Trump’s Immigration Policies are Inhumane, Illegal, and Definitely Unamerican
Since Trump’s absurd and cruel “zero tolerance immigration” policy went into effect, I have followed the disturbing news, actions, and events that have gone on down at our southern border, and what I have read, seen, and heard is inhumane, illegal, and unamerican. To put it in people-speak the elements of it consist of kidnapping children from those families seeking sanctuary, trafficking many of these children all over the U.S. for who the hell knows what purposes (say illegal adoptions, sex, slave labor?), and imprisoning others in a cage-like environment at numerous detention centers. All of this is apparently illegal under international law and is surely not protected by America’s laws and our constitution. Public pressure has forced Trump to amend his “zero tolerance order” into something more duplicitous and ambiguous, but provides that the children and parents are to be reunited when possible. And there seem to be a lot of impossibles, including excuses, lies, and no records.
But the government’s crass detention and separating children policies (which began long before his initial “zero tolerance order”) were at work before any kind of formalized tracking of immigrants and their children was implemented and now the government cannot reunite many of these families. Their failure to be able to do that indicates even more serious humanitarian violations. In the meantime I have just read that they have actually lost almost two thousand children. Obviously this is inexcusable and there will be many charges against the border police and ICE that will likely imprison dozens of government employees for various kinds of dereliction of duty.
But what about the phony judges, the failure to properly process immigrants seeking asylum, and the inhumanity of sending many thousands of these people back to the very places they are running for their lives from, where they are likely to be forced to return to the lifestyles they are so afraid of, including being murdered? Who is responsible for that? I say the buck stops with the President of the United States, Donald Trump.
The American people must demand that Donald Trump resign from office., and that our courts and congress punish him for these crimes and many others that he is no doubt guilty of. ~llaw
The following heart-wrenching story is one attorney’s experience at attempting to find justice for her clients at the border. I invite you to read it and offer your comments.
A Tulsa Attorney who was told this story: “So far, my office has not been called up to serve the children held by immigration. So allow me to share what another attorney shared with me. (She asked to remain anonymous)”
“I needed a couple of days to decompress and process all that I dealt last week serving women and children in immigration jail with the CARA Family Detention Pro Bono Project.
“Heading to Dilley, I had heard stories of other attorneys having suffered from PTSD after spending the week there. Rather arrogantly I said to myself, not me, I represent this vulnerable population regularly, I’ve become numb to it. And it’s true, in my career, I have heard many stories of unimaginable trauma. Of women being gang raped, trafficked, terrorized, beaten and tortured. It will take a lot to shake my core.
“Last week, I stood beside many warrior colleagues who don’t normally practice immigration law, who broke down before my eyes. Professionals who fought hard to keep it together as they sat through asylum interviews and couldn’t control the tears rolling down their faces as they witnessed women retelling stories of being forced into marriages, sold by their own parents, sexually exploited, shunned by society, beaten. Brutality amassed on top of more brutality. They are fighters and survivors. And we are the warriors who were sent to guide them through a treacherous process. And yet, I had been able to hold it together.
“These women and children get one shot to tell their story to an asylum officer, a stranger who holds their fate in their hands. A stranger who almost robotically [sp] follows a script rather than letting conversations about such sensitive matters develop organically. If they can’t convince them, if they can’t open up, if they don’t understand the question properly, if they aren’t given the opportunity to divulge their whole life story during this one interview, then they have to face a monster of an Immigration Judge, who indiscriminately rubber stamps every negative finding of the asylum officers, and who holds one of the highest denial rate for refugees. There is no doubt in my mind that the Trump administration has intentionally assigned him to this court, it is, after all, their mission to deport all of these women and children. He is just the perfect monster to do it. And to their misfortune, there is no appellate review to his decision.
“I have been practicing for 18 years. Never have I been treated with such disrespect. On day 1, as I advocated for my clients, whose right to due process he was violating, he told me to “shut up and listen”. I witnessed him question a woman about why she was afraid that her MS-13 kingpin ex-husband would murder her for fleeing his threats and persecution. As she cried inconsolably, he had the officer bring in her 9 yr old son and then proceeded to interrogate him as to why he was afraid to return to his home country. Having seen and heard too much for his tender years, he beautifully laid out his fear that his father would murder his mother if they were sent back. As the child sat crying inconsolably, the Immigration Judge dismissively told them “good luck in your home country” as he affirmed a negative credible fear finding. Next, he questioned a woman who not only 30 days ago had been shot in the head by the drug cartel and whose husband had been killed in her presence. Their 12 and 9 yr old children came home from their grandmothers house to find their father dead and mother struggling to breathe as she lay in a pool of her own blood. I begged and pleaded for him to give her an opportunity to present her full claim before an immigration judge at a full blown hearing and was again met with, “Counsel, I already told you to just shut up and listen” and wished her and her children good luck in Mexico.
“The weight of the pressure from these cases has never felt so overwhelming and hopeless. It is clear what this administration seeks to do. And these women, and many of these children, will be murdered upon return. There is no doubt about that. But nobody cares. This country was their last hope for life. And we have turned them away.
“From that point on, I was determined to help these women pass these interviews to avoid this monster at all costs. I worked tirelessly, 14 hour days even waking at 5am to get a head start on some days.
“At the conclusion of our long and gut wrenching week, we headed to San Antonio to integrate ourselves into society and with other fellow Americans. As we walked to dinner all I could see were the children on their streets with their family enjoying their freedoms and then it hit me, like an uncontrollable wave, the pain for all of the children I had just spent a week of my life with. Children who have been beaten by abusive fathers, beaten by gangs forcibly trying to recruit them, children who have witnessed their mothers being raped and who they themselves have been choked by their mothers rapists. And now, after all of that trauma, they sit in the confines of a jail with their mothers. Walking down the street of San Antonio, amongst civilians just living their lives, I lost my shit.
“If you have read this far, thank you for allowing me to share my experience.”
-Anonymous
(My thanks to Petra Bode-Hammer for providing the anonymous lawyer’s narrative.)