Disgrace

It all began when Vice President Mike Pence used the word 'disgrace' in a tweet:

Last year ICE agents rescued 518 human trafficking victims and 904 children subjected to exploitation — yet top Dems like Cynthia Nixon call ICE agents “terrorists.” What a disgrace. https://t.co/x0phQWbbru

— Mike Pence (@mike_pence) July 6, 2018

This got me to thinking that Pence doesn't really understand the meaning of the word 'disgrace', and so I decided to spell it out for him.  And since I've wanted to do an immigration post for a while, I decided to expound on my reply here, where space is not so limited.

Disgrace 1: On May 7, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a new 'zero tolerance' policy on immigration.  This is a transparent attempt to create a crisis at the border, with the well-known side effect of forcibly separating children from their parents.  This includes not only children of parents who cross the U.S. border illegally, but also those who come seeking asylum, which is legal.  The long-term effects of family separation on children are serious and often permanent, which is only part of what makes this policy a disgrace.  The other part is that the Trump administration is visiting these horrors on approximately 3,000 children for the sole purpose of trying to get Democrats to agree to Trump's pointless and stupid wall.

Disrgrace 2: It's bad enough that the administration separated these families in the first place.  It takes the disgrace to another level that they obviously took these children away without any plan to reunite them, ever.  They permanently destroyed these families in service to their political agenda.

Disgrace 3: In addition to having no plan to reunite these children with their families, they also clearly had no plan to adequately care for the children in their custody.  And since they have roughly 3,000 children in their charge, that should really count as 3,000 separate disgraces.  Some lowlights include forcibly giving the kids psychotropic drugs, a 1-year-old returned to his mother after 12 weeks covered in lice, after apparently not having been bathed the whole time, and this:

An investigative report by the Associated Press reveals widespread abuse at Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center in Virginia, where children as young as 14 claim they were tied to chairs with bags over their heads, “beaten while handcuffed and locked up for long periods in solitary confinement, left nude and shivering in concrete cells.”

Disgrace 4: Literally holding the children hostage, demanding that their parents agree to 'voluntary' deportation before reuniting them with their children --- despite the fact that they are under court order to reunite the families unconditionally.

Disgrace 5: Making a mockery of law and order by literally having the immigrant children represent themselves in deportation hearings, including children as young as 1 year old.

Disgrace 6: Attacking all immigrants as members of MS-13, 'infesting' U.S. cities, when fewer than 0.1% of immigrants crossing the border in fiscal year 2017 had gang ties, according to Border Patrol:

Since the Trump administration took office, the Border Patrol has detected fewer gang members crossing irregularly than during the Obama administration. In FY2017, these detections amounted to 0.075 percent of the total number of migrants (228 MS-13 members out of 303,916 total migrants). When combined with MS-13’s rival, the Barrio 18 gang, the number rises only slightly to 0.095 percent. This is far from the “infestation” of violent gang members described by the president.

Disgrace 7: As noted above, almost none of the immigrants being rounded up and separated from their families have gang ties.  But the threat of MS-13 and others IS real --- and is the reason why many of these people seek asylum in America.

Trump and his minions are rounding these people up to return them to their home countries, in some cases, to certain death.  In one particularly egregious example, an MS-13 gang member who decided to cooperate with the FBI was nevertheless imprisoned and slated for deportation and certain death.  Despite the fact that he tried to turn his life around in an effort to limit the spread of the MS-13 in America.

If defeating MS-13 is the real purpose of 'zero tolerance' (and not, you know, racist ethnic cleansing), shouldn't we encourage MS-13 gang members to reform themselves and help the feds, rather than effectively punishing them with a death sentence?

Disgrace 8: Forming a 'denaturalization task force' to strip citizenship from people who came to the U.S. legally and have already become naturalized citizens.

Disgrace 9: Deporting honorably-discharged veterans who also happen to be immigrants.  These men put their lives on the line for America, and the Trump administration has chosen to thank them by forcing them out of the country.

Disgrace 10: Discharging non-citizens who are currently serving in the military.  There can only be two reasons for this policy: 1) Pre-emptively avoiding the embarrassment of deporting these service members at some point in the future after they have been honorably discharged, 2) Naked racism.  Neither reason reflects well on the U.S.

Disgrace 11: Trying sweep disgraces 1-10 under the rug by pointing to the successes ICE has had, and denouncing anyone who points out these disgraces as favoring 'open borders', terrorism, or human trafficking.

There is literally no reason ICE --- or some equivalent agency --- can't effectively fight human trafficking without committing some of the same sins as the traffickers.

For all of the fearmongering coming from the administration, the fact is that ICE didn't even exist until 2003.  Yet somehow, the U.S. did a reasonable job of fighting terrorism and human trafficking before that.

And it's worth noting that even the ICE agents of HSI --- the ICE division responsible for combating terrorism and human trafficking --- want nothing to do with Trump's anti-immigrant policies, because "anger at ERO immigration practices is harming the entire agency’s reputation and undermining other law enforcement agencies’ willingness to cooperate".