The illegal immigrant “family separation” meme and its origins and consequences
The left and the NeverTrumpers on the right believe they have a winner in the drumbeat against “family separation” of illegal immigrants. You can tell by the coverage, which is widespread and emotional, culminating in propaganda like this:
Former CIA director Michael Hayden defended Monday his comparison of the Trump administration’s immigration-enforcement policy to the treatment of concentration-camp prisoners in Nazi Germany.
Hayden, who tweeted a picture of the Auschwitz concentration camp Saturday with the caption “other governments have separated mothers and children,” said during a Monday appearance on CNN’s New Day that he made the incendiary comparison because “he wanted to grab people’s attention.”
Well, d-uh.
If I want to grab people’s attention, should I tweet a photo of Goebbels next to one of Hayden, and write “separated at birth?” ?
The full-court press is on because the visuals are so heart-rending. After all, who would want parents to be separated from children? Do the reasons matter? Of course they do, but not to propagandists and not to those whose hearts rule their minds.
If you want a statement of the reasons the problem and the policy exists, and its pros and cons as well as the alternatives and possible solutions, look here for a very quick summary take:
The separations have been attacked as immoral by congressional Democrats and a handful of Republicans, who advocate a return to the previous policy of releasing individuals awaiting trial for trying to immigrate illegally with their children. But Nielsen placed blame for family separations squarely on lawmakers, citing legislative inaction on immigration reform as the central obstacle to changing the system. She also suggested that previous administrations are partly to blame for incentivizing child trafficking by providing “free passes” to adults who try to cross the border with children.
“From October 2017 to this February, we have seen a staggering 315 percent increase in illegal aliens fraudulently using children to pose as family units to gain entry into this country,” she said. “This must stop. All this does is put the children at risk. To address these issues we’ve asked Congress to change the law to allow for the expeditious return of unaccompanied children, regardless of their country of origin. We are also asking Congress to allow us to keep families together while they are detained.”
Don’t sit on a hot stove till Congress does something about this. It’s much too valuable as a talking point and photo-op, I’m afraid.
See also this:
To be clear, there is no official Trump policy stating that every family entering the US without papers has to be separated. What there is is a policy that all adults caught crossing into the US illegally are supposed to be criminally prosecuted ”” and when that happens to a parent, separation is inevitable.
That’s not necessarily true, by the way, because people asking for asylum (a large group) are not necessarily criminally prosecuted; they must await a hearing on the merits of their asylum claims, which might indeed be granted, and it’s during the wait that their separations occur.
(And by the way, when a citizen parent is incarcerated for any reason there is a separation from his or her children, and this happens every day, although the children themselves are not detained by the government.)
The Trump administration’s policy is meant to correct the previous Obama administration approach, described here:
When an influx of families and unaccompanied children from Central America arrived at the border in 2014, Barack Obama’s administration detained families.
This was harshly criticized and a federal court in 2015 stopped the government from holding families for months without explanation. Instead, they were released while they waited for their immigration cases to be heard in court. Not everyone shows up for those court dates, leading the Trump administration to condemn what it calls a “catch and release” program.
This Vox article says: “Trump’s insistence that family separation is happening as a result of a Democratic ‘law’ is simply not true.” But that’s way oversimplified. This more in-depth article explains more:
For the longest time, illegal immigration was driven by single males from Mexico. Over the last decade, the flow has shifted to women, children, and family units from Central America. This poses challenges we haven’t confronted before and has made what once were relatively minor wrinkles in the law loom very large.
The Trump administration isn’t changing the rules that pertain to separating an adult from the child. Those remain the same. Separation happens only if officials find that the adult is falsely claiming to be the child’s parent, or is a threat to the child, or is put into criminal proceedings.
It’s the last that is operative here. The past practice had been to give a free pass to an adult who is part of a family unit. The new Trump policy is to prosecute all adults. The idea is to send a signal that we are serious about our laws and to create a deterrent against re-entry. (Illegal entry is a misdemeanor, illegal re-entry a felony.)
When a migrant is prosecuted for illegal entry, he or she is taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals. In no circumstance anywhere in the U.S. do the marshals care for the children of people they take into custody. The child is taken into the custody of HHS, who cares for them at temporary shelters.
