Six on Immigration: U.S. moves to detain migrant children indefinitely; Pay or Die migrant; ‘Seriously’ Considering Ending Birthright Citizenship for Children of Illegal Immigrants; Meet the Lawyer Who Didn’t Want to Promise a Toothbrush to Migrant C
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If the United States wants to slow migration from Central America, that’s the swamp we must help drain. Instead, the Trump administration failed to protest when Guatemala kicked out the head of a United-Nations-sponsored anti-corruption mission last year and ordered it closed altogether this September. Its Honduran counterpart, the Mission in Support of the Fight Against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras, could get booted from the country when its mandate from the Organization of American States ends in January.
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The administration has slashed foreign aid to Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras to punish the countries for failing to do enough to stop the migrants. The Association for a More Just Society, the Honduran arm of Transparency International, which relies heavily on American support to fight corruption, has been told that the money will be spent only on drug enforcement and blocking migration. Barring any new resources, by January the group will have to cut its staff of 140 to 40.
This is especially frustrating because the fight against corruption in Honduras really revved up only four years ago, in response to enormous street protests by fed-up citizens called “indignados.” The investigations and revelations by anti-corruption groups that followed have actually driven up despair, by highlighting both how big the problem is and how few of the bad guys end up in jail."
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"Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Trump argued that it is “frankly ridiculous” that the U.S. affords citizenship to babies born to illegal immigrants who have just entered the country.
“We’re looking at that very seriously, birthright citizenship, where you have a baby on our land, you walk over the border, have a baby — congratulations, the baby is now a U.S. citizen,” he said.
The Wednesday comments represent the second instance in which Trump has publicly criticized birthright citizenship, particularly as it relates to recent illegal immigrants. Trump told Axios last year that he planned to issue an executive order curtailing birthright citizenship, but never followed through.
“We’re the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States … with all of those benefits,” Trump continued. “It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. And it has to end,” Trump told Axios in October 2018.
Any attempt to restrict birthright citizenship through an executive order would likely face stiff legal challenges and may ultimately require a Constitutional amendment — a point Trump disputed during the 2018 Axios interview."
"Ms. Fabian appeared before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, in a case about how the federal government is legally obligated to treat migrant children who are in custody. At the hearing, Ms. Fabian tried to parse the meaning of “safe and sanitary” conditions, the standard established by a settlement agreement that determines the government’s handling of migrant children who are being held in detention.
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“Well, I think it’s — I think those are — there’s fair reason to find that those things may be part of ‘safe and sanitary,’” Ms. Fabian replied.
“Not ‘may be,’” Judge Tashima said. “‘Are’ a part. Why do you say, ‘may be’? You mean there’s circumstances when a person doesn’t need to have a toothbrush, toothpaste and soap for days?”
“Well, I think, in C.B.P. custody, it’s frequently intended to be much shorter term,” Ms. Fabian replied, referring to the Customs and Border Protection agency. “So it may be that for a shorter-term stay in C.B.P. custody that some of those things may not be required.”
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“We know that, we have seen ICE lie about who it is when it knocks on the door, and we have seen ICE dress up as law enforcement or dress down as normal people.”
“ICE’s mission is to apprehend people that it believes shouldn’t be in our communities and it will go to great lengths to do that, particularly in the face of increased knowledge of rights, and willing to bend what we would accept as moral standards of transparency and respect to meet those ends,” said Laura Williamson, an organizer with Sanctuary DMV, a volunteer group in the Washington, D.C., area that runs a rapid response network for ICE raids and an accompaniment program for immigrants attending court hearings or immigration appointments. “We know that, we have seen ICE lie about who it is when it knocks on the door, and we have seen ICE dress up as law enforcement or dress down as normal people.”
Williamson added that the number of so-called collateral arrests — where others present are arrested alongside targeted individuals — has also ramped up. ICE arrested 18 people out of a target list of around 2,000 families earlier this month, along with 17 others who were not targets of the operation. At the same time, a heightened awareness among immigrants of their rights has foiled some of the agency’s arrest attempts."
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