Should border-jumping parents be allowed to bring children to use as get-out-of-jail cards?
Democrats and RINOs want to manipulate Americans into saying "yes."
Posted on 06/18/2018 9:28:51 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers who had been trying to gain access to a holding center for undocumented immigrant children were given a tour Sunday starting with a Customs and Border Protection processing center in McAllen, Texas, as DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen declared in a rare tweetstorm that the kids aren't being separated from parents.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), calling the McAllen facility "the dog kennel," said he "witnessed loads of kids massed together in large pens of chain-linked fence separated from their moms and dads."
He and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) then went to the McAllen–Hidalgo–Reynosa International Bridge, where agents have reportedly refused entry to families showing up with asylum requests citing a lack of detention space, leaving migrants camping out on the border bridge with scant food and water.
The senators visited a detention facility for children 10 years and up in Brownsville. "I’m reflecting on how Sessions cited the Bible as justification for tearing children from their parents," Van Hollen tweeted, citing the attorney general's comments last week. "I dare Sessions to look these children in the eye and tell them that the Bible demands this cruelty."
The Maryland senator said officials wouldn't let the lawmakers talk to the children -- he saw about 100 in the facility -- and asked that he stop filming outside.
The lawmakers then visited the Port Isabel Detention Center, where Van Hollen said they "heard gut-wrenching testimony from 10 women who fled extreme violence in Honduras only to have their children taken away from them -- definitely one of the most emotional moments of the trip."
Also touring facilities Sunday were Reps. Filemon Vela (D-Texas), Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), David Cicilline (D-R.I.), and Mark Pocan (D-Wis.).
"When you have a mother tell you directly that she's in fear that she will never see her child again, and when the United Nations Human Rights Commission indicate to the Trump administration that you are violating human rights, then you know that what we are saying today is President Trump, cease and desist," Jackson Lee said.
Welch said he "saw chain link cages full of unaccompanied children; they sat on metal benches and stared straight ahead silently."
"I met a woman named Reina who was being extorted in Guatemala. She traveled 14 days with her 13 year old daughter and turned herself in at the border for asylum," Welch tweeted. "She hasn’t seen her daughter in two days and didn’t know where she was. No one had told her that her daughter had been taken to a shelter."
"I met a woman named Andrea who fled Guatemala when she was 8 months pregnant. She had defaulted on a loan, and an assassin was planning to stake out her delivery and kill her when she left the hospital. She gave birth on the journey from Guatemala to the border. But when she and her newborn daughter arrived, they were denied entry," he added.
DHS reported Friday that 1,995 minors traveling with 1,940 adults who said they were the children's guardians have been separated under the administration's zero-tolerance deterrence policy between April 19 through May 31 this year. More than 100 of those kids are under 4 years old.
White House adviser Stephen Miller, who pushed for the policy, told the New York Times that "no nation can have the policy that whole classes of people are immune from immigration law or enforcement."
“It was a simple decision by the administration to have a zero tolerance policy for illegal entry, period," Miller said. "The message is that no one is exempt from immigration law.”
The DHS secretary tweeted Sunday, "This misreporting by Members, press & advocacy groups must stop. It is irresponsible and unproductive. As I have said many times before, if you are seeking asylum for your family, there is no reason to break the law and illegally cross between ports of entry."
"You are not breaking the law by seeking asylum at a port of entry. We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period. For those seeking asylum at ports of entry, we have continued the policy from previous Administrations and will only separate if the child is in danger, there is no custodial relationship between 'family' members, or if the adult has broken a law," Nielsen continued. "DHS takes very seriously its duty to protect minors in our temporary custody from gangs, traffickers, criminals and abuse."
Welch responded to Nielsen's tweet denying family separation: "You can’t be serious. I just arrived with @SenJeffMerkley at Casa Padre in Brownsville. 1500 boys here. Earlier we saw children in chain link cages. Alone. Not a parent in sight. Shameful."
"How do we know you are lying Sec Nielsen? Because Stephen Miller pushed for the policy change & AG Sessions gleefully announced it," tweeted Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.). "Also, 2000 kids didn't voluntarily decide to leave their parents. You forced the separation. Get it?"
Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani told CBS on Sunday that "the administration is doing something not terribly dissimilar to what Bush and what Obama were forced to do, because Congress wouldn't act."
"Now, maybe this administration is doing it more thoroughly," Giuliani said. "I don't like to see, and I know President Trump doesn't like to see, children taken away from their parents. I also don't like to see America victimized by a lot of people who are doing it for pure manipulation to get bad people here."
‘Why didn’t you care THEN?!’ Brandon Darby DECIMATES the Left’s border family boohooing in one EPIC pic-thread
The floors are clean.
The biggest loser in this caged children story is Stormy Daniels.
I’d bet that most of these children were separated from their parents— and put into the custody of coyotes— months ago, when they began this invasion of America.
The truth is powerful stuff - the media won't report the truth.
You're welcome!
Stepping in what?
And the creepy porn lawyer, who is fast studying up on immigration law.
I am so angry with the over the top lies by Democrats I hope people are not falling for this garbage don’t come here illegally And you won’t have any problem and if you can’t be processed through the system what kind of person are you that we should want you here I certainly do not.
What are you talking about Trump is stepping in it. How exactly is he doing that/
Should border-jumping parents be allowed to bring children to use as get-out-of-jail cards?
Democrats and RINOs want to manipulate Americans into saying "yes."
It’s a hell of a lot better than the shithole they came from.
And remember kids if you ever consider voting Republican, the democrats will throw you back in that cage so fast your heads will spin. And no media will be reporting it.
I am not sure if those crossing the border illegally even UNDERSTAND the sign written in English.
Interesting picture. Note that the camera angle is very carefully chosen so as NOT to show the open gate to the rear of the “cage” or the desks, chairs, and computer equipment to the right. This is obviously the queue area for in-processing, and has nothing to do with actual detention.
Thanks for the info/chronology.
5.56mm
Goebbels was a piker compared to our MSM.
The Faux outrage of the left-
Kids are ‘torn away’ from their LEGAL citizen parents every day in America yet the left aren’t crying about them- Nope- they just cry about ILLEGALS who break the law and have their kids removed from them temporarily while processing takes place-
LEGAL citizens in the US lose custody of their children every single day- their children are ‘ripped away’ from them every day- 1000’s and 1000’s of kids- Yet dems are silent on that- Why? Because courts have a ‘legal right’ to remove kids from parents who commit crimes, are unfit parents, or who abandon them or abuse them-
ILLEGAL citizens are BREAKING THE LAW- and they know damn well they will be separated from the kids when they do so- but they DO NOT CARE about their children. IF they did, they would go through LEGAL procedures to become citizens of this great nation of Ours!
I say put the kids to work in sweat shops- make good use of their time here in the states illegally. The left will love that idea-
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