They’re here
Thursday, Jun 21, 2018 - Posted by Rich Miller
Posted by Barton Lorimor
* It feels like just yesterday we were talking about what will happen when migrant children separated from their families at the Mexico-U.S. border arrive in Illinois. And whaddya know…
More from the Sun-Times through a partnership with Report for America…
In a statement, Heartland Alliance confirmed that it has “recently” provided “safe shelter and care for” children who have been separated from their families at the border in recent months. The statement goes on to read that Heartland Alliance’s “first priority is the safety and welfare of the children” in their care. Part of that mission involves “keeping their identities and details of their circumstances confidential.”
Heartland Alliance has not provided the total number of children separated from their families at the border currently held in its facilities.
Unaccompanied child migrants must stay in shelter care until they are released to an approved sponsor, such as a relative or family friend. According to Heartland Alliance, children remain in their custody for an average of 34 days and are almost always placed with a close family member.
I’m hoping to get a call back from Heartland’s media spokesperson to have more information. For that matter, I’m still waiting to hear back from the Governor and state agencies on what services they foresee being able to offer these children.
From the DGA…
“It’s been two days – has Bruce Rauner given any thought to deploying the Illinois’ National Guard on the border?” said DGA Illinois Communications Director Sam Salustro. “Rauner has done everything he can to avoid criticizing President Trump instead of fighting for Illinois families. Will Rauner finally take action or will his failed leadership continue?”
* Ounce of Prevention, of which the First Lady is President, took to the Twitter waves yesterday to express its concern over the child separation policy…
The letter, dated June 7, is addressed to DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, and is signed by hundreds of national and state organizations. Ounce is one of them. Responses are directed to the policy director at the National Defense Fund. It called on the administration to abandon its child separation policy. As far as we know, that’s as far as the Governor has gone as well, for all we know.
…adding…This. is not. going. away.
Related…
* Chicago activists decry Trump move that will keep families together but still in detention: “Make no mistake: the President is doubling down on his ‘zero tolerance’ policy,” Durbin said in a statement Wednesday. “His new Executive Order criminalizes asylum-seekers and seeks to indefinitely detain their children. Locking up whole families is no solution at all — the Trump Administration must reverse its policy of prosecuting vulnerable people fleeing three of the most dangerous countries on earth, who are attempting to seek safe haven in America.”
* Kadner: Stand up to people who would make us jailers of children
* Border Crossings Have Been Declining for Years, Despite Claims of a ‘Crisis of Illegal Immigration’
- VanillaMan - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 10:34 am:
They have always been here. We don’t incarcerate families. Children with incarcerated parents have always been separated from them by organizations that try to find a place for them while justice is metered out. This has always been the case.
This has been a border problem for years and years. It was worse in 2014 when Obama was president and the GOP was trying to get this problem highlighted to force Obama to enforce Federal immigration laws.
The concerned activists don’t want children separated, or families incarcerated together. Fine. Enforce the border and we’ll solve both problems.
- Anonymous - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 10:36 am:
How many people can we take? I thought our social services for American citizens were in danger.
- Saluki - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 10:38 am:
Standing Ovation VanillaMan
- Grandson of Man - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 10:41 am:
According to the NYT article linked here and other info, border crossings have been declining. Also, Obama didn’t separate families anywhere near like this and decided against it, as policy.
What Trump did is so pointless and harmful (just like Rauner), and people who try to jam Jesus Christ and the National Anthem in people’s faces support this. Such hypocrisy.
- Occam - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 10:47 am:
==Kadner: Stand up to people who would make us jailers of children==
So, that would be the parents of the children?
- wordslinger - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 10:49 am:
VMan and Saluki, Sessions and Miller would disagree with you that family separation wasn’t a new policy. They’ve been quite vocal in that it was.
But in case the two of you need more contradictory and discredited blabbering points to soothe your consciences, here’s a handy list of how the Trumpistas have spun in it recent days.
14, count them 14. All on the record. Collect them all.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/06/20/the-trump-administration-changed-its-story-on-family-separation-no-fewer-than-14-times-before-ending-the-policy/?utm_term=.067a9714deee
- m - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 10:51 am:
=What Trump did is so pointless and harmful (just like Rauner), and people who try to jam Jesus Christ and the National Anthem in people’s faces support this. Such hypocrisy. =
So what’s the solution? Enforce the border? Don’t enforce the border and open it up?
