Hostages

Trump is holding immigrant children and families hostage.  He's admitted as much.

This abomination of a presidency needs to end.

Legislation to #EndFamilySeparation

If you haven't heard by now about the Trump administration's new policy to (effectively) kidnap the children of undocumented families crossing the border, you should:

In recent weeks, the personal cruelty of Donald Trump has been translated into official United States policy — and the human toll is staggering. The Intercept, which has done some strong reporting on the growing moral crisis at the border, did the math and calculated that at least 1,358 children — and possibly closer to 1,500 to 2,000 — have already been separated from their parents in only the first month or so of the administration’s “zero-tolerance” scheme. In addition, the flood of asylum-seekers suddenly facing criminal prosecution has led to mass trials that present a dystopian nightmare view of modern America.

. . .

We all know now what’s happened to America these last 506 days. The question is, What are you and I going to do about this? As some have noted since the early days of the Trump administration, whatever you would have done during the other great moral crises that have afflicted our modern world — the Holocaust, or the fight to end segregation in the American South — is what you are doing, or not doing, right now.

I've put together a list of possible actions we can take to fight back.  But for now, I want to discuss legislative solutions that are being considered.

Even though Trump initiated this policy on his own, with the enthusiastic support of Jeff Sessions, he now wants the public to believe that somehow the Democrats created this problem, and he demands that the Democrats solve it.

In trying to pin the blame on the Democrats, Trump is, as always, a despicable liar.  He could reverse his policy in an instant if he wanted to.  But nevertheless, Democrats ARE working toward a legislative solution.

In the Senate, Dianne Feinstein has introduced the Keep Families Together Act, would do exactly what the name suggests: prevent federal authorities from separating families at the border.  As of this writing, it currently has the support of 43 Democrats and NO Republicans.

In the House, there are (at least) two bills under consideration; one drafted by Republicans and one by Democrats.  And here, the GOP is playing games with these childrens' lives (which was the choice Trump made by starting to separate families in the first place).

While Speaker Paul Ryan and others claim that their bill will end family separation, those who have studied it insist that --- surprise! --- it won't:

The draft bill, crafted as a compromise between conservative and moderate Republicans, includes longstanding White House demands that would make it easier to detain children for longer periods, deport them more quickly, and make it harder for their families to claim asylum under the law. It also contains a list of other White House priorities, including cuts to legal immigration and funding for a border wall, as well as a path to legal status for recipients of DACA, called Dreamers.

But immigration lawyers, policy analysts and activists say that there's no language in the bill that overrules the Trump administration's decision to criminally prosecute parents, which places them in federal custody away from their children and is the direct cause of the current wave of family separation — nearly 2,000 kids have been taken from their parents in recent months, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

So the Republicans are using this bill as a Trojan Horse, telling people it will end family separation, while instead it's simply a laundry list of GOP priorities to further curtail legal immigration.

Please don't vote for Republicans.

Although there is no bill currently under consideration in the House to end family separation, House and Senate Democrats have each introduced the HELP Separated Children Act, which aims to protect the safety and welfare of children separated from their families.

Please contact your representatives and ask that they support the two Democratic bills, and don't be taken in by Republican lies that their bill will solve the problem.

Family Separation is Still Happening

Just a reminder: It is still official U.S. government policy to separate immigrant children from their families.  The number of children now separated in this manner is north of 1,300, and will continue growing until the Trump administration stops --- or someone stops them:

We all know now what’s happened to America these last 506 days. The question is, What are you and I going to do about this? As some have noted since the early days of the Trump administration, whatever you would have done during the other great moral crises that have afflicted our modern world — the Holocaust, or the fight to end segregation in the American South — is what you are doing, or not doing, right now.

A reminder that you may have the chance to speak out about this horror on June 14 --- although sadly, it seems that there aren't events in every city (including mine).

And here are suggestions for other things you can do.

Thing Everyone Knows: No One is Above the Law

No matter what your politics are, you should want to crush this ASAP:

"If he shot James Comey, he'd be impeached the next day," Giuliani was quoted as saying. "Impeach him, and then you can do whatever you want to do to him."

Giuliani, who is representing Trump amid special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, also appeared on a pair of talk shows Sunday.

On both, Giuliani argued that the president probably has the sweeping constitutional authority to pardon even himself of federal crimes.

Under normal circumstances, Congress would immediately convene hearings on the matter, with an eye toward impeachment.  Under normal circumstances, the media would scramble to get every member of Congress --- but especially members of the president's party --- on record either supporting this authoritarian view or condemning it.

But in case you haven't noticed, these aren't normal times.  So it's up to us, the citizens, to badger our representatives into taking a stand either for or against the rule of law.

Legal Aid for Those Migrant Children

Just when you think Trump can't get any lower, he finds a shovel.  After separating immigrant children from their parents, another recent policy change insures that those children will have no legal representation in court:

“The government is creating unaccompanied kids, then releasing them to someone other than parents, and then further restricting their ability to access counsel,” said Manoj Govindaiah, director of family detention services for Texas’s Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES), which has represented kids through the ORR funds. “So they’re almost ensuring people cannot successfully navigate the immigration court process.”

RAICES, which typically represents about 300 unaccompanied minors a year in the Dallas-Fort Worth area thanks to ORR funding, had just screened a new round of applicants when they received the announcement earlier this month to accept no further cases, staff attorney Jennifer de Haro told me.

“We had to call all the families back and tell them we couldn’t provide them free services anymore,” she said.

Here's a list of things you can do to fight this tyranny NOW while we wait for November to get here.