“More to the point, perhaps, doing so would necessarily entail shattering large numbers of families, including ones well established over a decade or more of residency and whose children, born in this country, are citizens. As Mr. Trump and his administration discovered a year ago, Americans are rightly appalled at the sight of government agents wrenching apart parents and their children; they would likely react just as badly to a rerun involving their neighbors as they did to the original iteration, in which agents focused on families who had recently crossed the border.”
Editorial Board, Washington Post

“Trump tweeted about ‘the millions of illegal aliens… they will be removed as fast as they come in.’ This does not make sense. The asylum seekers at the border cannot be immediately removed because they have a legal right to apply for humanitarian relief… What we see here is a chief executive who is well aware of his vulnerability to a Democratic challenger, desperately trying to rile up his followers by bashing immigrants. After several years of draconian immigration policies and optics, including images of children separated from their families and kept in pens, it is unlikely to persuade voters in 2020.”
Raul A. Reyes, CNN

“Trump seems convinced that draconian immigration policy is good politics. But evidence is mounting that he’s wrong… a Fox News poll released this week indicates that Trump’s fixation on curtailing all forms of immigration isn’t resonating with voters. Half of American voters who responded to the poll said they think the Trump administration has gone too far with immigration enforcement — more than double the percentage who said they don’t think Trump has gone far enough… It’s unclear whether his announcement was meant as anything beyond an empty show of strength. But either way, the mere fact that Trump views using the power of the state against immigrants and their communities as a winning reelection strategy is a dark omen 15 months ahead of the next presidential election.”
Aaron Rupar, Vox

“The administration’s efforts at deterring asylum families through displays of toughness and force have failed spectacularly, because they are fleeing conditions at home that are also terrible. There is a legitimate policy dispute here — Trump wants to detain families for far longer, so they can’t evade hearings, while Democrats favor addressing root causes of migrations and reforms to humanely manage the influx — but one thing that’s inescapable is that toughness as deterrence has been unmasked as total folly.”
Greg Sargent, Washington Post

Regarding Ocasio-Cortez's comment, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) tweeted, “One of the lessons from the Holocaust is ‘Never Again’ - not only to mass murder, but also to the dehumanization of people, violations of basic rights, and assaults on our common morality. We fail to learn that lesson when we don’t callout such inhumanity right in front of us.”
Jerrold Nadler, Twitter

“If you’re more upset @AOC called the camps at the border ‘concentration camps’ than you are about what has actually been happening there, you’re doing it wrong.”
Justin Kanew, Twitter