DACA, immigration reform whatever

[Chuckie Finster 22,694]

5 minutes ago, GSU&UT said:

So what's your goal in constantly posting stuff like this? To me it seems like a right-wing BUT OBAMA talking point.

He is a troll.  Full stop.  Engaging him only encourages him.  One day he will realize that he wasted years of his life spending multiple hours per day anonymously trolling others on a message board, but until then we just have to ignore his bullshit.

[Fozzz 152]

1 minute ago, Chuckie Finster said:

He is a troll.  Full stop.  Engaging him only encourages him.  One day he will realize that he wasted years of his life spending multiple hours per day anonymously trolling others on a message board, but until then we just have to ignore his bullshit.

You don't enjoy my posting on the baseball board?

[David Dennison 18,852]

9 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

I think libs need to internalize the fact that Obama was a bad president and never really gave a shit about anything he promised pre-2008.  Obama is a serious stumbling block for the party if it wants to move forward.  Teflon Joe is a clear example of that.  

You support Tulsi Gabbard. You aren't serious about moving the party forward.

[Fozzz 152]

1 minute ago, David Dennison said:

You support Tulsi Gabbard. You aren't serious about moving the party forward.

Tulsi would definitely move the party in some new and exciting directions.  You can't deny that.

[David Dennison 18,852]

Just now, Fozzz said:

Tulsi would definitely move the party in some new and exciting directions.  You can't deny that.

She's not a serious candidate. She running for president to make money.

[Captainant 27,644]

28 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

 

 

You're presenting this as if Obama did any of this to the scale that trump is doing. Obama put programs in place to keep people out of facilities as much as he could with the GOP obstruction machine in full swing. I'm sure bad shit happened during the Obama years, but doing bad shit was not his desired end state. What's happening now at the border IS Trump's plan. 

[Fozzz 152]

2 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

She's not a serious candidate. She running for president to make money.

She is?  Is she selling a book or something?  

[Fozzz 152]

3 minutes ago, Captainant said:

You're presenting this as if Obama did any of this to the scale that trump is doing. Obama put programs in place to keep people out of facilities as much as he could with the GOP obstruction machine in full swing. I'm sure bad shit happened during the Obama years, but doing bad shit was not his desired end state. What's happening now at the border IS Trump's plan. 

lol see this is the kind of delusion that needs to be stamped out.  

[David Dennison 18,852]

Just now, Fozzz said:

She is?  Is she selling a book or something?  

No, she's running for president and accepting campaign donations.

 

 

[Captainant 27,644]

1 minute ago, Fozzz said:

lol see this is the kind of delusion that needs to be stamped out.  

Oh? Please, avail me of the factual evidence to back that up. 

[David Dennison 18,852]

I stand corrected: https://www.civilbeat.org/2018/06/tulsi-gabbard-is-writing-a-book/

[Fozzz 152]

1 minute ago, Captainant said:

Oh? Please, avail me of the factual evidence to back that up. 

What evidence are you using in support of your claim that " Obama put programs in place to keep people out of facilities as much as he could with the GOP obstruction machine in full swing"?  

Quote

Favreau’s biggest mistake, however, was obscuring the bigger picture of what Obama was doing at the time: an influx of Central American asylum-seekers fleeing brutal gang violence (which is itself rooted firmly in US government policy) sought asylum in the United States, so he put these families into detention en masse to send a tough message to would-be migrants down south and anti-immigrant voters at home.

The Obama administration opened a facility to incarcerate asylum-seekers fleeing for their lives in southeastern New Mexico, far from where most lawyers who could represent them in asylum proceedings live, as Wil S. Hylton described in a February 2015 New York Times Magazine story. And so volunteer lawyers rushed to the small town of Artesia. What they found when they arrived were “young women and children huddled together. Many were gaunt and malnourished, with dark circles under their eyes.” “Kids vomiting all over the place.” “A big outbreak of fevers.” “Pneumonia, scabies, lice.” A school that often did not seem to be open.

Such detentions would serve, the Obama administration hoped, as a deterrent.

“It will now be more likely that you will be detained and sent back,” Department of Homeland Security secretary Jeh Johnson forebodingly warned. Johnson was “standing on a dirt road lined with cabins in a barren compound enclosed by fencing,” celebrating the opening of a massive detention facility for women and their children in Dilley, Texas. It was run by the for-profit Corrections Corporation of America. (The company has since changed its name to the more antiseptic CoreCivic, which pledges to “Better the Public Good.”)

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/06/trump-immigration-child-family-separation-policy

Like with many other things (the drone program being another obvious example), Trump took an awful policy from the Obama administration and turned it up to 11.  

