During a Tuesday call hosted by DHS and HHS, some major revelations about the Trump administration’s border separations came to light, including that the departments have no current plan to expand detention facilities or shelters in the belief that the “zero tolerance” policy will deter immigrants from making the journey.
“We expect that the new policy will result in a deterrence effect and we certainly hope parents stop bringing kids on this dangerous journey,” HHS spokesman Steve Wagner said.
According to CNN, the policy has not worked to deter immigrants from coming, as there has been a 5 percent uptick in those caught crossing the border since April, including an increase of unaccompanied children.
Pertaining to the lone children, Wagner revealed that he does not have statistics on how many children have been reunited with their parents or placed with sponsors.
“I don’t know how many separated kids have been placed with sponsors or reunited with their parents,” Wagner said. “I could look into it, this policy is relatively new, and we are still working through the experience of reuniting kids with their parents after adjudication.”
Many of the unaccompanied children are only classified as such after they get to the U.S. — if they did not enter the country at a point of entry, children are reclassified as “unaccompanied alien children” even if they came over the border with their parents.
“When a family comes into custody and if we’re going to prosecute, that is when we create unaccompanied alien children,” said a border patrol spokesperson who did not announce his name.
Finally, and perhaps most worryingly, there is no policy about what border patrol is supposed to do with very young children when they are first taken into custody apart from their parents, before they are transferred into the care of HHS.
“Discretion is given to field chiefs for application referrals for sensitive cases, and that includes adults with tender-aged children,” said Chief Patrol Agent Brian Hastings. “The chiefs can make a discretionary call.”
He said that border patrol usually considers “tender-aged” or “tender-headed” children as those under five years old.
MAYBE YOU SHOULD
MAYBE A PROCESS YOU SHOULD HAVE FIGURED OUT BEFORE ABDUCTING CHILDREN IN THE NAME OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Oh, great, we’re gonna continue kidnapping them and now we’re going to shove more in every cage and hope that the Orange Monster will come up with another whopper to distract people while we’re stacking babies like cordwood.
I feel much better now.
And maybe a state department that could work with Central American countries to try to ease their internal problems which we have created with our war on drugs and deporting gangs to those countries. Oh sorry. Wrong administration. Nevermind.
No plans for new detention facilities. Because they assume deterrence will kick in.
The government is so good at estimating things.
Even though I agree with the goal, it’s obvious that like most actions undertaken by the Asshole-elect’s administration, there has been little or nothing done in the area of planning or execution. Sad.