Hey everyone!
So if you've been on the internet at all recently, I'm guessing you've been seeing
a lot of stuff about US immigration policy in the news, and it's probably seemed very
confusing and super depressing.
I can't do a whole about the depressing part, but I want to do my best to clear up
some of the confusion.
Don't worry, you're not alone in feeling confused -- it was really hard for me to find
all the information I needed for this video.
A lot of stuff has been changing rapidly, some of it has been misreported, and it's
all just a mess.
Even people whose full-time job it is to work on immigration policy are finding it difficult
to keep up with all of the Trump administration's changes.
So I want to explain all of this to the best of my ability, and at the end of this video,
I'll recommend some organizations you can donate to or volunteer at that help migrants
coming into the US, and I'll recommend some folks you can follow who are far more knowledgeable
about this stuff than I am.
So, what is even happening?
Well, the immigration system in the US has been terrible for a long time, and we'll
get more into that later, but the most recent chunk of media attention started with the
government allegedly "losing" 1,500 migrant children.
When this story initially broke, it seemed to a lot of people like the Office of Refugee
Resettlement (ORR), working with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was supposed
to have 1,500 migrant kids in its custody, and it did not know where they were.
Pretty soon after, immigration policy experts looked more closely into this and explained
that actually the 1,500 kids weren't really lost, they had been released to family members
and hadn't answered a phone call from the ORR that was checking in on them.
There could be a lot of reasons for people not answering the phone, like maybe they just
weren't home that day, or maybe they were worried about the ORR keeping track of them
and deporting them or their family members.
So the calls to "find the children" that rang out across social media ended up being
harmful, since what we want isn't more of the government tracking and detaining immigrants
-- what we want is for them to be able to live free in this country.
This initial story, which was about children who crossed the border without their parents,
got confused with another story about the Trump administration seperating children from
their parents at the border, and lots of people thought the children who had been taken from
their parents had been lost.
That's not the case, though the reality is still really messed up.
Basically, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has put in place a "zero tolerance policy"
for anyone crossing the border "illegally", as in not at a port of entry.
Previously, those who were apprehended would be given a court date and set free, or bussed
back over the border without any charges, but the new policy involves jailing every
single person crossing the border "illegally".
By the way, I keep putting "illegally" in quotation marks because 1) the border is
an imaginary line that shouldn't exist, 2) when people hear "illegal" they immediately
label people as a criminals and dehumanize them, but underage drinking and speeding are
also illegal and the vast majority of Americans have done one if not both of those things,
and 3) some people who are crossing the border not at ports of entry do have completely legal
claims of asylum.
And according to international law, anyone entering a country has the right to seek asylum.
In fact, the US is defying international law to such a degree that the UN has stepped in
and said the US has to stop treating Asylum-seekers so inhumanely.
Anyway, this new policy of jailing everyone who crosses the border outside of a port of
entry has resulted in nearly 2,000 children being separated from their parents in the
last month alone, because the children are not allowed to be detained with their parents
thanks to a decades-old court order call the Flores settlement.
The Flores settlement says that children have to be held in the "least restrictive conditions
possible", so something more like a shelter than a prison.
That means that children can't be held with their parents who have to be in jail waiting
for their court date.
More children are getting separated from their parents thanks to the "zero tolerance policy"
because more immigrant parents are being thrown in jail instead of given a court date.
The Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, has said that
there's no policy separating children from their parents, but by jailing all the parents,
the children by law have to be separated from them.
So she's lying.
Trump has said that the Democrats invented this policy, but that's untrue.
This specific policy is entirely an invention of the Trump administration and was only recently
put into place by Jeff Sessions, and Sessions himself has defend the policy by saying that
it acts as a deterrent for Central Americans immigrants, and he has quoted the bible as
a reason for enforcing that law.
So according to the Trump administration, this new policy of separating all children
from their parents upon entry is both 1) nonexistent, 2) an invention of the Democrats, and 3) a
good immigration deterrent.
This administration is literally just thinking of every possible excuse it can and just spitting
it all out there, hoping that someone will believe some part of it.
Not to mention Sessions invoking the bible to backup why he thinks children should be
taken from their parents.
Imagine if any politician invoked the Quran as a reason for doing anything, these Republicans
would be losing their minds and saying that you can't use politics to enforce your religion.
But that's because they're not actually worried about religion being in politics as
long as its their "good Christian" religion.
And that same bible verse was used to defend slavery.
You can't even make this stuff up.
Anyway, separating children from their parents upon entry to the US is obviously wrong and immoral.
Especially when these kids are being held in prison-like conditions that should be
illegal because they're violating the Flores settlement.
And they often have to pull the kids away from their parents screaming and crying, some
are even told they're taking them for a bath and then they never come back.
But, what's the solution then?
Is it to detain parents and children together?