[Mojo Hand 4,580]

It's like a broken record.   Yes, Obama responded poorly to a sudden crisis in 2014.  On this specific issue, his administration used family detention for a year to handle an influx for which we weren't prepared.   The GOP Congress, of course, did nothing.   Liberal activists brought the problems to public attention and the courts, Dems in Congress pushed for the end of the policy, the Obama administration made some changes, and the courts brought the whole thing to a halt, within about a year.  Problems continued through the final days of his presidency, to be sure, but within the framework of trying to comply with court orders and the limitations imposed by laws that Congress was refusing to change. 

Trump has now revived the dead, awful 2014 policy with cruel intention, despite much lower numbers of immigrants than Obama was facing, purely because he wants to make them suffer.   New policy.   Trump ended the program for releasing families under which 99% showed up for their hearings.   New policy.   Trump started charging parents, who were already within the civil deportation process, with a misdemeanor for the express, cruel purpose of stripping their children away from them, overloading the detention facilities even more.  New policy.  Trump massively cut the processing of legal asylum seekers at ports of entry, resulting in more illegal border crossings from people who tried to do it legally, who then get thrown into camps or die like the father and daughter on the last page.   New policy.   And, together, part of a much broader policy of dehumanization and punishment for people who are fleeing life-threatening conditions in their countries. 

I don't have a problem with someone who criticizes Obama's policies.   I criticize them too.   But those who do so, without ever posting standalone criticisms of Trump's much worse policies, are painfully transparent.   As are those who try to pretend that they are "the same," when Trump's policies are harsher and more cruel on every possible comparison.   And by design, as Trump explicitly ran on reversing what he characterized as Obama's softness on immigration.   

Edited June 26, 2019 by Mojo Hand

[Mojo Hand 4,580]

And not a single immigrant child died in ICE custody under Obama.  Six have died in the last six months under Trump.  Something much worse is happening right now. 

[David Dennison 18,852]

Also, the Obama administration was roundly criticized for its policies at the time.

[Fozzz 152]

2 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Also, the Obama administration was roundly criticized for its policies at the time.

Can you point me to an article in a major media publication where Obama's detention centers were referred to as concentration camps?  

[David Dennison 18,852]

1 minute ago, Fozzz said:

Can you point me to an article in a major media publication where Obama's detention centers were referred to as concentration camps?  

Did anyone they were reporting on call them that?

[Captainant 27,644]

3 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

Can you point me to an article in a major media publication where Obama's detention centers were referred to as concentration camps?  

Those detention centers weren't being utilized as concentration camps. Children weren't being denied medical care. They weren't sleeping on concrete floors with foil blankets in rooms intentionally made uncomfortably cold. People weren't being packed into rooms like sardines for multiple days. Obama wasn't threatening ICE raids to sweep through cities looking for undocumented people so he could also put them into these facilities.

It's the deliberate creation of misery by the trump administration that makes what's happening now be concentration camps, and distinct from what's happened in the past. 

I recommend that you read Mojo Hand's post again. 

[David Dennison 18,852]

2 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Those detention centers weren't being utilized as concentration camps. Children weren't being denied medical care. They weren't sleeping on concrete floors with foil blankets in rooms intentionally made uncomfortably cold. People weren't being packed into rooms like sardines for multiple days. Obama wasn't threatening ICE raids to sweep through cities looking for undocumented people so he could also put them into these facilities.

It's the deliberate creation of misery by the trump administration that makes what's happening now be concentration camps, and distinct from what's happened in the past. 

I recommend that you read Mojo Hand's post again. 

Fozzz is the surly version of The Intercept. He hates Democrats so much that he's become a Trump apologist. He's our very own Glenn Greenwald.

Edited June 26, 2019 by David Dennison

[tx 3 putt 76,881]

Just like the bush years under Obama, the Obama years are done with. This current issue falls on the sitting president. Do something or kick it down the road for the next guy 

[Mojo Hand 4,580]

As the expert quoted in this article explains, the pre-existing detention camps clearly crossed the line into concentration camps around the time that Trump was using the border crossing misdemeanor to intentionally separate children from parents, and that conclusion only got stronger with Trump cutting educational and recreational services for those kids and other policies demonstrating that the camps are part of an intentional policy of dehumanization and punishment. 

https://www-esquire-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.esquire.com/news-politics/amp27813648/concentration-camps-southern-border-migrant-detention-facilities-trump/

Edited June 26, 2019 by Mojo Hand

[henrygandorf 29,189]

so let's say that things were "equally as bad under obama" and let's even say that "obama started this, and it's his fault."

as the greatest president since george washington, with the greatest people working for him, and the greatest economy of all time, wouldn't trump want to fix things and make things better than they were before?  doesn't he want to do better than his predecessor?  

seems like this situation is being put on a tee giving him the opportunity to be a hero and do some good.  and i'm sure he will once he's done attacking a us womens soccer team member on twitter.

