Shameless myth about Trump’s hated policy exposed
AS DONALD Trump signed a bill to end his most controversial policy, many were claiming Barack Obama was really to blame. This is the reality.
EMOTIONS ran high as Donald Trump signed an order ending the controversial family separations at the United States’ border — but many say the dire situation was never his fault.
The Trump administration, and many observers, claim the controversial policy of removing children from their parents actually began during Barack Obama’s presidency.
“I hate the children being taken away,” said Mr Trump on Friday. “The Democrats have to change their law. That’s their law.”
The President said the heartbreaking sight of children crying for their mothers and fathers was “a result of Democrat-supported loopholes in our federal laws” that could be changed.
“These are crippling loopholes that cause family separation, which we don’t want,” he said.
“If the Democrats would sit down instead of obstructing, we could have something done very quickly — good of the children, good for the country, good for the world.”
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who has faced calls to resign, told White House reporters on Monday: “The Obama administration, the Bush administration all separated families … their rate was less than ours, but they absolutely did do this. This is not new.”
Signing the order to end the separations overnight, Mr Trump said the “zero tolerance” policy of prosecuting everyone illegally crossing into the US would continue. But that could lead to another problematic situation — one we have seen before.
SO WHAT WAS OBAMA’S POLICY?
During the Obama era, some families were separated at the border, but only in relatively rare cases.
Mr Obama mostly avoided prosecuting parents, instead prioritising the deportation of potentially dangerous criminals — gang members, people who had committed major crimes and those thought to pose a security risk.
Most of the undocumented immigrants who arrived would seek asylum, and the policy was to release them and allow them to make an application through the civil court system.
— BlackPantherResists (@lakesideliberal) June 20, 2018
Denise Gilman, director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Texas Law School, told NBC News it was “preposterous” to claim this was an Obama policy.
“There were occasionally instances where you would find a separated family — maybe like one every six months to a year — and that was usually because there had been some actual individualised concern that there was a trafficking situation or that the parent wasn’t actually the parent,” she said.
Families who had been separated “were usually reunited quite quickly once identified, even if that meant release of a parent from adult detention.”
In January 2017, Mr Trump signed an executive order undoing much of the Obama-era strategy, including the priority list for deportations.
This April, the US government introduced the “zero tolerance” policy, which means every adult who crosses into the country from Mexico will face criminal prosecution.
By law, when an adult is detained and prosecuted, their children can no longer live with them, and must be placed in a DHS shelter until they can be housed with a relative in the US, in a home or in foster care.
Between April 19 and the end of May, a massive 1995 children were separated from their guardians at the border, the DHS confirmed, and the figure has now topped 2300.
If their parents are deported, they may never see them again.
WERE THERE PROBLEMS BEFORE TRUMP?
Dealing with the challenges of immigrants crossing into the US has been an issue for many years.
In 2005, George W Bush introduced Operation Streamline, which prosecuted people entering illegally — but exceptions were made for the sick and those with children.
An Inspector General report from DHS at the time found some family separations had occurred when a parent was criminally charged or if family shelters lacked space, Time magazine revealed.
Under pressure over the separations from Congress, the DHS opened a family detention centre in Texas, but there was a backlash because it was a former prison, the Bipartisan Policy Center found.
In 2014, the Obama administration was hit with a wave of crossings from Central American countries gripped by economic woes and gang violence — a crisis that continues today.
To avoid separations, families were placed in immigration detention together for potentially indefinite periods of time.
This policy was also controversial, sparking protests and a fierce backlash in Congress.
To add to the confusion, critics of Mr Trump’s policy have tried to attack him by sharing photos taken in the Obama era.of immigrant children in family detention or waiting for processing. The scale, however, was quite different.
In 2016, a legal challenge saw family detention end in favour of releasing both parents and children. The courts ruled that detention could not be used as a deterrent to asylum-seekers.
SO WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN NOW?
After protests swept the US and politicians and celebrities lined up to condemn the policy, Mr Trump signed a bill ending the separations — but the alternative may be family detention.
George Clooney and John Legend have sent large donations and Bruce Springsteen interrupted his Broadway show to decry the border crisis.
Melania Trump’s spokeswoman said the first lady had asked her husband to work with Congress or do “anything he could do on his own” to help separated families.
American Airlines has requested the government does not put children separated from parents on its planes, as it does not want to profit from the policy.
Democrats chanted and waved signs as the President attended talks on the matter at the Capitol on Tuesday. Mr Trump said on Wednesday that he wanted to keep families together and would sign an executive order in parallel with legislation passed by Congress.
DHS secretary Ms Nielsen was on Wednesday reportedly drafting an order to end family separation at the border, although it remains unclear what this will involve.
The administration has been seeking a change to the immigration laws Mr Trump describes as the “loopholes” responsible for the separations.
One is a 2008 Bush-era law requiring unaccompanied children from Mexico and Canada to be placed in the care of the Office of Refugee Settlement.
Another is the 1997 Flores settlement, reaffirmed under the Obama administration, which limits how long children can be detained and requires they are housed in the “least restrictive” setting possible.
Neither of these law requires the detention of parents and family separations. In fact, in the first 15 months of Mr Trump’s presidency, 100,000 immigrants were released.
Mr Trump has three options — releasing families together, separating families or passing a new law to reinstate family detention.
In the meantime, 600,000 immigrants are waiting to be processed, but the President has rejected calls to increase the number of judges for immigration hearings, saying security should be the focus. He also wants to see funding for his border wall written into a new bill.
The world is watching to see what happens — and these families are the bargaining chip.
‘NOT-TOO-DISTANT-FUTURE’: Trump’s huge new tariff blow
Donald Trump has raged at the head of the US central bank, while flagging massive new tariffs on two key sectors. Follow live.
US ‘Christmas at risk’ amid China tariffs
Donald Trump’s brutal tariffs on China could impact Christmas in the US, with 80 per cent of toys sold in the US sourced from China.
Video reveals gross act Katy did in space
Even zero gravity couldn’t stop the California Gurls singer doing one wild thing while in space, and the odd act has turned many heads.