The Trump Regime Wanted to Break up Immigrant Families

[Content Note: Nativism; abuse.]

I have said many times that at the center of Trump Regime policy, on any issue, is malice. Harm is ever the objective, because Donald Trump is a resolute believer in the idea that harming people is the most efficient and effective way to accomplish his goal to "Make America Great Again."

Immigration is a striking case in point. He uses lies about the dangers that undocumented migrant workers and asylum-seeking refugees pose to the citizenry, targeting them with dehumanizing and eliminationist language — and his regime enacts policy explicitly designed to do maximum damage to people arriving at or crossing the southern border without immigration papers.

There was no actual need for the Trump Regime's "zero tolerance" policy, and even less actual need to enforce it by separating children from their parents. But the policy was chosen and executed to maximize cruelty, as a "warning" to people escaping violence or life-threatening need, who have nowhere else to go.

As more information regarding how the "zero tolerance" policy was enforced becomes public, it becomes abundantly clear that malice was built in by design.

1. Noah Lanard at Mother Jones: New Data Shows How Trump Administration Prosecuted Migrant Parents with Children Instead of Adults Traveling Alone. "The Justice Department couldn't prosecute all unauthorized migrants, and federal officials needed to choose who to target. Newly released government data shows that the Trump administration prosecuted thousands of parents instead of prosecuting adults traveling without children. Those zero-tolerance prosecutions caused the family separation crisis by placing parents in the custody of the Justice Department and turning their children into 'unaccompanied' minors. ...Border Patrol agents apprehended more than 24,000 adults traveling without children who crossed the border in May, meaning that the Justice Department could have increased prosecutions for illegal entry without prosecuting any parents and separating families."

2. Tal Kopan at CNN: [CN: Video may autoplay at link] Justice Department: Use 'Illegal Aliens,' Not 'Undocumented'. "The Justice Department has instructed US attorneys offices not to use the term 'undocumented' immigrants and instead refer to someone illegally in the US as 'an illegal alien,' according to a copy of an agency-wide email obtained by CNN. ...'The word 'undocumented' is not based in US code and should not be used to describe someone's illegal presence in the country,' the email states."

The Department of Justice insists U.S. attorneys use the dehumanizing and othering language "illegal alien" to refer to undocumented immigrants. https://t.co/QtzP2QRbXW

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) July 26, 2018

3. Adolfo Flores at BuzzFeed News: Separated Parents Were "Totally Unaware" They Had Waived Their Right to Be Reunified with Their Children. "Immigrant parents who were separated from their children at the border told attorneys they were misinformed, coerced, or tricked into waiving their rights to be reunified with their kids. ...The declarations from attorneys working with detained parents who were separated from their kids describe people who don't speak English being pressured into signing documents; being forced to make a decision in a room full of dozens of people with only a few minutes to decide whether to leave their kids in the US; or incorrectly believing they were signing a form that would reunite them with their children."

4. Ted Hesson, Renuka Rayasam, and Dan Diamond at Politico: Most Deported Migrants Were Not Asked about Leaving Children Behind, Trump Official Says. "Homeland Security officials may have neglected to give a choice to as many as three-quarters of all migrant parents removed from the United States about leaving their children behind, contradicting repeated public assurances from Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. The Trump administration failed to document consent in most such cases, an administration official told POLITICO. ...The revelation threatens to delay reunifications and renews questions about the administration's original intent one day ahead of a court-ordered deadline to return most migrant children to their parents."

These are all stories from the last two days.

The Trump Regime wanted to break up immigrant families to send a message, and they found a way to do it. Malice was the point.

We must understand that this is the horrible reality with which we are faced and proceed accordingly. Appeals to decency will never be effective when resisting an administration with a comprehensive void of decency.