The criminal proceedings are exceptionally short, assuming there is no aggravating factor such as a prior illegal entity or another crime. The migrants generally plead guilty, and they are then sentenced to time served, typically all in the same day, although practices vary along the border. After this, they are returned to the custody of ICE.
If the adult then wants to go home, in keeping with the expedited order of removal that is issued as a matter of course, it’s relatively simple. The adult should be reunited quickly with his or her child, and the family returned home as a unit. In this scenario, there’s only a very brief separation.
Where it becomes much more of an issue is if the adult files an asylum claim. In that scenario, the adults are almost certainly going to be detained longer than the government is allowed to hold their children.
That’s because of something called the Flores Consent Decree from 1997. It says that unaccompanied children can be held only 20 days. A ruling by the Ninth Circuit extended this 20-day limit to children who come as part of family units. So even if we want to hold a family unit together, we are forbidden from doing so.
So it may be that what Trump is claiming is that the family separations of the children are a result of the Trump enforcement of our immigration laws coupled with its compliance with a ruling of the 9th Circuit concerning the 20-day limit. The 9th Circuit is a liberal court—thus, the “Democratic law”?
I’ve just spent about an hour trying to sort out the real origins of the complex laws regarding the separation policy (Democrat or Republican or bipartisan) and whether previous administrations followed similar practices on a smaller scale. I really cannot find a definitive answer. The best article I’ve found, however, is this one written about three years ago during the Obama administration, which discusses the history of such policies:
While the treatment of immigrant minors has been protected by legal settlements and codified into law, the lack of family detention standards beyond the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) discretionary power has reignited court battles over the applicability of an 18-year old legal settlement known as the Flores Settlement Agreement. The Flores Agreement created legal standards for the detention and treatment of immigrant minors, which generally grants them a “policy favoring release” without unnecessary delays. If detained, children should be placed in the least restrictive setting possible in “unsecured” facilities licensed to care for children.
So Flores was originally a court settlement, not a law passed by either party in Congress (although the 20-day limit was a ruling by a liberal court, as previously discussed). Here’s more:
Immigration detention is the practice of holding unauthorized immigrants in detention facilities while they wait to appear in immigration court or are removed from the United States. The federal government has broad authority to detain unauthorized immigrants, and detention has been used throughout the country’s history. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) prioritizes detention space for immigrants that are subject to mandatory detention, pose a risk to public safety if released, or are at risk of absconding.
Family detention refers specifically to holding unauthorized immigrant parents and children in detention facilities awaiting their immigration court hearing. According to ICE, “like single adults, family units apprehended at the border may be placed into expedited removal proceedings and detained,” but this practice has been limited because DHS generally maintained only 90-100 beds for family units in the Berks Family Residential Facility in Pennsylvania. Additionally, before the early 2000s, family units were hardly ever detained, but rather processed and released with a notice to appear at immigration court, especially if they met the credible fear of persecution criteria for a claim to asylum. After the September 11 attacks, ICE began to tighten its “catch and release” policy for all apprehended unauthorized immigrants, including family units, citing their failure to appear in court and concerns that adults were renting or taking children to pass off as a “family.” Due to lack of space, ICE began detaining parents while transferring children to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is common practice for unaccompanied children.
Congress in 2005 became aware of the practice of separating children from their parents and directed DHS change their policy and encouraged the agency to release families or use alternatives to detention whenever possible, adding, “When detention of family units is necessary, the Committee directs DHS to use appropriate detention space to house them together.”
Although Congress seemed to indicate that detention should be a last resort, ICE expanded their detention capacity by opening the T. Don Hutto Correction Center in Texas in 2006. The Hutto facility, which was previously a medium-security prison, added 512 beds to ICE’s family detention capacity. After settling lawsuits brought forward by ACLU, which accused DHS of holding children in prison-like conditions in violation of the Flores Agreement (discussed below), and critical news coverage, ICE stopped detaining families in the Hutto facility in 2009. Between 2009 and 2014, the small Berks facility was the only family dentition facility in operation.