- VanillaMan - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 10:54 am:
==Obama didn’t separate families anywhere near like this and decided against it, as policy.==
Go ahead and grasp at those hair splits, but evidense clearly shows that this problem was even worse while Obama was in office.
No one wants this to happen, but politics and our journalists wants us to play favorites.
I’ve lived overseas as an immigrant student. Nowhere on Earth is there any country with the kind of childish whinings I’ve been forced to hear all week over this. Every country enforces their borders.
- Lester Holt’s Mustache - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:01 am:
VanillaMan translator results:
“Stop trying to make me teary-eyed over small children in cages”
- VanillaMan - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:01 am:
==people who try to jam Jesus Christ and the National Anthem in people’s faces support this. Such hypocrisy. ==
No one did that, until you have, haven’t you?
What did you call them?
- DuPage Saint - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:02 am:
According to a recent Newsweek article that relied on Mother Jones(not exactly a right wing magazine) there were many more children separated and held in detention by the Obama Administration than by Trump’s. Many women going to IDOC have children placed with DCFS. Children often suffer for the decisions of a parent. Sad but true
- Ike - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:02 am:
M - you can enforce the border and not separate families and send their children to foster home/holding facilities. This show not be a hard concept to understand.
- Grandson of Man - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:02 am:
“So what’s the solution? Enforce the border? Don’t enforce the border and open it up?”
Something that doesn’t involve this kind of separation of families, and a president who doesn’t stoke fear and resentment. Trump said illegal immigrants infest this county—like vermin, among so many other things, like not wanting black and brown immigrants from [expletive] countries. How very Christian.
- wondering - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:02 am:
If the countries that these people are fleeing cannot stop the violence and abuse, the U.S., on humanitarian grounds, should invade and take over. It is the only ethical choice.
- 47th Ward - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:03 am:
===but evidense clearly shows that this problem was even worse while Obama was in office.===
I will patiently wait while you find a citation for that. Also, the 2014 crisis was characterized by unaccompanied minors. So there were no parents present to separate the children from.
What Trump chose to do, that Obama and other Presidents did not, is to prosecute each and every attempted illegal border crossing and to hell with the consequences.
But please, VanillaMan, enlighten me with your knowledge.
- VanillaMan - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:04 am:
We complained about this years and years ago.
Welcome. I guess you just had to get Obama out of office for you to finally address it.
Now fix it by enforcing our borders.
- Depressed in DuPage - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:04 am:
According to the HHS website, 105 children have been released to sponsors in Cook County and 69 in DuPage in FFY2018 through the end of April. So this would not include the most recently separated children. See: https://www.acf.hhs.gov/orr/resource/unaccompanied-alien-children-released-to-sponsors-by-county.
- Oswego Willy - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:04 am:
That Diana Rauner and her business decisions…
Here’s where this starts and ends on recent events;
This was a policy by the Trump Administration to separate children from parents. It was not a law. It needed no congressional action to reverse it. As a policy, the president was able to reverse himself at any time, but chose, for weeks l, to mislead purposely on this pesky fact.
Who dies Secretary Neilsen see about gaining her own credibility back, crediblity given freely to keep families purposely apart. This is snark, of course, because once you choose to say things from the podium at the White House you know is provably false, that stain is on you. Ask Spicey, ask Sarah Sanders.
So, those now so willing to “move on” from this episode abd now want “what would you suggest”, remember, this current administration tried to tell America a complete falsehood that the president’s signature to a phony order not needed, completely refuted.
America is better than this. The “signature to stop it” is the shame those are trying to clean up from doing the wrong.
Once we all realize these truths, let’s talk about doing what’s right. For our borders, for those seeking asylum, let’s be the country we know we are, and not succumb to hated and vile racism and xenophobia.
- wordslinger - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:04 am:
–So what’s the solution? Enforce the border? Don’t enforce the border and open it up?–
Such a heavy lift, strawman-maker.
Enforce the border and keep families together through due process and adjudication.
You realize the Trump crew is on record as that the new policy of family separation was meant to deter new asylum seekers, correct? Or do you just not want to see that for some reason?
- Return to Sender - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:05 am:
===Every country enforces their borders.===
I think a more complete sentence is: Every country enforces their borders against black and brown immigrants. Have you ever driven from one European country to the next? Have you ever driven between the U.S. and Canada? All fairly easy. White people don’t scare white people.
