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Editor's note: We couldn’t be more proud of one of our teammates, Isaac Rose-Berman, who penned his first op-ed this week in USA Today: “How college students can bridge American divides: 'Study abroad' in Alabama or New York.” Please give it a read, and share far and wide!
Last Tuesday, a video went viral of a DOJ lawyer telling a court that “a longstanding settlement agreement requiring sanitary conditions for detained immigrant children may not necessarily mean a toothbrush and soap must be provided for shorter stays.” The hearing involved an appeal from a 2017 ruling relating to treatment under the previous administration. AP News
On Saturday, “President Donald Trump… delayed a nationwide immigration sweep to deport people living the United States illegally… saying he would give lawmakers two weeks to work out solutions for the southern border.” AP News
Leaders in the House and Senate are currently working on similar but distinct bills to provide approximately $4.5 billion in emergency spending for the border. Roll Call
The left opposes increased deportations, and condemns the mistreatment of migrants in custody.
“Undocumented or not, rousing a family out of bed at 6 a.m. to abruptly end their lives in the U.S. seems heartless. We don’t do that in America, or at least we shouldn’t… Before we’re called naive, we are not saying that undocumented criminal immigrants shouldn’t be removed. They are a public menace and should be deported. Yes, go after criminals. And yes, people should not have overstayed their tourist visas, which a fair amount of the undocumented have done. But the round up is a Gestapo tactic unworthy of us… Let’s hope [Trump’s] correction is a return to some sanity and a show of compassion.”
Editorial Board, Miami Herald
Regarding migrant detention centers, “Trump essentially dismissed the plight of migrant children while speaking with Chuck Todd on Meet the Press. ‘This has been happening long before I got there,’ the president said when pressed about the conditions. ‘We’ve ended [family] separation. Under President Obama, you had separation. I was the one who ended it.’ ‘We’re doing a fantastic job, under the circumstances,’ he added. None of this is true. Families attempting to cross the border under President Obama were separated only in rare circumstances, such as when there was concern for the safety of the child, or when the adult could not be confirmed to be the child’s parent…
“Though Trump signed an executive order to suspend his own administration’s zero-tolerance policy, children are still being separated from their parents if authorities deem the parent poses a risk to the child. Such separations are on the rise, often for reasons as petty as the parent having a traffic violation on their record.”
Ryan Bort, Rolling Stone
“US Border Patrol is holding many children, including some who are much too young to take care of themselves, in jail-like border facilities for weeks at a time without contact with family members, regular access to showers, clean clothes, toothbrushes, or proper beds. Many are sick. Many, including children as young as 2 or 3, have been separated from adult caretakers without any provisions for their care… The Trump administration wants more money to build more child detention centers to hold even more children… But that ask glosses over the fact that more children are in immigration custody because over the last several years the government has slowed down the rate at which children are reunified with their families…
“Based on our interviews, officials at the border seem to be making no effort to release children to caregivers-- many have parents in the US -- rather than holding them for weeks in overcrowded cells at the border… Congress should take action -- not by approving more money for detention -- but by requiring immigration agencies to cease separating children from family members unless that's in the interest of the child, release and reunify children as soon as possible and cease using them as bait to arrest family members.”
Clara Long and Nicole Austin-Hillery, CNN
Some point out that “The government’s ‘safe and sanitary’ argument did not arise from a new case generated by Trump-administration policies. It arose in 1985, during the Reagan administration, when a 15-year-old Salvadoran child named Jenny Lisette Flores was detained after entering the United States illegally, hoping to escape her country’s vicious civil war. Flores spent two months at a facility in California, confined with adult strangers in poor conditions and strip-searched regularly…
“It is right and fit to condemn the Trump administration for its argument and its treatment of children. But… this administration is merely the latest one to subject immigrant children to abusive conditions. It’s been 35 years since Jenny Flores was strip-searched in an adult facility. Before Sarah Fabian defended concrete floors and bright lights for President Donald Trump, she defended putting kids in solitary confinement for President Barack Obama… This stain on America’s soul will not wash out with an election cycle.”
