At the Texas Tribune and the Washington Post, Trump administration weighs new family separation effort at border
Now with less barbarism. Not.
One option under consideration is for the government to detain asylum-seeking families together for up to 20 days, then give parents a choice: Stay in family detention with your child for months or years as your immigration case proceeds, or allow children to be taken to a government shelter so other relatives or guardians can seek custody.
That option — called “binary choice” — is one of several under consideration amid the president’s frustration over border security.
And as always, the name of Stephen Miller crops up.
While some inside the White House and Department of Homeland Security are concerned about the “optics” and political blowback of renewed separations, Miller and others are determined to act, according to several officials briefed on the deliberations. There have been several high-level meetings in the White House in recent weeks about the issue.
But better organized.
It would require overcoming the communication and data management failures that plagued the first effort, when Border Patrol agents, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials and Department of Health and Human Services caseworkers struggled to keep track of separated parents and children scattered across the United States.
We have no where to house them, of course, so . . . more tent cities, office buildings, etc. Oh, and don’t forget that pesky court thingy.
In addition to considering “binary choice” and other options, officials have proposed new rules that would allow them to withdraw from a 1997 federal court agreement that bars ICE from keeping children in custody for more than 20 days.
I’m writing my Senators and Congressman for all the good it will do.
RESIST.