- Crispy - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:11 am:
VMan: the “evidense” shows that border crossing attempts were higher during the Obama administration due to a variety of factors, with an influx of unaccompanied minors. The “evidense” also shows that the Obama administration did not pursue a deliberate policy of family separation, and attempted to reunite families and keep them together. They also tried to keep decent records so this was possible.
All that is out the window with the current administration and its deliberate, explicit policy of ripping children from their parents—and then losing track of them—in an effort to discourage migration. It’s a feature now, not a bug. And let’s not even get into the new policy of choosing to treat asylum-seekers as criminals, in violation of international law and basic human decency. This is new.
- NeverPoliticallyCorrect - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:11 am:
Perhaps what we need to do is ignore the strident voices that see this situation in simplistic terms. We want to live up to our ideals as a nation but we also have an obligation to ensure we can accommodate the influx of people who want to come here. How about elected officials who will be willing to craft a fair and clear immigration policy? Yeah, I know, we might as well ask pigs to fly.
- Anon221 - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:14 am:
Is Rauner quietly “thinking” now??? Or maybe he’s just too busy “communicating” with the White House. /S
The use of children as a weapon in Trump’s and his supporters war on immigration issues, simply amoral. Regardless of how you feel and who you blame for this catastrophe, we should all be able to unite against this weaponization of babies, toddlers, the disabled, the ill, the poor. Don’t try and reason it away or blame the parents for trying to save their children’s lives. In their place, what would you do?
It’s going to take a multinational effort to allay the root causes of this migration, and all the trade wars and border walls and wrapping ourselves around the US flag will not solve them.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/nation/no-clear-plan-yet-on-how-to-reunite-parents-with-children
- Lester Holt’s Mustache - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:14 am:
==So what’s the solution?==
Just a suggestion, but maybe the government can stop actively going out of their way to be callous jack-arses so they can pretend to look tough for Fox News addicted septuagenarian GOP primary voters. Then stop guys like Scott Pruitt from spending our tax money on $40K private phone booths and private jets and security people to acquire fancy hand lotion for him. Use that saved money to hire more judges and lawyers to quickly adjudicate these cases at the border so we can figure out who actually needs asylum and who doesn’t.
It’s not an either-or proposition.
- Stoph - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:19 am:
LoL, love it. It’s funny how these people keep throwing Obama’s name around when it benefits their actions. Is everything Obama did ok or just certain policies? Seems to me Trump has been trying to reverse everything Obama did so why would he not only continue but magnify the separation of these families? And why are you defending Obama for doing it? BTW Trump is president now not Obama.
- VanillaMan - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:29 am:
== Trump has been trying to reverse everything Obama did==
He did.
Yesterday.
You’re happy now, right?
- Pundent - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:30 am:
= We want to live up to our ideals as a nation but we also have an obligation to ensure we can accommodate the influx of people who want to come here.=
I agree and would also add that we need to have an honest discussion based on facts. Net immigration from Mexico has been down for years. The governments own data shows that. More people are going back than coming in. So why exactly does the President feel a need to build a wall?
- Oswego Willy - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:30 am:
Now, for the second time….
Trump reversed himself. Trump reversed his own policy.
- wordslinger - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:33 am:
–Some of the children separated at the boarder have been sent to shelters run by non- profits in Chicago. However, the government refuses to say how many.–
Be fair. Why should the American public get any information as to the whereabouts of the children when the parents do not?
And the government, when appearing at detention hearings before federal judges, often do not know where the children have been taken.
Parents don’t even get a receipt when their children are taken from them, as noted by a Texas federal judge:
–I can’t understand this, the judge said. If someone at the jail takes your wallet, they give you a receipt. They take your kids, and you get nothing? Not even a slip of paper?–
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/families-will-no-longer-be-separated-at-the-border-but-where-are-my-clients-kids/2018/06/20/9d9e59a0-74b6-11e8-805c-4b67019fcfe4_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.b6b729207ffd
- Anonymous - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:35 am:
I can’t imagine parents gambling with their children’s safety this way.