Ken White, The Atlantic
“The main question about the strike isn’t moral or even legal—it’s strategic. Soleimani was a supremely powerful leader of a state apparatus, with his own cult of personality, but he was not a terror kingpin. His death doesn’t decapitate anything. He had the blood of tens of thousands of people—overwhelmingly fellow Muslims—on his hands, but he was only the agent of a government policy that preceded him and will continue without him…The only reason to kill Soleimani is to enter a new war that the United States can win… [Yet] No one seems to have thought past the action itself…
“What would [a] war [with Iran] look like? How will Iran fight it? How will the U.S. respond? What credible allies will we have, after Trump’s trashing of the nuclear deal thoroughly alienated Europe? Who will believe any intelligence about Iran’s actions and intentions from an administration that can’t function without telling lies?…What is our war aim, and how can it be aligned with Trump’s obvious desire to be rid of any entanglement in the region? What will happen if Jerusalem becomes a target and Israel enters the conflict? What will the American people accept by way of sacrifice, when nothing has prepared them for this? There’s no sign that anyone in power, least of all the president, has even asked these questions, let alone knows how to answer them.”
George Packer, The Atlantic
“By declaring that the United States will respond with airstrikes to any attacks on American targets or assets, Mr. Trump is drawing a bright red line that Iran cannot cross. And yet, Iran relies on a network of proxy actors from Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. Must they all respect Mr. Trump’s red line? There are plenty of hotheads in those proxy forces that will be incensed by the assassination, the same way young men with weapons and minimal discipline often are… Mr. Trump can’t keep an entire region from crossing his red line, making violent conflict all the more likely if the president holds to it…
“It is crucial that influential Republican senators like Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio and Mitch McConnell remind Mr. Trump of his promise to keep America out of foreign quagmires and keep Mr. Trump from stumbling further into war with Iran.”
Editorial Board, New York Times
Others argue that “Biden was almost the only one on the stage who talked like a normal person. There was a point near the end of the debate when he was talking about getting men involved in stopping domestic violence and he said that we need to keep ‘punching’ at it… I knew that the twitterati and the analysts would tut tut. Ol’ Joe is just out of touch! He doesn’t know you can’t use words like that. Meanwhile, every non-political junkie watching the debate thought there was nothing wrong with this. Biden was just using ordinary language, not worrying too much if it was fully approved by the woke brigade.”
Kevin Drum, Mother Jones
The right supports increased deportations, and highlights that many of the issues involving the treatment of migrants in custody existed under the previous administration and will require a bipartisan solution.
The right supports increased deportations, and highlights that many of the issues involving the treatment of migrants in custody existed under the previous administration and will require a bipartisan solution.
“The fact of the matter is that we’re discussing individuals (and families) who have already had the opportunity to make their case in court, have had their status determined and been issued orders of deportation. Rather than following those orders, they knowingly chose to remain in the country illegally and have been legally subject to arrest and deportation ever since.”
Jazz Shaw, Hot Air
“Remember the great government shutdown that Trump was ‘proud’ to own after he couldn’t get Democrats to give him money to build more wall? He caved on that. Remember when his Justice Department took a ‘zero tolerance’ position on illegal border crossings? He caved on that, too. And now he’s caving on deportations, the least controversial part of immigration enforcement. Trump won the argument on immigration. But when it comes to actually getting anything done he's a lot like a normal politician. All talk, no action.”