Clearly, arguments over what to do about this have a long and complex history. One problem has long been a lack of family detention facilities (and the 20-day limit on keeping children in them), as well as a lack of facilities in general to handle the influx of illegal immigrants (and children) that were encouraged by the Obama administration. After that increase (2014) the pressure got worse, however, and there were other court battles over the issue:
In FY 2014, the U.S. Border Patrol apprehended a total of 68,445 family units, a 361 percent increase over FY 2013’s 14,855. The administration announced that it would begin detaining families throughout the duration of their immigration proceedings. In addition to its small existing Berks facility, DHS opened family detention facilities in Artesia, NM (650 beds), Karnes, TX (532 beds), and Dilley, TX (2,400 beds). The facility in Artesia was closed in December amid a lawsuit on behalf of immigrants detained at the facility accusing DHS tactics of preventing families from exercising their right to seek asylum and attempting to rush removal proceedings. At the time, DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson stressed that expanded detention was devised as part of a strategy to deter further immigrants from coming. In February of this year, however, a federal judge barred DHS from detaining immigrant families solely “for the purpose of deterring future immigration.”
While the detention of minors, particularly unaccompanied minor children, has long been codified in law and regulated and protected by legal settlements, the detention practices and standards involving families has been generally more ambiguous and left to DHS discretion and policy, leading to controversy and differing interpretation of applicable regulation. While ICE has its own guidelines for the detention of family units, there are no codified national family detention standards in law.
The treatment and detention of unaccompanied minors has primarily been regulated through the Flores Settlement Agreement of 1997 and the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. For the purposes of family detention, the Flores Agreement has been the most relevant [emphasis mine]: “The terms of the [Flores] agreement grant minors a “general policy favoring release” without unnecessary delays unless there is a public safety risk or a need to ensure appearance in court. The agreement also lays out specific legal standards when the temporary detention of children is necessary: children must be housed separate from unrelated adults in non-secure facilities that are licensed to care for children and meet minimum requirements to house them, including providing access to toilets and sinks, drinking water and food, medical assistance, temperature control, and contact with family members.”
There’s much much more, but it seems that both the Bush and the Obama administrations were practicing some family detention and at times separation of children from parents, that facilities were way too limited, and that both Bush and Obama claimed (for reasons I can’t glean from the article) that Flores did NOT apply to children who came with parents, but that the courts said otherwise.
The law supports the Trump administration’s separation of children from families. But it is a discretionary policy of the administration on illegal immigration in general—and how to treat illegal immigrants—that has resulted in the increase in the phenomenon. The policy is not focused on the children at all, but the children give the opposition tremendous talking points to oppose Trump as a cruel barbarian (and Nazi, of course).
Speaking of NeverTrumpers on the right, Former First Lady Laura Bush has written an op-ed on the subject that appeared in the WaPo. The entire Bush family hates Trump (for very good reasons, I might add) and are quintessential NeverTrumpers, and although I’ve always liked Laura Bush, she is failing to show understanding of what this policy is actually about and giving Democrats some wonderful talking points:
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…
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.
I would have had a lot more respect for Laura Bush’s op-ed if she had gone on to suggest some of these answers. I certainly don’t like the policy and would absolutely prefer to find a “kinder, more compassionate and more moral answer to this current crisis.” But such a policy can only be discussed by considering the reasons it has been instituted and the better alternatives, if they exist.
My own “better alternative” would be to immediately build more family detention facilities. That’s the only way to both protect the law regarding illegal entry and to keep families together—although I have absolutely no doubt that the left would paint such facilities as awful and as equivalent to those Japanese detention centers during WWII (which applied to many citizens, making it a false analogy).
But as best I can determine, under current law children could only be held in a family detention center for up to 20 days in cases of asylum (and not at all if the parent is arrested, although that process goes more quickly), and then another solution would have to be found. Perhaps that’s why both Bush and Obama didn’t want Flores to apply to family detention? If Congress passed a law allowing family-based detention of children in facilities, with their parents, for longer than 20 days, would that help or would the left just start opposing that, because what they really want is catch and release (I strongly suspect the latter)?
In short (although nothing about this post has been short!), the situation is complicated and fraught with difficulties, but propagandists are determined to simplify it.
This is yet another example of the left and it’s media friends totally misreading most average people’s thinking.
I was at a family gathering this weekend and overheard a discussion of this issue and the general conclusion was that if you don’t want to be separated from your children then don’t try to enter the country illegally. And this group included a couple of rabid Trump haters.
In my observation there is no other issue where the elite left/media is so out of line with a vast majority of citizens of both ‘R’ and ‘D’ than illegal immigration.
Griffin:
That’s interesting.