- Lester Holt’s Mustache - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:35 am:
Hypocrisy is screaming from the rooftops about what a danger MS-13 is in our country, then throwing out people who are actively trying to run away from them. But we’ll be happy to keep their kids in our Heartland Alliance and Southwest Key facilities, creating a generation of immigrant orphans that we’ll have to pay to help raise. Fabulous idea
- Anonymous - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:39 am:
What’s it like living overseas as an ‘immigrant student?’ Is it like college study abroad?
Or were you just a plucky young Vanilla-man deciding to be a ’student of the world?’
- Barton Lorimor - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:41 am:
= I can’t imagine parents gambling with their children’s safety this way. =
That assumes they are not “gambling with their safety” by staying.
- Oswego Willy - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:44 am:
===That assumes they are not “gambling with their safety” by staying.===
Been said many times about this issue…
“How bad it must be on the land to send your children across the water.”
That’s the struggles some face when choosing to flee.
- Demoralized - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:45 am:
==Enforce the border==
There is reason you can’t enforce the law and keep families together. Yes, we need to figure things out but in the interim we can house them together.
==Children with incarcerated parents have always been separated==
This is an absolutely ridiculous comparison. Not even remotely close to the same situation.
- Stoph - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:47 am:
Yes, I am. It was a bad policy regardless of whom or when it was created. You and others are attempting to use Obama as a crutch for something you believe in. Why?
So you can deflect the blame from yourself if it goes wrong.
- Demoralized - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:47 am:
==childish whinings==
Really?
I can’t believe the number of people out there who aren’t outraged by this.
I have serious doubts about the morality of some of you.
- Demoralized - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:48 am:
==You and others are attempting to use Obama==
They are apologists who are trying to justify something that isn’t defensible by throwing out a dog whistle argument.
- wordslinger - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:58 am:
== Trump has been trying to reverse everything Obama did==
He did.
Yesterday.
You’re happy now, right?–
None so blind, VMan.
Stephen Miller would probably be cross that you’re giving “credit” to others for the policy change he pushed.
He seems quite proud of it here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/16/us/politics/family-separation-trump.html
- JackD - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 12:13 pm:
I wonder why there isn’t a serious effort to stanch the flow of Irish, Polish, Italian and other illegal residents.
- dbk - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 12:21 pm:
One point about that EO: crossing the border illegally moves from a misdemeanor to a felony. That’s big.
Also: the legal crossings are mostly closed down, I assume to compel people to try to cross illegally.
Also: The admin doesn’t have enough immigration lawyers/judges at the border (they have to double the number pronto), so they’re “drafting” JAG lawyers - who aren’t specialists in immigration, obviously.
Also: children already separated from their parents through this date will not be re-united.
The earlier admin was dealing with unaccompanied minors. This admin used a different tactic: separate accompanied children from their parents and then re-christen them “unaccompanied.”
That’s a pretty significant difference, isn’t it?
So, one process for those who crossed the border up to the signing; another for those who cross it after.
- Honeybear - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 12:22 pm:
There’s also an economic motivator here.
Locking up a kid 600$ a day.
Ankle bracelet 15$
Private detention facilities
Are making out like bandits
That’s why 45 met with them at Mar a lago
Pre-policy convo
Only Privileged curmudgeons like vanillaman
think this about law and order.
Talk about whining.
Incessant whining about “infestations” of “vermin”
“Drug dealers”, “ms-13″ and “animals”
Crossing our borders
No no no no no no no
They are human beings
They have inherent worth and dignity
We can afford them this
And give them due process.
Yes it’s a mess
Yes we don’t have resources allotted
So let’s apply ourselves and fix it
The right needs to stop the
Perfidy
Malum in se
Gaslighting
And lies
- yinn - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 12:22 pm:
Geez, I thought VMan was pro-life. My mistake.
- Lester Holt’s Mustache - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 12:28 pm:
==So why exactly does the President feel a need to build a wall?==
Because it’s free? I mean, he did make repeated promises to people like VMan and his other supporters that Mexico was going to pay for the wall. Surely these supporters, true fiscal conservatives who always vote for the best stewards of American taxpayer dollars, would be very angry at trump if he was just lying to them this whole time - right?
- wordslinger - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 12:38 pm:
–I can’t imagine parents gambling with their children’s safety this way.–
Yeah, talk about getting your kicks, that jaunty walk from your murderous hometown through the equally murderous predatory cartels of El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico, just to go to “summer camp.”
They should’ve just gone to Chuck E Cheese instead, amirite?