[Fozzz 152]

4 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

As the expert quoted in this article explains, the pre-existing detention camps clearly crossed the line into concentration camps around the time that Trump was using the border crossing procedure to intentionally separate children from parents, and that conclusion only got stronger with Trump cutting educational and recreational services for those kids and other policies demonstrating that the camps are part of an intentional policy of dehumanization and punishment. 

https://www-esquire-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.esquire.com/news-politics/amp27813648/concentration-camps-southern-border-migrant-detention-facilities-trump/

Which expert are you talking about?  I don't see any support in the article for the highlighted claim.   Indeed, Pitzer states that the detention of families - separate or together - is a feature held in common between the Obama/Trump camps and the concentration camps used in Cuba and South Africa.  

[Mojo Hand 4,580]

5 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

Which expert are you talking about?  I don't see any support in the article for the highlighted claim.   Indeed, Pitzer states that the detention of families - separate or together - is a feature held in common between the Obama/Trump camps and the concentration camps used in Cuba and South Africa.  

Beorn. 

[Captainant 27,644]

2 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

Indeed, Pitzer states that the detention of families - separate or together - is a feature held in common between the Obama/Trump camps and the concentration camps used in Cuba and South Africa.  

You're conflating two things here, fucko.

Obama: Detaining a family together while processing them to release them from captivity with ankle bracelets into a program that resulted in a 99% attendance rate for court dates

Trump: Charging people as criminals for a misdemeanor violation of US law, and using that as justification to separate families and imprison them with no plan to release them in a timely manner.

 

Obama made a mistake in creating these facilities. In response to that mistake, he put policies in place to reduce the systemic need for those facilities and treat these people with human dignity.

Trump is blanket claiming that anyone crossing the border with children is DEFINITELY trafficking them, based on the fact that they're a "CRIMINAL!" Because his administration put policy in place to treat these MISDEMEANOR offenses as criminal offenses. His administration hasn't tracked which children they've separated, where their parents are, and has no plan to reunite them.

 

And to everyone else - I know I'm talking at a troll. If he actually listens to what I write, then good. But it's wrong to let lies go unchallenged on the basis of "shucks, they're just saying shit".

[cactusflinthead 27,598]

Yeah, I called. Left my name and number with the young man answering the phone at the Lake Dallas office. I didn't know that he was going to go on the godless hippie TV station and go full blown idiot.

I present,  my Representative of TX-26, Dr. Michael Burgess, Pilot Point. 

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/450160-gop-rep-children-are-free-to-leave-migrant-camps-at-any-time

Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) on Monday said that migrant children at a facility in Texas are "free to leave at any time" but don't because they are receiving good care.

"There's not a lock on the door," the lawmaker said while defending the conditions at a facility he visited. "Any child is free to leave at any time. But they don't and you know why? Because they're well taken care of and yes at some point they are going to live with family, generally not mother or father but some family member, that's a good thing."

 

 

 

[Francisco 2.0 32,389]

 

[Mojo Hand 4,580]

I'll go ahead and quote a few key parts of the article here, because the success of Trump and his supporters depends on convincing people to fall for lazy, superficial arguments instead of what is clear from a more substantive analysis.

The bottom line is that the dry definition of "concentration camp" needs unpacking because there are qualitative factors that demonstrate whether people are being held for crimes (prison camps), out of practical necessity in an emergency (refugee or other detention camps), or to target them as an undesirable group (concentration camps).   The analysis is partly subjective, and there can be legitimate disagreement about when and even whether we crossed the line from refugee/detention camps to concentration camps.

But the Trump administration's broad dehumanization efforts, cruel family separations, efforts to intentionally deny the kids basic amenities like educational and recreational services, and the like, mark a major expansion of anything that was worthy of complaint under Obama, and provide a more than reasonable basis for many people to conclude that we've crossed the line to concentration camps in the last two years.

And, of course, the more important point is that what matters now is the actual and awful reality of what we are doing right now —which we can actually change — and not gotcha games about whether Obama did something bad too 5 years ago. 

Quote

 

"What's required is a little bit of demystification of it," says Waitman Wade Beorn, a Holocaust and genocide studies historian and a lecturer at the University of Virginia. "Things can be concentration camps without being Dachau or Auschwitz. Concentration camps in general have always been designed—at the most basic level—to separate one group of people from another group. Usually, because the majority group, or the creators of the camp, deem the people they're putting in it to be dangerous or undesirable in some way."

