Campaign Action
As far back as March 2017, then-Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Sec. John Kelly said that the Trump administration’s then-proposal to tear children from the arms of immigrant parents at the U.S./Mexico border was “to deter more movement along this terribly dangerous network.” A year later, this barbarism is now official policy of the United States, and despite “researchers increasingly [finding] that deterrence has only a weak effect on reducing unauthorized immigration”:
Using family separation for the specific purpose of preventing unauthorized border crossings ... does not have a clear record of success. Vox reported earlier this month that a 2017 family separation pilot program was actually followed by an increase in the number of family crossings in El Paso, Tex., where it was rolled out. Of course, this does not mean that the policy caused more families to enter the country illegally. But it does call into question the administration’s assertion that family separation deters unauthorized immigration.
According to researcher Anna Oltman, what is clear is “that tougher policies against asylum-seekers reduce the overall number of asylum applications in a country, especially over longer periods of time”—and that’s part of the end game here. Under U.S. law, families fleeing violence have the right to present themselves at a U.S. port of entry to petition for asylum—a life-saving right the White House has horrifically dismissed as “Democrat loopholes.” Unable to change this, they’ve now resorted to using children as young as 53 weeks as hostages in order to terrorize and scare vulnerable families away.
What’s also clear, according to Oltman, is that “deterrence does not seem to stop migration so much as redirect it,” oftentimes to more dangerous and isolated terrain that can result in severe injury and death for migrants:
After an unprecedented number of migrants died while crossing the Mediterranean to Europe, in 2014, the European Union tried to discourage such migration by sending out fewer humanitarian sea patrols — which meant that attempting to cross was even riskier — and more stringently policing movement and immigration for those on the continent. The result was that Mediterranean crossings dropped slightly. However, crossings via the alternative “Balkan Route” through Greece ticked up sharply.
Indeed, research on border control has shown that efforts to obstruct or deter border crossings by constructing physical barriers or intercepting migrants at sea have primarily redirected migration flows toward increasingly dangerous alternative routes. And such policies actually appear to encourage migrants to hire human traffickers to guide them through.
So if asylum-seeking is legal, and deterrence and stupid border walls that Mexico will never pay for don’t really work, why do it? Because this administration doesn’t want immigrants—special exception for Norway—here, period, and if they can’t change the law, they’ll do what’s needed in the name of white supremacy:
All developed democracies have signed international agreements promising not to send away potential refugees without first finding out whether they need protection – whether, in other words, they are seeking asylum from harm, not merely hoping for a better or more prosperous life. Such protections for asylum seekers make it difficult for policymakers to turn away people who may have a legitimate case for protection. And though they routinely violate it in practice, most governments have committed themselves to the principle of not returning migrants to a place where they will face political persecution.
But rather than risking the possibility that its own courts will offer asylum, some governments — like Trump’s — gamble that they can reduce applications in the first place by scaring migrants away. My own research shows that in countries where the courts have more control over deciding who receives asylum, policymakers are more likely to try to control immigration through deterrence.
Who exactly is the administration trying to scare away? Mirian G. followed U.S. law by presenting herself at a U.S. port of entry earlier this year, only to have officials rip her 18-month-old son from her arms. Two months passed before she was able to hold him again, after a judge found she had a credible asylum claim:
When we woke up the next morning, immigration officers brought us outside where there were two government cars waiting. They said that I would be going to one place, and my son would go to another. I asked why repeatedly, but they didn't give me a reason.
The officers forced me to strap my son into a car seat. As I looked for the buckles, my hands shook, and my son started to cry. Without giving me even a moment to comfort him, the officer shut the door. I could see my son through the window, looking back at me -- waiting for me to get in the car with him -- but I wasn't allowed to. He was screaming as the car drove away.
To date, the number of children held in government custody has surged over 20 percent. According to one immigrant rights activist, as many as 66 parents have their kids torn from them every single day at the border, and for no other reasons other than to punish parents, scare away other families, and trample on the enshrined right to seek asylum from danger and persecution.