Immigration

“As he prepared to visit Capitol Hill, President Trump continued to insist Tuesday that Congress produce comprehensive immigration legislation, while anxious Republicans explored a narrower fix to the administration’s policy of separating migrant children from their parents,” the Washington Post reports.

“The message came as Trump was scheduled to visit Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Tuesday evening to lobby them on immigration legislation that would provide billions of dollars for his long-sought border wall and other security priorities.”

“Amid a public outcry, Republicans are also planning to defy the White House by crafting legislation to ease the effects of the administration policy of dividing families.”

Meanwhile, Trump doubled down on Twitter claiming migrants are threatening to “infest” America.

“The Trump administration has likely lost track of nearly 6,000 unaccompanied migrant children, thousands more than lawmakers were alerted to last month,” according to a McClatchy review of federal data.

“Federal officials acknowledged last month that nearly 1,500 unaccompanied minors arrived on the southern border alone without their parents and were placed with sponsors who did not keep in touch with federal officials, but those numbers were only a snapshot of a three- month period during the last fiscal year.”

Jon Sandweg, the former head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told NBC News that migrant parents separated from their children at the border are sometimes unable to relocate their child and remain permanently separated.

“While a parent can quickly move from detention to deportation, a child’s case for asylum or deportation may not be heard by a judge for several years because deporting a child is a lower priority for the courts, Sandweg explained.”

“As a result, parents may find themselves back in their home countries struggling to find their children. Many do not have access to legal counsel or understand the U.S. immigration or judicial systems.”

Washington Post: “Our analysis finds the doublespeak coming from President Trump and top administration officials on this issue is breathtaking, not only because of the sheer audacity of these claims but also because they keep being repeated without evidence.”

“Immigrant families are being separated at the border not because of Democrats and not because some law forces this result, as Trump insists. They’re being separated because the Trump administration, under its zero-tolerance policy, is choosing to prosecute border-crossing adults for any offenses.”

Politico: “In a private meeting regarding the wall Monday, Trump fumed to senators and his own staff about the $1.6 billion the Senate is planning to send him this fall, according to two people familiar with the meeting. Trump wants the full $25 billion upfront and doesn’t understand why Congress is going to supply him funds in a piecemeal fashion — even though that’s how the spending process typically works.”

”The president said at the meeting that if Congress doesn’t give him the resources he needs for border security, he will shut down the government in September, according to one of the people familiar with the meeting. He did not give a specific number, but has been fixated on getting the $25 billion in a lump sum.”

New York Times: “With a rift over migrants bringing German politics to a boil, the country’s feuding leaders scraped together a truce Monday on an issue that threatens to topple the fragile government. Then President Trump stepped in. ‘The people of Germany are turning against their leadership as migration is rocking the already tenuous Berlin coalition,’ Mr. Trump said on Twitter, before falsely claiming that crime in Germany had risen because of immigration.”

“The migrant issue is a political wildfire in Europe. It has breathed new life into populist movements from Hungary to Austria to Italy. In Italy, the newly formed government coalition rose to power in part by drawing on anger about migration. It introduced its immigration policy last week by turning away a boat carrying more than 600 migrants from Africa. These forces are making it harder for European centrists to hold onto power — and as his comments made clear Monday, Mr. Trump is not making it any easier for the United States’ longtime partners.”

“This is the United States of America. It isn’t Nazi Germany.”

— Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), in an interview on MSNBC, about the Trump administration’s policy of separating migrant children from their parents at the border.

The Economist: “American commentators both religious and secular have been digging deep into the Bible over the past week. They have been searching for answers to the claim by Jeff Sessions, the attorney-general, that a new practice of separating parents and children at the Mexican border is founded in holy writ.”

“People who really want to raise the stakes in this scriptural to-and-fro might consider turning to a verse in Matthew’s Gospel which warns of the dire consequences that may befall anybody who does spiritual harm to children.”

If anyone causes one of these little ones…to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

Financial Times: “Might some immigrants, desperate to cross the border, bring children with them as — to speak figuratively — ‘human shields’, hoping that the presence of minors will protect them from arrest? This is conceivable. But even then the innocence of the children would remain a stubborn fact. Either it is acceptable for the US government to use children as leverage to further its policy goals, or it is not.”

“Mr Trump and his inner circle have suggested that the separation of families at the border might be stopped if Congress acted on new immigration laws. But neither of the bills currently before Congress address the issue directly. And even if they did, the moral proposition would be the same: Mr Trump is using children for political leverage.”

Washington Post: “This is what happens inside children when they are forcibly separated from their parents.”

“Their heart rate goes up. Their body releases a flood of stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. Those stress hormones can start killing off dendrites — the little branches in brain cells that transmit mes­sages. In time, the stress can start killing off neurons and — especially in young children — wreaking dramatic and long-term damage, both psychologically and to the physical structure of the brain.”

Said Harvard Medical School professor Charles Nelson: “The effect is catastrophic. There’s so much research on this that if people paid attention at all to the science, they would never do this.”

ProPublica has obtained audio from inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility, in which children can be heard wailing as an agent jokes, “We have an orchestra here.”

A new Quinnipiac poll finds that American voters oppose the policy of separating children and parents when families illegally cross the border into America by a wide margin, 66% to 27%.

However, Republican voters support the separation policy 55% to 35%, the only listed party, gender, education, age or racial group to support it.

American voters also support 79% to 15% allowing immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children, so-called “Dreamers,” to remain and ultimately to apply for citizenship.

A new CNN poll finds 67% of Americans opposed the policy while just 28% approve.