****

 

"At one point, [the administration] said that they were intentionally trying to split up families and make conditions unpleasant, so the people wouldn't come to the U.S.," Beorn, from UVA, says. "If you're doing that, then that's not a prison. That's not a holding area or a waiting area. That's a policy. I would argue, at least in the way that [the camps are] being used now, a significant portion of the mentality is [tied to] who the [detainees] are rather than what they did.

"If these were Canadians flooding across the border, would they be treated in the same manner as the people from Mexico and from Central and South America? If the answer is yes, theoretically, then I would consider these places to be perhaps better described as transit camps or prison camps. But I suspect that's not how they'd be treated, which then makes it much more about who the people are that you're detaining, rather than what they did. The Canadian would have crossed the border just as illegally as the Mexican, but my suspicion is, would be treated in a different way."

****

Camps often begin in wartime or a crisis point, and on a relatively small scale. There are then some in positions of power who want to escalate the program for political purposes, but who receive pushback from others in the regime. There's then a power struggle, and if the escalationists prevail over the other bureaucrats—as they appear to have here, with the supremacy of Stephen Miller over (the reliably pliant but less extreme) Kirstjen Nielsen—the camps will continue and grow. Almost by definition, the conditions will deteriorate, even despite the best intentions of those on the ground.

"It's a negative trajectory in at least two ways," Beorn says. "One, I feel like these policies can snowball. We've already seen unintended consequences. If we follow the thread of the children, for example, the government wanted to make things more annoying, more painful. So they decided, We're going to separate the children from the families. But there was no infrastructure in place for that. You already have a scenario where even if you have the best intentions, the infrastructure doesn't exist to support it. That's a consequence of policy that hasn't been thought through. As you see the population begin to massively increase over time, you do start to see conditions diminishing.

"The second piece is that the longer you establish this sort of extralegal, extrajudicial, somewhat-invisible no-man's land, the more you allow potentially a culture of abuse to develop within that place. Because the people who tend to become more violent, more prejudiced, whatever, have more and more free rein for that to become sort of the accepted behavior. Then, that also becomes a new norm that can spread throughout the system. There is sort of an escalation of individual initiative in violence. As it becomes clear that that is acceptable, then you have a self-fulfilling prophecy or a positive feedback loop that just keeps radicalizing the treatment as the policy itself becomes radicalizing."

****

Another issue is that these camp systems, no matter where they are in the world, tend to fall victim to expanding criteria. The longer they stay open, the more reasons a government finds to put people in them. That's particularly true if a new regime takes control of an existing system, as the Trump administration did with ours. The mass detention of asylum-seekers—who, again, have legal rights—on this scale is an expansion of the criteria from "illegal" immigrants, who were the main class of detainee in the '90s and early 2000s. Asylum seekers, particularly unaccompanied minors, began arriving in huge numbers and were detained under the Obama administration. But there has been an escalation, both because of a deteriorating situation in the Northern Triangle and the Trump administration's attempts to deter any and all migration. There is reason to believe the criteria will continue to expand.

 

Edited June 26, 2019 by Mojo Hand
paragraphs

[Biff Tannen 45,670]

40 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

 

Astounding. I'm watching Hitler's Circle of Evil on Netflix right now.  It's about the rise of his internal henchmen.  The parallels are uncanny.

[Js1 85,300]

Just now, Biff Tannen said:

Astounding. I'm watching Hitler's Circle of Evil on Netflix right now.  It's about the rise of his internal henchmen.  The parallels are uncanny.

"Oh my GOD, you can't just compare everything Trump is doing to Hitler and concentration camps even though it is totally 100% historically accurate and exactly as it appears. Go study history." - chrispy, Icono, Johnny Sack, Fox News, MAGAtards

[retread 2,951]

We haven't gassed one child. Come on.

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13,579]

Don't know why you libs can't give the guy who pardoned the sheriff who bragged about running concentration camps the benefit of the doubt.

[Fozzz 152]

1 hour ago, Captainant said:

You're conflating two things here, fucko.

Obama: Detaining a family together while processing them to release them from captivity with ankle bracelets into a program that resulted in a 99% attendance rate for court dates

Trump: Charging people as criminals for a misdemeanor violation of US law, and using that as justification to separate families and imprison them with no plan to release them in a timely manner.

 

Obama made a mistake in creating these facilities. In response to that mistake, he put policies in place to reduce the systemic need for those facilities and treat these people with human dignity.

Trump is blanket claiming that anyone crossing the border with children is DEFINITELY trafficking them, based on the fact that they're a "CRIMINAL!" Because his administration put policy in place to treat these MISDEMEANOR offenses as criminal offenses. His administration hasn't tracked which children they've separated, where their parents are, and has no plan to reunite them.