I’ve not discussed the issue at all with anyone so far, but my strong suspicion is that my liberal friends and family members would be on the side of the MSM. But I don’t know.
Neo,
Maybe it’s just my family, I don’t know. Most that lean Democrat are not leftist they are union member types not Evergreen State types so there is that.
I strongly believe that the number of people that really believe some of these leftist fantasies is pretty small and almost always totally immune to the costs of their policies. Environmentalism is another issue where this shows up.
Griffin:
The people I know are highly susceptible to that sort of propaganda, and they are not necessarily themselves leftists but they don’t do in-depth study and they read the MSM and listen to NPR and those are their talking points and their beliefs, for the most part (and the beliefs of almost everyone they know, except weirdo me).
Neo,
Yep, it’s my theory that being affected by a policy is the strongest way to change your view. I saw this first hand living in logging country when the environmentalists virtually killed the industry over the spotted owl 25 years ago. The same thing happens with illegal immigration. My Trump hating sister rails on and on about the ‘illegals’ more than he does yet doesn’t see the irony in that.
Which is why the left has to tie any policy to Trump because when isolated they so often lose on these issues.
I know this will seem extreme, but I don’t want a wall. I want hellfire drones, hundreds of them, patrolling the southern border, and blasting any and everyone crashing the border. It might require the death of a few hundred to send the message, but once sent it would stop the border crash. same goes for Europe. Blow those invaders out of the water.
Same goes for anyone trying to break into my house uninvited at 2 am. My give a damn is busted.
parker:
I am strongly against illegal immigration, but waging an actual hot war on the illegal immigrants themselves (and their children) is most definitely not the way to go. It is, quite literally, overkill.
Not to mention the backlash, which would have a lot more moral force than the current backlash.
The obvious response is that generally the international norm is for genuine asylum seekers to seek their asylum in the nearest ‘safe’ country. Which for these apparently mostly central American immigrants is Mexico. So return the entire intact families to Mexico and let them figure it out.
Im with Griffin on that. Why can we just send them all back across? It isnt our problem anyway.
Harry:
Current US law governs the wait period for those who seek asylum, in order to rule on the veracity of their claims. The government can either catch-and-release (Obama administration) or detain (Trump). I believe that US law overrules international law on this.
I know my idea is a pipe dream in this politicized bureaucratic world but it can’t be emphasized enough that this is on Mexico big time.
Also saw a letter from a Civil Rights Commisioner at Powerline that really lays it out very well. Can’t provide link right now but it’s well stated.
Griffin:
Before I read your comment I had just posted a discussion of that letter from the civil rights commissioner. See this.
Worrying about backlash will never end the invasion of America or Europe. The left is never going to back down until they are forced to back down.. Flooding the USA and Europe with 3rd worlders is meant to destroy the values of Western Civilization. Period. Extreme times call for extreme measures. The invasion of ‘refugees’ is an act of war, and needs to be recognized as war by other means. Worst of all, it is war waged by the ‘elite’ against their own people and culture. Do not enter my home uninvited.
parker:
Saying it is an act of war does not make it an act of war. It is not an act of war, and killing is not a good response at all, and that’s not just because of backlash, as I believe I made clear in my comment.
You are advocating murdering children in a situation that does not fit the definition of war or collateral damage. I realize that you are frustrated with the whole situation but your “remedy” is not a moral or justified remedy.
There are many remedies that do not involve violence and that could be applied. Some are draconian and would cause a backlash as well, but they are far more morally (and strategically) justified than the one you suggest.
“Saying it is an act of war does not make it an act of war.”
-Neo
And with all due respect Neo, saying that it isn’t an act of war doesn’t make it so either.
I’m with parker on this one (at least as far as classifying it). The situation on the U.S./Mexican border is almost certainly an act of war; 4th Generation War foisted on the American populace (and the EU populace for that mattter) by the forces of Pan-national Progressivism/Globalism.
Some elements of 4th Gen Warfare, as delineated by Wikipedia, that could be identified on the Immigration/Border issue:
-A direct attack on the enemy’s culture.
-Highly sophisticated psychological warfare especially through media manipulation and lawfare.
-Occurs in low-intensity conflicts, involving actors from all networks.
-Non-combatants are tactical dilemmas.