- Grandson of Man - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 12:46 pm:
Trump, just like Rauner, had his hostage-taking backfire. He used the most vulnerable people as hostages for the border wall. Mexico will pay for the wall, according to Trump, but he’s damaging and humiliating people to force us to pay for his lie.
Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico, has a succinct and powerful response to paying for the wall, with which I agree.
This is an ugly time in our history, with Trump and his supporters—praising murderous dictators, slurring dark-skinned immigrants, giving equal footing to white supremacists, waging economic battles with allies, attacking the media, slashing taxes on the rich and environmental regulations, etc.
- Anonymous - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 1:07 pm:
Trump has one real constituency, whom he adores: himself. He knows very little about policy, and even less about ‘caring’.
‘Is it good for ME, or not?’ Is his singular interest, and he acts accordingly. That may include reversing himself several times as things change, but ‘who cares?’ He changed his position on separation when the tide seemed to be turning bigly. “ME today, ME tomorrow, ME FOREVER”. ‘God, I love me”.
- Annoyance - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 1:28 pm:
Under this Administration 4,645 Puerto Rican Americans died and silence, signed EO to stop the deportation process for Haitian, El Salvadoran, Guatemalans, reverses DACA ( ever meet one they can’t even speak Spanish), started a Moslem ban, zero tolerance, Calls only people of color breeders, rapist, criminals, animals, SH nations, invaders, and uneducated takers. Common theme color so for those who defend the Administration ask yourself why and how do you justify it given the Nation of Immigrants” history.
- Anonymous - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 2:02 pm:
Immigrants who abided by the laws, waited their turn,despite the danger they faced probably find it pretty tough to understand the alternative way of crashing the border.
- Rich Miller - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 2:08 pm:
I simply do not understand people who would defend this policy or try to deflect blame from the people who implemented it. And now even the President has backed off: “I’m directing HHS, DHS and DOJ to work together to keep illegal immigrant families together during the immigration process and reunite these previously separated groups.”
Also: “Border Patrol will stop referring migrant parents who cross into the U.S. illegally with children for prosecution”
Y’all currently have zero legs to stand on. Learn from this.
- Annoyance - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 2:10 pm:
Immigrants who abide by the law; like the DACA kids, Hondurans here for over 12 years not given the option, Haitians? those laws are an ever changing target. Somehow marriage no longer counts, deportation if you started the process but the courts can’t meet the demand. People use laws when it’s available.
- Rod - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 3:00 pm:
The reality of the situation of Heartland Alliance in relationship to providing housing and support for the children taken at the border and separated from their parents should not be lost on the readers of this blog. The Alliance had a federal contract relating to helping children who entered the country as unaccompanied minors. The Trump administration used this preexisting contract to place the children forcibly removed from their parents with the Heartland Alliance. The Alliance also runs the National Immigrant Justice Center which provides free legal representation to asylum seekers fleeing persecution in their homelands.
Effectively these service providers were put in a quandary by the Trump administration and did not seek out these children in order to make money. The same thing applies to other service providers around the country. About 70% of Heartland’s budget comes from grants and contracts so they are highly dependent on these types of contracts. I am sure the Alliance is doing the best it can to support these distraught children at this time. I whish the Sun Times had explained some of this to its readers.
- Rich Miller - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 4:23 pm:
===I can’t imagine parents gambling with their children’s safety this way===
They are asylum seekers, you doofus. They are trying to escape hell on earth. And they were being locked up and their children taken away over a simple misdemeanor charge.
- Mama - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 4:37 pm:
What is missing is the Immigrants stories. Such as: Why did they come to the USA?
Is there any way the media can get the Immigrants’ stories so they can enlighten the public? We are only getting one side of the story - what the US government wants us to know. That needs to change.
- Mama - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 4:39 pm:
Is it legal in this country to take a child away from his/her parent, and not return them after they serve their time?
- Mama - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 4:43 pm:
Are the children whom are separated from their parents become legal citizens of the USA? Are they adopted by Americans?
- Da Big Bad Wolf - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 10:33 pm:
In 20 years the children become our nation’s Rohinga, stateless, ostracized, vilified people. Who have been emotionally traumatized. Unless..
- Anonymous - Thursday, Jun 21, 18 @ 11:29 pm:
None of these heartless Jack Offs have ever had to run away from violence beyond their most horrific nightmares. # EasyToBeHard