 

And to everyone else - I know I'm talking at a troll. If he actually listens to what I write, then good. But it's wrong to let lies go unchallenged on the basis of "shucks, they're just saying shit".

lol Obama's baby jails were not simply some necessary location to place families during processing.  He was locking those families up as a deterrent for future asylum seekers - the same rationale as Trump's.  

Quote

The case was brought on behalf of mothers and children who have fled extreme violence, death threats, rape, and persecution in Central America and come to the United States for safety. Each has been found by an immigration officer or judge to have a "credible fear" of persecution, meaning there is a "significant possibility" they will be granted asylum.

Yet, instead of releasing these families as they await their asylum hearings, which the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has typically done, the agency now categorically detains and denies their release on bond or other conditions. The Obama administration adopted this policy — "an aggressive deterrence strategy" — following this summer's increase in mothers and children coming to the United States.

The Obama administration's blanket no-release policy is a violation of federal immigration law and regulations, as well as the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibit the blanket detention of asylum seekers for purposes of general deterrence, the complaint charges.

https://www.aclu.org/cases/rilr-v-johnson

[Zavala 1,384]

[Captainant 27,644]

2 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

lol Obama's baby jails were not simply some necessary location to place families during processing.  He was locking those families up as a deterrent for future asylum seekers - the same rationale as Trump's.  

https://www.aclu.org/cases/rilr-v-johnson

You're right, and what Obama did was wrong and he tried to put systems in place to fix the problems that he created in his initial response to the illegal immigration issue. Obama created the ICE Family Case Management Program as part of that effort, which was wildly successful. It saw a 99% compliance rate for ICE check-ins and appointments and a 100% rate of attendance at court hearings. Here's the background on the program from the DHS OIG report I linked:

Quote

The Family Case Management Program (FCMP) is an alternative to detention that uses case managers to ensure participants comply with immigration obligations, such as check-ins with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and attendance at immigration court hearings, while allowing them to remain in their community as they move through immigration proceedings. FCMP facilitates access to holistic community-based services tailored to each family’s needs, including:

• orientation and education about participants’ rights and responsibilities;
• individualized family service plans;
• assistance with transportation logistics;
• safe repatriation and reintegration planning for participants who are returning to their home countries.

The program cost $36 per day, per family. And kept them out of detention facilities. Until trump cancelled it on the grounds of it being "too expensive" in favor of imprisoning children for $750 per day, each.

You're so hung up on what obama did that you're ignoring what else he did to try and fix it. And you're also acting like trump is powerless to improve anything, despite actively taking measures to make things worse.

Also, Obama wasn't SEPARATING CHILDREN FROM THEIR PARENTS AS AN ACT OF PUNISHMENT

[Mojo Hand 4,580]

Yes, Obama's response to the massive influx of immigrants was motivated in part by deterrence.   The object was to slow down the wave by making it clear that entrance wouldn't be automatic, but only after first proving the asylum case. It was abandoned because our system couldn't handle the influx, conditions in the holding camps deteriorated, the left rose up against the policy, and, separately, courts held that deterrence wasn't a legal basis to hold families in detention.   So the Obama administration started releasing families, using ankle bracelets and the Family Case Management Program, under which 99% of families showed up for their hearings.  

Trump has taken that system, under which the crisis had been handled, and tore it apart, as I've described in the last few posts.   And, yes, his policies are also motivated in part by deterrence.   But not deterrence through increased process that makes entrance less certain, which was behind the Obama policy.   Deterrence through the cruel treatment that asylum seekers will have to suffer if they come.   That was the purpose of family separation, for example.   It wasn't "if you come, you'll have to prove you deserve asylum first."  It was "if you come, you will lose your children."   And, of course, deterrence isn't the only motivating factor behind Trump's policies, which are punitive and aimed at blocking even legal arrivals from entering, because he finds them to be undesirable people. 

This is yet another prime example of Trump supporters using superficial similarities with past policy to deflect and excuse the cruelty and inhumanity of Trump's policies.   

Edited June 26, 2019 by Mojo Hand

[F250 28,766]

2 hours ago, Captainant said:

Those detention centers weren't being utilized as concentration camps. Children weren't being denied medical care. They weren't sleeping on concrete floors with foil blankets in rooms intentionally made uncomfortably cold. People weren't being packed into rooms like sardines for multiple days. Obama wasn't threatening ICE raids to sweep through cities looking for undocumented people so he could also put them into these facilities.

It's the deliberate creation of misery by the trump administration that makes what's happening now be concentration camps, and distinct from what's happened in the past. 

I recommend that you read Mojo Hand's post again. 

Let's not downplay the cruelty of the past to highlight the cruelty of the present. Immigrant children were intentionally mistreated under the Obama administration. The Obama administration didn't make mistakes, that shit was intentional. Hell, immigration rights advocates had to sue the Obama administration.