One of 4th Generation Warfare’s goals is “To convince the enemy’s political decision makers that their goals are either unachievable or too costly for the perceived benefit.” Those ‘decision makers’ are as much the people of the U.S. as the politicians.
Just because many of the poor people attempting to cross the border, families and all, don’t realize they are tools of something larger and more insidious, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t tools just the same.
They are the cheapest, most effective infantry money can buy: they don’t expect to get paid by the people using then (and don’t know they are being used) and possess the finest armor known to mankind. They have the armor of Morality and Bad Optics. It’s one thing to fire on armed invaders. Its another to fire on civilian non-combatant “invaders” who don’t think of themselves that way.
Now, I’m not saying that I agree with parker’s desire to use lethal force on the border. I’ll settle for Trump’s wall. For now. But I can assure you, this is meant to break the US apart, to culturally and psychologically weaken us.
If we don’t stop this invasion (and that’s exactly what it is) it will get bloody, and it will get bloody very fast once it begins. All bets will be off.
“In short (although nothing about this post has been short!), the situation is complicated and fraught with difficulties, but propagandists are determined to simplify it.” – Neo
And nothing simplifies a situation better than lying about it.
http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2018/jun/15/tweets/tweeted-photo-inaccurately-indicates-boy-caged-fed/
“A photo tweeted in opposition to federal authorities separating children from parents detained at the U.S.-Mexico border showed what looked like an unhappy boy in a cage.
The photo wasn’t taken of a boy in custody, we found. Rather, the child was in an open-topped enclosure temporarily erected for a June 2018 Texas protest of the separation of children from parents.
We rate the tweeted version of the photo False.”
When you’ve lost Politifact….
Daily Wire is a bit more blunt.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/31782/activists-spread-shocking-photo-immigrant-child-james-barrett
“Activists Spread Shocking Photo Of Immigrant Child In Cage. There’s Just One Problem.
..
One of Vargas’ followers also expressed a desire to find out exactly where it came from because “conservatives will say it’s fake if I don’t quote a source.”
…
It turns out that Karissa was right to worry about conservatives calling it “fake” because fake is exactly what it is. The image was taken as a protest stunt by a pro-immigrant group.”
To deny what is happening in the USA and Europe is not an act of war is to deny reality. What burns worst is that our betters are encouraging the invasions. My give a damn is busted when it comes to parading childern as propaganda to make me weep and pity those poor unfortunate kiddies and then label me a racist xenophobe. Why are we spending resources dealing with invaders, no matter what their age, instead of speeding up the process for those seeking to enter legally?
And speaking of the children, what about spending resources on children born in America and living in poverty? Must they play 5th fiddle to the 3rd world children illegally, and cruelly, smuggled across our borders?
This is war, war against our laws and culture. Failure to act accordingly has dire consequences. Backlash? The real backlash will not be pretty, it would be nice to avoid that… for the children.
parker:
“War” has a meaning—as in “hot war.” This is not a hot war.
Otherwise, “war” is just a metaphor.
An invasion of illegal immigrants, most of whom are here for financial reasons, is not a hot war and neither justifies nor requires killing people, including children. That does not mean it’s not a very serious problem that needs dealing with in a strong way.
As I said, most of the arrivals are coming to make money or get money. Some really are also interested in liberty (and/or asylum) and the rest of what America stands for. But if they are here illegally, they need to be deported—not killed. And if they qualify for bona fide asylum, they can stay after a hearing has determined that.
Some are here to exploit bleeding hearts and the welfare system. Some are vicious criminals or are otherwise bent on destruction. Again, deportation is the answer, and a better system to keep illegal immigrants out in the first place.
None of that involves firing on hordes of people, including women and children, because they are trying to come in illegally.
Even Trump would not advocate what you’re advocating, nor would the vast majority of people who are against illegal immigration and think a strong and exclusionary response is necessary.
Well neo,
I know you are “against illegal immigrartion” and I know you want to resolve the dangerous problem through peaceful means. I get that, and I’m all for peaceful means when peaceful means are possible. BUT, lawfare will never solve this invasion dilemma through the courts. Just ask a Hawaiian judge or the 9th circuit. How long must we wait? 10 years? By then it will be game over. The vioence committed on our soil by illegals costs lives. It costs treasure in the justice system. It costs treasure in the educational, health, and welfare systems.