Eddie Scarry, The Washington Examiner
Regarding migrant detention centers, “the vast majority of the people and the outlets that shared [the] exchange [about toothbrushes and soap] failed to note that the violations being discussed had occurred during the previous administration… Instead, they jumped straight to the conclusion that the federal government, headed up by President Trump, was deliberately inflicting pain on babies. This isn’t true. It wasn’t true during the Obama administration either. Then, as now, the violations weren’t part of an intentional or evil ploy, but were the product of the system’s being overloaded… Certainly, some facilities have taken shortcuts, as the result of either bureaucratic incompetence or limited resources. But those infractions will be fixed by additional funding, additional facilities, better oversight, and quicker processing, not by pretending that the president is a tyrant.”
A.G. Hamilton, National Review
“This is a bipartisan problem and it started under a previous administration. The name game and blame game suggests partisans are not really interested in a solution so long as they can inflame people over the issue. But this needs to be fixed… The President should allow in charitable relief immediately. Democrats and Republicans should pass expanded funding to improve the detention facilities within the week. And then we really should secure the border. The situation has gotten worse because of a flood of people seeking asylum. Even the New York Times is willing to recognize there is a crisis now at the border.”
Erick Erickson, The Resurgent
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) writes, “The root cause of the record-breaking surge in migrants is the widespread abuse of our asylum system. Because of a massive backlog of asylum cases and an inability to quickly adjudicate and enforce them, more migrants are making the journey to our border. They bring children with them to take advantage of our loopholes, knowing we must release family units within 20 days… As it stands now, the incentives are aligned to permit illegal immigrants to cross the border with a child, knowing full well that they will be caught and released into society without the chance of deportation.”
Dan Crenshaw, Fox News
“To make immigration a winning issue, Trump must own both its security and humanitarian aspects. As it stands, Democrats largely ignore the security crisis and Republicans severely downplay its humanitarian toll. Caught up in their partisan bickering, both parties fail to understand the significance of immigration: Their neglect of the other side’s concerns is proof of that. If this cycle continues, neither side will achieve a permanent solution. By acknowledging the humanity of the migrants seeking asylum while maintaining pressure on congressional Democrats to pull their weight and advocating for enhanced security, Trump might just unite both sides under a coherent policy he can carry into 2020.”
Kaylee McGhee, The Washington Examiner
Others note, “I’d hate to be a Democratic member of Congress trying to convince Joe Sixpack that this is a whole new ballgame. The transcript shows Trump being Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky trying to ingratiate himself with the big dog by, for instance, mentioning that he stays at Trump hotels. Trump’s conversation is typically scattershot, wandering all over the field, leaving a reasonable listener puzzled about what the takeaways are supposed to be…
“I think Joe Sixpack’s response is going to be a hearty shrug. After all that has emerged about Trump so far, his approval rating is closely tracking Obama’s approval at the same point in his presidency. To get Mr. Sixpack’s attention you are going to have to do better than this.”
Kyle Smith, National Review
“President Trump should be happy. As much as Warren is articulate, obviously intelligent, and energetically supported by Democrats, she would also be far easier to defeat than Joe Biden… Considering Trump's economy, the president is well placed to defeat Warren.”
Tom Rogan, Washington Examiner
A libertarian's take
“While running for president in 2000, George W. Bush derided ‘nation building’ and said American foreign policy should be ‘humble’ rather than ‘arrogant.’ As president, Bush brought us the disastrous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq… While running for president in 2007, Barack Obama rejected the idea that the president has the authority to wage war without congressional authorization whenever he thinks it is in the national interest… As president, Obama did that very thing in Libya… A few years before his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump said the U.S. should withdraw immediately from Afghanistan… As president, he sent more troops to Afghanistan…
“Three men with little or no foreign policy experience entered an office where they were surrounded by experts, and they quickly shed their initial skepticism of military intervention… we should worry about a president with little knowledge of the world whose military decisions are driven by anger or domestic political considerations. But it's not clear to me that such a president poses a bigger danger than the experts who have been disastrously wrong more times than we can count.”
Jacob Sullum, Reason
Researchers trained seals to sing 'Twinkle Twinkle' and the 'Star Wars' theme song.
Mashable