One example from the Obama administration.

"Judge Gee found that the government continues to detain children in “deplorable and unsanitary conditions” at Customs and Border Protection stations in the Rio Grande Valley Sector—essentially a violation of the agreement. The mistreatment of children in immigration detention proven by the Plaintiffs includes lack of adequate food (some of the food made the children ill), lack of clean drinking water, unsanitary conditions (testimony was presented that up to 50 people were forced to use an open toilet in one room), extremely cold temperatures of detention cells (hieleras)/some CBP officers who purposely made the cells colder to retaliate against crying children, and impossible sleeping conditions, all in flagrant violation of CBP policies and standards."

"Last, but not least, the Plaintiffs presented evidence that children were being detained for periods in excess of the permitted maximum of 20 days, and cited children who were detained five weeks, eight months and 13 months, respectively."

 

https://www.latinorebels.com/2017/06/29/another-blow-to-the-obama-administrations-family-detention-policy-just-happened/

[F250 28,766]

Obama was a decent person and yet children were treated cruelly by his administration. Trump is so fucking sick in the head, I have no idea how to describe his nature. Anyways, we've seen what happened when a decent person was in charge and what it's like with a lunatic in charge.

Obviously, we cannot rely on the POTUS to treat immigrants ethically. Too many forces involved at that level.

We need immigration reform that is codified into law by Congress. We need fucking rules to tell our leaders how to treat people because we can't trust them to do it on their own.

[wildcat09 29,348]

5 minutes ago, F250 said:

Let's not downplay the cruelty of the past to highlight the cruelty of the present. Immigrant children were intentionally mistreated under the Obama administration. The Obama administration didn't make mistakes, that shit was intentional. Hell, immigration rights advocates had to sue the Obama administration.

One example from the Obama administration.

"Judge Gee found that the government continues to detain children in “deplorable and unsanitary conditions” at Customs and Border Protection stations in the Rio Grande Valley Sector—essentially a violation of the agreement. The mistreatment of children in immigration detention proven by the Plaintiffs includes lack of adequate food (some of the food made the children ill), lack of clean drinking water, unsanitary conditions (testimony was presented that up to 50 people were forced to use an open toilet in one room), extremely cold temperatures of detention cells (hieleras)/some CBP officers who purposely made the cells colder to retaliate against crying children, and impossible sleeping conditions, all in flagrant violation of CBP policies and standards."

"Last, but not least, the Plaintiffs presented evidence that children were being detained for periods in excess of the permitted maximum of 20 days, and cited children who were detained five weeks, eight months and 13 months, respectively."

 

https://www.latinorebels.com/2017/06/29/another-blow-to-the-obama-administrations-family-detention-policy-just-happened/

This is fair, though I won't hold the CPB's intentional cruelty (e.g. cranking the thermostat down to 50 degrees) against Obama to the same degree that I do Trump. CPB and ICE both hated the Obama administration for trying to improve their treatment of immigrants, while Trump actively encourages their cruelty. Obama and his administration were responsible for the lack of adequate food, drinking water, and unsanitary conditions.

[Captainant 27,644]

6 minutes ago, F250 said:

Let's not downplay the cruelty of the past to highlight the cruelty of the present. Immigrant children were intentionally mistreated under the Obama administration. The Obama administration didn't make mistakes, that shit was intentional. Hell, immigration rights advocates had to sue the Obama administration.

One example from the Obama administration.

"Judge Gee found that the government continues to detain children in “deplorable and unsanitary conditions” at Customs and Border Protection stations in the Rio Grande Valley Sector—essentially a violation of the agreement. The mistreatment of children in immigration detention proven by the Plaintiffs includes lack of adequate food (some of the food made the children ill), lack of clean drinking water, unsanitary conditions (testimony was presented that up to 50 people were forced to use an open toilet in one room), extremely cold temperatures of detention cells (hieleras)/some CBP officers who purposely made the cells colder to retaliate against crying children, and impossible sleeping conditions, all in flagrant violation of CBP policies and standards."

"Last, but not least, the Plaintiffs presented evidence that children were being detained for periods in excess of the permitted maximum of 20 days, and cited children who were detained five weeks, eight months and 13 months, respectively."

 

https://www.latinorebels.com/2017/06/29/another-blow-to-the-obama-administrations-family-detention-policy-just-happened/

As I posted above, I agree that Obama fucked up in his initial response. He also made concrete efforts and created new programs to lessen the negative repercussions of his decision, rather than doubling down. Trump has cancelled those programs and made concrete efforts to worsen an already critical situation. 