Billions upon billions of dollars and thousands of lives upon lives, years upon years. Enough! Yes, the vast majority of the illegal invaders just want to escape violence and poverty in their own countries, I get that, but how is that our probelma? It is not our problem, period. It is war by other means, encouraged by our own elites.
My give a damn is busted. I feel no pity or remorse. All invasions must be treated as an act of war. 1 million illegal aliens or 1 million of the peoples red army, what is the difference? Yes, you will say the latter is a hostile power. But so are the former.
As far as “hot war” is concerned, just ask the families who had their members murdered, maimed, or raped by the not hot war illegals. For an intelligent person, it seems to me, that you are tip toeing around the obvious. But I am just a flyover country, aging, bumpkin farm boy so what do I know? Apparently nothing.
The general rule of thumb is:
If a virulent meme is flooding the media in order to castigate, denigrate and essentially dehumanize Trump, and his supporters, and the GOP, and conservatives generally (or people to the right of center)—or for that matter, the State of Israel and its leadership—then that meme must automatically be suspect, even disbelieved, until proven true.
The problem is the sheer relentlessness of the propaganda.
The sheer onslaught.
(Of course, this is the “proven” tactic.)
The Left—or too huge a part of it—simply does not care any more.
“War” was mentioned above.
What has been going on for years (way before Trump) is essentially propaganda warfare (Soviet style) on anyone the Left, especially the MSM, deemed an opponent. (Call it a lengthy “softening-up” barrage if you want).
No wonder they were so gobsmacked when Hillary didn’t win. And so there had to be “a reason” for it. An excuse. A deus ex machina—very much like what passes for “rationalism” in the Middle East:
http://www.zionism-israel.com/hdoc/Nasser_Hussein.htm
parker:
I couldn’t care less about farm boy vs city boy or anything like that, as I think you are aware of from commenting here all these years. I engage with everyone here on the strength of their ideas, and if I disagree I disagree because of my disagreement with their ideas and not any other characteristics they might have. I believe I succeed in treating people here with respect, and I’m treating you with respect and engaging with your ideas.
You are using war as a metaphor and this is not actually a war, although it is a very serious problem that needs to be dealt with. Metaphoric “wars” do not justify killing children. Even regular hot wars don’t justify it except as unavoidable and tragic collateral damage. What’s more, there are other solutions to this metaphoric war.
The illegal immigrants (or legal immigrants, for that matter, or even citizens) who commit violent crimes are a completely different situation. They should be dealt with as criminals, and the illegal aliens who commit violent crimes given the punishment they deserve.
But that has nothing to do with killing or injuring people at the border, just because they are trying to enter illegally. I completely disagree with that and I’ve given my reasons why.
I am not tiptoeing around anything. I believe in strict enforcement of our laws against illegal immigration. I believe in strong penalties for violent crimes.
The OIG report is a disaster for the Democrats.
This issue is a distraction.
The war has been declared by the Leftist alliance against all of humanity: they are enemies of humanity. But for American patriots, they don’t have the guts to cleanse and purge their own country, let alone anybody else’s problems. The traitors they can’t touch or even think about doing anything to. The non citizens are much easier to deal with, in comparison.
It’s easier to talk about doing something over at the border, because then they won’t have to be demoralized by going up against the Deep State and other alliances at District of Columbia. People might figure out who really rules them.
I feel no pity or remorse.
That’s how soviet propaganda and the NKVD got people to turn on their society. Once psychological disinformation works, the victims have no empathy or pity for the established system, making it much easier to overthrow. Then it is only a matter of labeling some Other group as a preliminary target such as Kulaks.
Americans should not believe they are immune to these strategies. It has always worked on humanity.
Neo: “That’s not necessarily true, by the way, because people asking for asylum (a large group) are not necessarily criminally prosecuted; they must await a hearing on the merits of their asylum claims, which might indeed be granted, and it’s during the wait that their separations occur.”
A key point that you may have missed is that people asking for asylum at legal ports of entry get a hearing and are not arrested. The people arrested chose to enter the US illegally not at ports of entry.
Another point:
A large part of this problem may be due to law or policy about what the Border Patrol can do about people they catch at or near the border. If they could simply push them back across the border the problem would resolve itself quickly.
Does anyone know what the law requires? Do they have to put anyone who gets one foot into the US into the legal system?