Trump's War on Children

[_Hawkeye]

Everyone seems to have overlooked this post when I thought it would have received the most feedback. With all the insistence that we find a better way, I haven't heard anyone explain why this solution should be ignored. It addresses everything and seems to satisfy the concerns of everyone on both sides. But Trump did away with it last year probably because it was working, proving his real problem with immigration has nothing to do with "keeping out criminals," or demanding folks follow the "right path." No, it has everything to do with keeping out the "infestation" of "animals" arriving from "shithole countries." If only we shared a border with Norway.

This Alternative To Detaining Immigrant Families Works. Trump Just Won’t Use It.

There are much better options than taking kids from their parents or locking them up together.

The way the Trump administration talks about it, you’d think there are only two ways to respond to families crossing into the U.S. illegally: either separate kids from their parents while the adults are tried as criminals or put entire families into indefinite detention.

But there’s an alternative approach that’s cheaper, more humane and incredibly effective. The Trump administration just doesn’t want to use it.

The Family Case Management Program, which President Donald Trump ended several months after taking office, was meant to keep track of immigrant parents and kids in removal proceedings without having to keep them locked up. It was relatively small ― about 950 families in five locations. But it was hugely successful: More than 99 percent of families in the program showed up for their court dates, and 97 percent participated in required check-ins with their case managers, according to a report from Geo Care, the private prison company that operated the program. And it reportedly cost the government just $36 per family each day, versus $319 per bed per day in a family detention center.

Now, as the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress seek to expand the government’s ability to lock up immigrant families long term, Democrats and immigrant rights advocates are asking why they don’t bring back the alternative program in an expanded version.

“In both bills the plan is to incarcerate families,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) told Huffington Post. “To put mothers in cages with toddlers, as if that’s the only alternative, which clearly it is not. Unless your intention is to be punitive and harsh and punish people before seeking asylum.”

The FCMP was meant for people deemed too vulnerable for detention, such as pregnant or nursing women or families with special needs children. It required families to be briefed on their responsibilities in the immigration court process, which can be complicated, and to check in regularly with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and their case manager. Case managers referred families to services — such as lawyers and children’s school enrollment — and, if they received a deportation order in court, helped them prepare to return to their native country.

It was a success story for alternatives to detention, according to experts who served on an advisory committee for the program.

“The message is if you do this kind of frequent and fairly intensive case management, you can get almost 100 percent compliance,” said Randy Capps, the director of research for U.S. programs at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. “You don’t have to detain people.”

ICE abruptly shut down the program last June with little explanation for advisory committee members, some of them said. They were simply told at a meeting that it would be their last.

Agency spokeswoman Sarah Rodriguez said in a statement that ICE discontinued the program after determining that other alternatives to detention “proved to be a much better use of limited resources” with similar rates of compliance. She added that “removals of individuals on [alternatives to detention] occur at a much higher rate” than the FCMP.

“There are no plans to reinstate the FCMP at this time,” she said.

That method for assessing the program doesn’t make sense, said another former member of the FCMP advisory committee, Michelle Brané, the director of the migrant rights and justice program at the Women’s Refugee Commission. The FCMP wasn’t in effect long enough for many of the participants to complete their removal proceedings, she said. She added that the program’s purpose was to ensure immigrants went to their removal hearings and that whether those hearings resulted in relief or deportation was irrelevant.

“The program’s efficacy shouldn’t be assessed by removals because if people are getting legal help and qualify [for relief], then that’s not a removal, but it is full compliance,” she said. “That means their system works.”

Another ICE spokesman, Matthew Bourke, said in an email that removals were “a relevant way to determine the program’s effectiveness” because a key reason ICE created the program “was to promote participant compliance with immigration obligations which included final orders of removal.”

He said that immigrants monitored under other alternatives to detention comply with court hearings more than 99 percent of the time and with check-ins almost 98 percent of the time.

But it’s unclear whether expanding alternatives to detention is part of Trump’s plan to address the issue of families arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border. It’s certainly not one he has boosted. His executive order this week, which he said would stop routine family separations for unauthorized immigrant families, presented only detention as an option.

Immigrant rights advocates are pushing for policymakers to remember that detention isn’t the only p.

“ICE has a whole range of alternatives to detention,” said Ashley Feasley, a former advisory committee member and the director of policy at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ migration and refugee services. “These are existing programs that could be implemented now in lieu of building large-scale family-child detention facilities.”

[_Res Ipsa]

... FAIR, an anti-immigrant group.

That's patently false. I would've thought you, of all people, to be a little more oriented toward the truth. Shame.

- Doc

You’re right. It would have been more accurate to say anti non-white immigrant group.

[_Themis]

Well it might have helped if you had tried making positive comments--Israel has a wall, they also have this that and this other thing along their borders--instead of testing him.

I wasn't testing him. He just started being an ass like he sometimes likes to do so I then came back at him a little. My question was asking why those areas he brought up didn't have big walls. That should be easy to understand I am not suggesting at all Israel doesn't have some walls. I even said so later when he made incorrect accusations.

[_Res Ipsa]

[Hawkeye], it’s inexplicable to me why that program was discontinued rather than expanded. I don’t think folks understand how much it will cost to arrest arrest, try, and jail every person who crosses the border illegally. What we had was an expedited process for sending people back and a cheap program that had a very high rate of compliance for those passing the initial screens for asylum. And, if we hired additional judges to process the asylum cases, we wouldn’t have people waiting years for a hearing.