But sure, go for the full anastasia and #bothsides this shit show

[Mojo Hand 4,580]

30 minutes ago, F250 said:

Let's not downplay the cruelty of the past to highlight the cruelty of the present. Immigrant children were intentionally mistreated under the Obama administration. The Obama administration didn't make mistakes, that shit was intentional. Hell, immigration rights advocates had to sue the Obama administration.

One example from the Obama administration.

"Judge Gee found that the government continues to detain children in “deplorable and unsanitary conditions” at Customs and Border Protection stations in the Rio Grande Valley Sector—essentially a violation of the agreement. The mistreatment of children in immigration detention proven by the Plaintiffs includes lack of adequate food (some of the food made the children ill), lack of clean drinking water, unsanitary conditions (testimony was presented that up to 50 people were forced to use an open toilet in one room), extremely cold temperatures of detention cells (hieleras)/some CBP officers who purposely made the cells colder to retaliate against crying children, and impossible sleeping conditions, all in flagrant violation of CBP policies and standards."

"Last, but not least, the Plaintiffs presented evidence that children were being detained for periods in excess of the permitted maximum of 20 days, and cited children who were detained five weeks, eight months and 13 months, respectively."

 

https://www.latinorebels.com/2017/06/29/another-blow-to-the-obama-administrations-family-detention-policy-just-happened/

I agree with this entirely, other than the suggestion that there was a policy of intentional mistreatment of children by the Obama administration itself.   The case you cite was decided because of deviations from official policy by individuals at CBP.   The Obama administration is fully responsible for those results, as it is an entirely foreseeable consequence of family detention within the limitations they had.  And that is what hundreds of Dems at the time argued in seeking to halt family detention.   I don't know what Obama was thinking, but I haven't seen any evidence that he intentionally sought to harm children to achieve some policy end.   By contrast, there is clear evidence that Trump and his people are doing precisely that, starting with the family separation policy.

And I think your follow-up post that I now see reflects that distinction, so I'm not sure we disagree at all.   Our country should have learned lessons from Obama's misguided and harmful family detention initiative.   At best, there are systematic problems that need to be fixed by law.  But we now have a lunatic in charge who is actually leaning into those systematic problems, and making them far worse by flooding the system, removing a number of improvements made at the end of the Obama administration, and adding new, cruel policies expressly for the purpose of hurting immigrants and their children.  Anyone who criticizes Obama — which is fine and deserved — should be among the loudest of critics of Trump's far worse policies.   But too often they say almost nothing about what Trump is doing, using a false equivalency with Obama to normalize and excuse what is going on right now.  Plus they use "But Obama" to delegitimize the Dem opposition to what Trump is doing, even though this specific issue is one of the rare instances when Dems actually rose up against Obama in 2015.    It's not right. 

Edited June 26, 2019 by Mojo Hand

[hayden_horn 11,362]

2 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

I agree with this entirely, other than the suggestion that there was a policy of intentional mistreatment of children by the Obama administration itself.   The case you cite was decided because of deviations from official policy by individuals at CBP.   The Obama administration is fully responsible for those results, as it is an entirely foreseeable consequence of family detention within the limitations they had.  And that is what hundreds of Dems at the time argued in seeking to halt family detention.   I don't know what Obama was thinking, but I haven't seen any evidence that he intentionally sought to harm children to achieve some policy end.   By contrast, there is clear evidence that Trump and his people are doing precisely that, starting with the family separation policy.

And I think your follow-up post that I now see reflects that distinction, so I'm not sure we disagree at all.   Our country should have learned lessons from Obama's misguided and harmful family detention initiative.   At best, there are systematic problems that need to be fixed by law.  But we now have a lunatic in charge who is actually leaning into those systematic problems, and making them far worse by flooding the system, removing a number of improvements made at the end of the Obama administration, and adding new, cruel policies expressly for the purpose of hurting immigrants and their children.  Anyone who criticizes Obama — which is fine and deserved — should be among the loudest of critics of Trump's far worse policies.   But too often they say almost nothing about what Trump is doing, using a false equivalency with Obama to normalize and excuse what is going on right now.  It's not right. 

it's because they are despicable people. anyone trying to deflect or explain away what's happening with these people is a bad person. full stop.

but good post.

[retread 2,951]

And it's the same shit with several degrees of separation so as to provide plausible deniability.

Oh, I had no idea what was happening in these privately run prisons. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  I was for bringing families together, and Obama was for separating them.

[WhatTheBuck 28,776]

1 hour ago, retread said:

We haven't gassed one child. Come on.

We've opted for germ warfare instead. 

[Pig Bellmont 8,712]

18 hours ago, Js1 said:

Meghan McCain is a noun, a verb and “John McCain, MY FATHER”

 

 

[F250 28,766]

20 minutes ago, Captainant said:

As I posted above, I agree that Obama fucked up in his initial response. He also made concrete efforts and created new programs to lessen the negative repercussions of his decision, rather than doubling down. Trump has cancelled those programs and made concrete efforts to worsen an already critical situation. 

