{"id":9863,"date":"2018-06-18T15:41:20","date_gmt":"2018-06-18T21:41:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=9863"},"modified":"2018-06-18T18:01:30","modified_gmt":"2018-06-19T00:01:30","slug":"kids-cages-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2018\/06\/kids-cages-part-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Kids, Cages, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/p>\n

No, I am not a proponent of unnecessarily separating children from their parents.<\/p>\n

At the same time, those who claim this is just as bad as what the Nazis did, because they \u201ctook children for baths,\u201d are showing either profound ignorance or indifference to the truth in the way in which they trivialize the Holocaust \u2014 there is a difference between separating children and parents, and murdering one or the other.<\/p>\n

And I am further not happy with the additional dishonesty that\u2019s going on here, when people act as if there\u2019s a simple solution, a reasonable and appropriate status quo ante<\/em>.<\/p>\n

After all, the status quo ante<\/em> was the handing-out of court dates at some distant point in the future, whenever would-be immigrants arrived with children in tow.\u00a0 The numbers of individuals claiming fear of persecution has escalated to the point where it\u2019s believed they\u2019re being coached in saying so-called \u201cmagic words\u201d to pass a credible fear interview.\u00a0 \u00a0(Here\u2019s some background from the Washington Post<\/a>, which gives Jeff Sessions three Pinnochios for saying that immigration lawyers were coaching claimants, but concedes that others such as coyotes may be doing so.)\u00a0 Reportedly, substantial numbers of asylum-claimants simply don\u2019t show up for further\u00a0hearings because they are aware that they won\u2019t succeed in their claims and are better off simply living their lives with false IDs or working under the table.<\/p>\n

Alternatively, we\u2019re told that we should simply welcome such people into the United States, taking it on faith that whatever hardships they\u2019ve experienced mean that they are deserving of legal residency.\u00a0 Folks, the hard truth is that if we granted legal residency to everyone with a story of hardship, our country would be overwhelmed with the number of immigrants we\u2019d have.\u00a0 We simply can\u2019t make this our determinant, however much we may have had open borders in the 1800s, in a time when greenhorn immigrants, mom, dad, and kids, would find a job in the nearest sweatshop.<\/p>\n

Could we just allow families to stay in family shelters until it\u2019s their turn to have their case processed?\u00a0 Not according to the Flores settlement<\/a>, which was what produced the practice of so-called \u201ccatch and release\u201d in the first place.\u00a0 Could we switch to ankle monitors?\u00a0 They\u2019re the subject of complaints as well, e.g., at the Texas Observer<\/a>, and at the same time, they are no sure guarantee.\u00a0 Why not just trust that they\u2019ll return?\u00a0 Because in our immigration system, the ease with which immigrants can get false IDs or work under the table, means that they have essentially no reason to continue cooperating if they have reason to believe their case won\u2019t be decided in their favor.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a paragraph from a Federalist article<\/a> from a couple months ago, before the SHTF:<\/p>\n

Technically, all these families are seeking asylum, and because they\u2019re family units travelling with minors, ICE releases them after a day or two with orders to appear at an asylum hearing in whatever part of the country they\u2019re trying to get to. (That\u2019s not the case in some sectors, where parents are reportedly separated from their children on purpose.) The adults are fitted with electronic ankle monitors, which will confine them to a 75-mile radius of wherever they tell ICE is their final destination. But once they get where they\u2019re going, most of them cut the thing off and throw it away. Many do not even bother showing up at their asylum hearings for the simple reason that they have no legitimate claims to asylum. Yes, they come from impoverished countries with a decaying social order. And yes, these places are violent. But most of these people simply come to the United States to work, and you don\u2019t get asylum for that.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What is the answer?\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s an undoing of the Flores settlement, so that family units stay together in detention\u00a0centers, with expedited asylum hearings (the process has switched to a \u201clast in first out\u201d approach<\/a> in order to try to speed the claims).\u00a0 Certainly it\u2019s a recognition that ordinary crime victims don\u2019t fall under asylum law, no matter the situation in their home countries.<\/p>\n

But the bigger challenge is our collective failure to prevent the use of false IDs or working under the table, which simply makes it far too routine for immigrants to stay without any real fear of consequences.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s the fact that there are too many politicians and pundits and activists and journalists who are perfectly OK with illegal immigration as a de facto means of offering open borders to anyone who\u2019s willing to accept difficult working and living conditions for an unknown period of time.\u00a0 Sure, they\u2019ll complain that Walmart workers are paid little enough that single parents use food stamps, Medicaid, school lunches, etc., because Walmarts are kind of icky stores anyway and those workers are native-born Americans, but they\u2019re not particiularly interested in questioning how little their own landscape company or housecleaning service pays\u00a0its workers or how dependent they are on the forms of welfare that their U.S. born children are eligible for, nor are they willing to accept eating frozen produce instead of fresh arugula year-round harvested by workers whose praises they sing because they accept lousy working conditions where American workers would demand better.<\/p>\n

So, again, let\u2019s not separate families.\u00a0 But I\u2019d really like to hear of an alternative that\u2019s not simply opening our borders.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Image:\u00a0https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File%3A100203houston_lg.jpg; By U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), www.ice.gov. Please credit by saying \u201cPhoto Courtesy of ICE\u201d. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No, I am not a proponent of unnecessarily separating children from their parents. At the same time, those who claim this is just as bad as what the Nazis did, because they \u201ctook children for baths,\u201d are showing either profound ignorance or indifference to the truth in the way in which they trivialize the Holocaust […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":6036,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[463],"class_list":["post-9863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-illegal-immigration"],"yoast_head":"\nKids, Cages, Part 2<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"No, I am not a proponent of unnecessarily separating children from their parents. 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