagine not being able to pick up a child who is not yet out of diapers.

Twenty-nine years ago, my mother-in-law, Barbara Bush, visited Grandma’s House, a home for children with HIV/AIDS in Washington. Back then, at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis, the disease was a death sentence, and most babies born with it were considered “untouchables.” During her visit, Barbara — who was the first lady at the time — picked up a fussy, dying baby named Donovan and snuggled him against her shoulder to soothe him.

My mother-in-law never viewed her embrace of that fragile child as courageous. She simply saw it as the right thing to do in a world that can be arbitrary, unkind and even cruel. She, who after the death of her 3-year-old daughter knew what it was to lose a child, believed that every child is deserving of human kindness, compassion and love.

In 2018, can we not as a nation find a kinder, more compassionate and more moral answer to this current crisis? I, for one, believe we can.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... 0a5d50ac7a

[BoSoxGal]

[Bicycle Bill]

My mother-in-law never viewed her embrace of that fragile child as courageous. She simply saw it as the right thing to do in a world that can be arbitrary, unkind and even cruel. She, who after the death of her 3-year-old daughter knew what it was to lose a child, believed that every child is deserving of human kindness, compassion and love.

In 2018, can we not as a nation find a kinder, more compassionate and more moral answer to this current crisis? I, for one, believe we can.

Proof that there are some Republicans who are worth saving when the Revolution comes.
As for Trump and company, however ..... À la guillotine!

-"BB"-

[Econoline]

[liberty]

Trump could fix this problem by providing illegal immigrants safe passage and transportation to the Canadian Border. Canada has plenty of money and needs more poor people. We already have enough and a twenty trillion dollar debt.

The law separates children from parents all the time. And sometimes it is for none violent crimes like insider trading and other white collar crime. I bet some of the lawyers here have broken up families themselves.

[Lord Jim]

And yet another reputation falls to The Trump Curse...

Widely respected career professional DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen makes herself into a lying, boot licking dimwit in the service of Donald Trump:

Defiant Homeland Security Secretary Defends Family Separations



Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is continuing to defend the Trump administration's controversial "zero tolerance" policy that results in separating children from their parents who enter the U.S. illegally.

Nielsen appeared at the White House press briefing on Monday, falsely blaming Democrats for the current crisis and arguing that the impetus is on Congress to pass a law to close legal loopholes.

"What has changed is that we no longer exempt entire classes of people who break the law," Nielsen said at one point, even while making a contradictory claim that the administration has not changed its policy and is simply enforcing the current law.

"Here is the bottom line: DHS is no longer ignoring the law," Nielsen asserted.

As many fact-checkers have found, there is no such law requiring children to be separated from their parents if they illegally cross the border. And Republicans control Congress, not Democrats.

As to why Trump himself won't immediately reverse the policy — which she continued to deny changed — Nielsen said that the president wants "a long-term fix." However, later in the briefing press secretary Sarah Sanders wouldn't say whether any legislation Congress may pass to rectify the situation would have to include full funding for the border wall Trump wants.

Nielsen also said it was "cowardly" of Democrats to claim that children were being used as leverage for the wall.

"The children are not being used as a pawn,"Nielsen said, arguing that it was "smugglers and traffickers" who were using them to try to get into the country illegally. "We are trying to protect the children, which is why I'm asking Congress to act."

"We are a country of compassion. We are a country of heart," she added. "We must fix the system so that those who truly need asylum can in fact receive it."

And when asked if the stringent policy was being enforced to send a message of deterrence for others who may consider trying to cross the border illegally, Nielsen said she found such a suggestion "offensive."

But White House chief of staff John Kelly, who previously led DHS, told NPR's John Burnett in an interview last month that family separation "would be a tough deterrent."

"They're not bad people. They're coming here for a reason. And I sympathize with the reason. But the laws are the laws. But a big name of the game is deterrence," Kelly told NPR.

Nielsen had previously defended the policy in a series of tweets on Sunday night; earlier in the weekend, her agency said it had separated nearly 2,000 children from adults over the course of six weeks at the U.S. Southern border.

https://www.npr.org/2018/06/18/62097254 ... elsen-says

[ex-khobar Andy]

Widely respected career professional DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen makes herself into a lying, boot licking dimwit in the service of Donald Trump:

Not sure about the 'widely respected' bit, Jim. This is the woman who told us a few months ago that she was not aware that Norway was majority white. With a name like Kirstjen Nielsen you'd think she'd have a clue. (On further thought, maybe that is your point. She was, IIUC, widely respected prior to the Trump gig but her apparent dimness about the nature of Norway may be a consequence of that disastrous career choice. Must be something in the Kool Aid.)