But sure, go for the full anastasia and #bothsides this shit show

I understand you have a moral imperative to become defensive of a particular politician, it's the nature of a partisan. But set aside your partisanship for a moment.

There is a reason immigration rights advocates and attorneys are pointing out that the current problem existed before Trump. Trump didn't build the machine that he is using in a grotesque manner. This issue goes back past Obama and even Dubya and yeah Bush had his own camp setup in Hutto.

The problem is greater than the Trump administration, it requires legislation and if people see this as a partisan issue only there will be no real change. We as a nation must look at our recent past to identify the cause of the problem and address it.

If people think electing someone other than Trump will resolve the problem they are wrong.

 

[F250 28,766]

25 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

I agree with this entirely, other than the suggestion that there was a policy of intentional mistreatment of children by the Obama administration itself.   The case you cite was decided because of deviations from official policy by individuals at CBP.   The Obama administration is fully responsible for those results, as it is an entirely foreseeable consequence of family detention within the limitations they had.  And that is what hundreds of Dems at the time argued in seeking to halt family detention.   I don't know what Obama was thinking, but I haven't seen any evidence that he intentionally sought to harm children to achieve some policy end.   By contrast, there is clear evidence that Trump and his people are doing precisely that, starting with the family separation policy.

And I think your follow-up post that I now see reflects that distinction, so I'm not sure we disagree at all.   Our country should have learned lessons from Obama's misguided and harmful family detention initiative.   At best, there are systematic problems that need to be fixed by law.  But we now have a lunatic in charge who is actually leaning into those systematic problems, and making them far worse by flooding the system, removing a number of improvements made at the end of the Obama administration, and adding new, cruel policies expressly for the purpose of hurting immigrants and their children.  Anyone who criticizes Obama — which is fine and deserved — should be among the loudest of critics of Trump's far worse policies.   But too often they say almost nothing about what Trump is doing, using a false equivalency with Obama to normalize and excuse what is going on right now.  Plus they use "But Obama" to delegitimize the Dem opposition to what Trump is doing, even though this specific issue is one of the rare instances when Dems actually rose up against Obama in 2015.    It's not right. 

Eh, it doesn't take a genius to spot those that justify Trump's actions by citing Obama's actions. Why even bother engaging in that kind of discussion? Those people will not change their mind.

I'd rather engage those that are horrified and are open to humanitarian solutions.

 

[Mojo Hand 4,580]

2 minutes ago, F250 said:

If people think electing someone other than Trump will resolve the problem they are wrong.

 

That doesn't follow.  First, fixing the system requires electing people who will fix the system, and that cannot happen without electing someone other than Trump.   Second, electing someone other than Trump will at minimum roll back all of the extra shit he's added on to the previous problematic system.   Third, Obama was particularly bad on this issue and out of step with Dems like Warren, who were calling him out at the time. 

Yes, we should be clear that the problem is broader than Trump and that ousting him alone won't end the problems overnight.  But Trump is nonetheless a major part of the problem, and electing a good Dem candidate will go a long way towards taking us on the right path. 

[Mojo Hand 4,580]

2 minutes ago, F250 said:

Eh, it doesn't take a genius to spot those that justify Trump's actions by citing Obama's actions. Why even bother engaging in that kind of discussion? Those people will not change their mind.

I'd rather engage those that are horrified and are open to humanitarian solutions.

 

I'm not trying to change their minds.   I think the media and politicians have done a poor job educating people on the precise things that are happening right now, and that's being taken advantage of by Trump apologists to blunt the opposition.   I think it's important to rebut false narratives about this so that good and reasonable people repulsed by the current situation can zero in on the problems and, also, trust that the opposition isn't full of hypocrites, but rather well meaning folks who took the Obama administration to task in 2014 and 2015 and are still fighting under Trump. 

[elfenix 34,228]

I understand you have a moral imperative to become defensive of a particular politician, it's the nature of a partisan. But set aside your partisanship for a moment.
There is a reason immigration rights advocates and attorneys are pointing out that the current problem existed before Trump. Trump didn't build the machine that he is using in a grotesque manner. This issue goes back past Obama and even Dubya and yeah Bush had his own camp setup in Hutto.
The problem is greater than the Trump administration, it requires legislation and if people see this as a partisan issue only there will be no real change. We as a nation must look at our recent past to identify the cause of the problem and address it.
If people think electing someone other than Trump will resolve the problem they are wrong.
 

This is why ICE needs to be abolished. The institution knowledge it posseses is bad.