They fail to appear in court in large numbers. 37% according to one immigration judge:
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/immigration/article144893699.html
As a general principle, we detain people who are flight risks.
That number is totally bogus. The actual government stats are between 14% and 1% depending on the program and population in question. The Trump Administration ended a program that had a 99% appearance rate. They should re-start it.
Hmm…
From another thread:
I’m skeptical of this whole thing too, but can we give it more than an hour before we declare it to have done nothing?
If the numbers aren’t so bad, then by all means return to catch and release. But step up enforcement on fugitives. There’s just no excuse for it and it should be punished severely just as if an American did it.
No. There is no need to wait given an explicit statement that the criminal cabal in chief has no intention of even attempting to undo the damage already done. From the first link:
The result is that someone is going to sue to stop it. I’m surprised that hasn’t happened already.
Trump will immediately blame the plaintiffs and court for wanting to separate children. This will take the heat off him in regards to Republicans. Democrats, probably not. Maybe gets appealed all the way to the SC.
I predict after the lawsuit blocks his EO, Trump will re-implement catch and release, unless congress enacts something, which I highly doubt. This is a winning issue for Democrats. They’re not going to agree to anything until after the mid-terms.
I’m “soft” on immigration, by which I mean that of all the illegal things that someone can do in this country, entering illegally is way at the bottom of the priority list. “Catch and release” is a term from fishing, and it’s gross to apply it to human beings. Folks whose life in their own country is so awful that they’re willing to leave it all behind to move here? I’d rather spend our resources helping them integrate into our society than imprisoning them and their children.
Part of integrating is obeying a court order to appear. Once they flout that it’s time to go.
I’m a bit unclear on the population in question, and I haven’t even bothered asking until now because the SDMB is so ate-up with emotional rants on the subject and light on facts lately that it seemed futile, but maybe I’ll have more luck with you today:
Isn’t it the case that (some/many of) the people who have been separated from their children are suspected of committing a crime and the government intends to prosecute them, and that’s why they’ve been detained?
Oh man, now you’re getting into tough stuff because the government can’t be trusted to tell the truth. They keep on changing their story on stuff like this.
One thing I do know is that many minors are actually unaccompanied and adults are claiming them as their own to avoid detention. I’m hoping that proof of guardianship is being required before people get to enter with kids. These are not stone age countries. Births are documented, adoptions are documented. If you want to bring your kids, you have to bring proof they are yours.
If that’s the narrative you wish to push, then I think it is up to you to provide the evidence.
My post amounts to asking RTFirefly for evidence to support his claim (that “these people are suspected of committing crimes” is an “untruth”).
Well they aren’t suspected, they crossed the border illegally. There is no outcome in court that results in them being allowed to stay short of a successful asylum claim. Guilty: they crossed illegally and have to go home. Innocent: they didn’t cross illegally, they still have to go home.
“The government”, as in a Democratic administration would be just as bad? No, it’s just Trump and his deplorables.
You *know *that? From what source?
Many, after being physically barred right at the border from entering at points where they could ask for asylum. Did you just not know that?
It’s way too early in the morning for me to try and parse this favorably. Don’t do this - don’t appear to accuse other posters of lying. Steer well clear of this.
[/moderating]
I believe this is your answer, unless (a) you’re going to accuse the high quality reportage of the New Yorker of being “ate-up with emotional rants on the subject”, or (b) you’re going to dredge up the circular argument that people who crossed the border illegally should be treated as criminals because they crossed the border illegally. Perhaps you’d be good enough to clarify just what you meant by “suspected of committing a crime”. Emphasis mine in the quote below:
[Trump] reversed course because he had no choice politically. Although he often adopts the rhetoric and body language of an authoritarian strongman, he’s an elected politician. And in the face of mass outrage, bipartisan opposition, and condemnation from church groups and other civil-society institutions, the child-separation policy was no longer sustainable.
But Trump didn’t reverse the policy of “zero tolerance” that his Administration introduced in May, which obliges immigration agents to arrest and detain anybody who crosses the border outside an official entry point. The Times reported that the new executive order was designed “to get around an existing 1997 consent decree, known as the Flores settlement, that prohibits the federal government from keeping children in immigration detention—even if they are with their parents—for more than 20 days.” If Trump gets his way, families stopped at the border will now be detained indefinitely under the custody of ICE. That is precisely the outcome that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit deemed illegal in a 2016 ruling about the Flores settlement.
It’s my understanding that crossing the border illegally / “outside an official entry point” is a crime (a misdemeanor, it seems). Do we agree on at least that much?
That’s a lovely Catch-22, isn’t it?
Hey, immigrants! We want you to immigrate! As part of that process, we’ve set up immigration standards for folks from your country that make it damn near impossible for you to immigrate legally. We’re stepping up deportation proceedings massively, too. And if you don’t appear at the court proceeding where you’ll most likely be deported, that’s a sure sign you don’t want to immigrate, which means it’s time for you to leave our country.
Yeah, can’t see how that contradicts what I said at all.
True, we do have a system that fails to meet demand for immigration from Latin America. But that’s a choice American voters make. We’ll take X number of people in, and that number must be diverse, rather than 90% from Latin America. That’s an issue to take up within the democratic system, not by having laws that aren’t enforced because they don’t match your policy desire to have an undiverse group of immigrants enter the country in larger numbers than American voters want.