Because that's looking to be what the Trump administration could do at this point to save face.
They'd be "reuniting families" even though they'd all still be in prison.
Really, the only ethical thing you could do is to release them all.
There's no reason to detain all these people, to create more prisons, and to fill them with immigrants.
Trump has derided this as a "catch-and-release" policy, but it's the only right thing to do.
People shouldn't end up in jail just for crossing the border.
We already have the largest prison population in the world -- we don't need to be making
it any larger by imprisoning all these immigrants who are just trying to stay alive and make
a better life for themselves.
And bussing everyone back over the border puts them right back into the incredibly dangerous
situations they were fleeing.
Let's look at the case of 19-year-old Manuel Antonio Cano-Pacheco, who was brought to the
US when he was 3 years old and barely knew Mexico.
He had DACA, but after being convicted on two small misdemeanor drug charges, he was
deported*, and a few weeks later, he was murdered in Mexico.
His story is not uncommon.
The violence that immigrants are fleeing is real, and it is heartless to throw them back
without any regard for their safety.
And on top of all of this, the Government has been shutting down legal ports of entry
and then apprehending and prosecuting those who cross "illegally" right next to the port of entry.
You can't tell everyone "just do things the legal way" and then shut down the legal way.
Plus, Sessions is completely rewriting Asylum law to say that those fleeing domestic or
gang violence can no longer be granted Asylum in the US, which is horrifying.
This policy will kill people.
Immigrants are fleeing real violence, they have a legal right to seek Asylum, they're
being denied, and many will die as a result.
There is blood on the hands of Sessions, Trump, Nielsen, and every official who is just "taking
orders" and "doing what they're told" as they ship people to their deaths in defiance
of the Refugee Convention.
I've also been seeing a lot of people rightfully pointing out that while the Trump administration
has been uniquely horrible on immigration, the Obama administration was awful too.
His administration deported over two million people, and you can't tell those deportees
that they're better off because they were deported by a Democrat instead of a Republican.
Obama's immigration policy was very, very bad, and it's useless to deny that or to
try and rewrite history.
I think we can acknowledge that the immigration system has been horrifically inhumane for
a long time, and still point out how the Trump administration's new policies are making it even worse.
And while a lot of this immigration stuff recently have revolved around the DHS, the
DOJ, the HHS, the ORR, and the CBP -- let's not forget how ICE is terrorizing communities
around the country.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is a relatively new agency -- it was only formed in 2003 -- and
it's tasked with deporting undocumented immigrants.
Given that there are over 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country, that's an impossible
task, but they're really trying their hardest.
They detained a trans woman as she was at a court hearing to get a restraining order
against her abusive boyfriend, they waited at a school to detain fathers as they dropped
off their children, and they detained a father for delivering pizza to an army base.
They regularly target innocent people who've been here for years and years, and they're
known for detaining US citizens who they racially profile as "looking like" they could be undocumented.
ICE will happily tear apart families and deport people to countries they barely know without
a second thought.
It's dangerous to think that just because ICE exists today it has to continue to exist.
It was literally formed in 2003 and could just as easily be dissolved.
It's a brutal, heartless government agency that needs to be abolished, and it should
be a goal of anyone opposing Trump's policies to also abolish ICE completely.
And one last thing I want to mention is that I'm consistently blown away by the way in
which people are able to talk about migrants in such a detached, dehumanizing way.
Every time I see an article or story about some tragedy that happened to migrants, the
comments are always the same.
There are always people laughing at their pain and suffering and saying that they "should've
come here legally".
Compassion is so vitally important in all areas of our lives but it's often severely
lacking in discussions around immigration.
People will straight up refer to human beings as "illegal aliens" and see nothing wrong
or dehumanizing about that.
It's disgusting, and sad, and I would just urge you, even if we disagree on immigration
policy, just try to see these people as humans.
Try to relate to them and have compassion for them and see them for the real people they are.
The only difference between an American citizen and an undocumented immigrant is the place
they were born.
You just as easily could have been in their shoes.
Alright, so, what can you do to help?
There are a bunch of local organizations that could use volunteers, like the ICDI in Chicago
or the Florence Project in Arizona.
I'll link a Twitter thread of more local organizations in the description, but I also
recommend doing a search for local immigrants rights organizations near you and reach out
to see if they could use any help.
You can also donate to any of these organizations: We Belong Together, United We Dream, the Women's
Refugee Commission, Kids In Need of Defense, Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, Human Rights First, and LUPE.
I'll link to them all individually, but you can also donate to all of them at once
by going to the Act Blue link that I'll put in the description.
I'd also recommend following immigration lawyers and activists on Twitter to stay up-to-date
on what's going on.
I'll link to several of them in the description who I think are incredibly smart and well-versed
in everything that's going on.
And that is everything I have for you today.
Thanks so much for watching, and I'll see you next time.
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