Instead, we have the current mess, where we have to pay to detain large numbers of people pending a trial, then pay the costs of housing and feeding them in federal prisons. And on top of that, an executive order that, in 18 or so days, will violate the law.

[_DoubtingThomas]

Wow Time magazine is a piece of s***!

[_Jersey Girl]

Well it might have helped if you had tried making positive comments--Israel has a wall, they also have this that and this other thing along their borders--instead of testing him.

I wasn't testing him. He just started being an ass like he sometimes likes to do so I then came back at him a little. My question was asking why those areas he brought up didn't have big walls. That should be easy to understand I am not suggesting at all Israel doesn't have some walls. I even said so later when he made incorrect accusations.

I was asking a simple question to see if Ajax was interested in that discussion before all your attacks.

Right. You were testing him.

[_Themis]

I was asking a simple question to see if Ajax was interested in that discussion before all your attacks.

Right. You were testing him.

If you mean Ajax then yes I was testing him to see if he was willing to have a real discussion about a border wall. He doesn't a lot of the time, but he at least will give his opinions unlike subby.

[_ajax18]

If a person feels there is no form of asylum seeking that's legitimate, and only approves of limited immigration that fails to improve on our existing immigration practise, that person is going to be frustrated with reality no matter which aspect of it one points out. It seems that's the boat you're in.

Honorentheos the rise in asylum applications is at 1700%. These asylum laws just don't seem affordable no matter how high you raise taxes.

I'm really not trying to be disrespectful. This is an honest question because I heard your reasoning repeated by Senator Russell (R) on Fox News and it floored me to hear it from his mouth. When you say that if we let in more immigrants we'd have less of a problem with illegal immigration that just doesn't make any sense to me. The number of desperate immigrants around the world seems almost infinite and is only getting bigger. We're one country that still has more people than jobs which pay a living wage. Poor nations continue to grow in population at exponential rates. Surely you understand this do you not? What am I missing?

[_Hawkeye]

Honorentheos the rise in asylum applications is at 1700%. These asylum laws just don't seem affordable no matter how high you raise taxes.

I'm really not trying to be disrespectful. This is an honest question because I heard your reasoning repeated by Senator Russell (R) on Fox News and it floored me to hear it from his mouth. When you say that if we let in more immigrants we'd have less of a problem with illegal immigration that just doesn't make any sense to me. The number of desperate immigrants around the world seems almost infinite and is only getting bigger. We're one country that still has more people than jobs which pay a living wage. Poor nations continue to grow in population at exponential rates. Surely you understand this do you not? What am I missing?

No it is a dishonest question because it has been answered numerous times over the years. You just insist on remaining stupid and can't seem to get your head out of Brietbart's ass. More immigrants doesn't affect you whatsoever unless you're a licensed contractor working odd jobs. Everyone else benefits tremendously. It is why your boy Trump keeps getting H1B visas for more foreign workers. I just started a thread on that topic, which you will no doubt ignore.

[_honorentheos]

If a person feels there is no form of asylum seeking that's legitimate, and only approves of limited immigration that fails to improve on our existing immigration practise, that person is going to be frustrated with reality no matter which aspect of it one points out. It seems that's the boat you're in.

Honorentheos the rise in asylum applications is at 1700%. These asylum laws just don't seem affordable no matter how high you raise taxes.

I'm really not trying to be disrespectful. This is an honest question because I heard your reasoning repeated by Senator Russell (R) on Fox News and it floored me to hear it from his mouth. When you say that if we let in more immigrants we'd have less of a problem with illegal immigration that just doesn't make any sense to me. The number of desperate immigrants around the world seems almost infinite and is only getting bigger. We're one country that still has more people than jobs which pay a living wage. Poor nations continue to grow in population at exponential rates. Surely you understand this do you not? What am I missing?

Ajax,

To put things into context, consider the 2016 Department of Homeland Security's budget request as well as the numbers from 2014 and 2015 in the following:

https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files ... _Brief.pdf

Those numbers range from $60 Billion to $65 Billion and cover everything from TSA screenings to the Coast Guard's efforts to Secret Service protection of the White House.

On the subject under discussion in this thread it included the following:

$3.3 billion to provide safe, secure, and humane detention and removal of removable individuals who are held in Government custody because they present a risk of flight, a risk to public safety, or are subject to mandatory detention.

o Funds to supervise approximately 87,000 individuals (average per day by the end of FY 2016), including an additional $94.5 million to support adult detention beds for higher risk individuals and $122.5 million for the more cost-effective Alternatives to Detention program for those who are not considered a threat to our communities. The Alternatives to Detention program places low-risk individuals under various forms of intensive supervision or electronic monitoring rather than in detention.

o $129.4 million to identify and apprehend immigration fugitives in the United States, with an emphasis on those who pose the greatest risk to national security and public safety.

o $345.3 million to fund an increased number of family beds to address the surge in families with children crossing the U.S. southern border illegally.

o The FY 2016 President’s Budget proposes $45 million of Custody Operations funding be appropriated as five-year funding. This extension of funds availability (from one to five years) would allow ICE to improve the cost efficiency of detention bed rates.

In March of this year there were 16,331 persons who applied for asylum in the US. If this were assumed to be the monthly average for 2018, that would mean approximately 196,000 asylum seekers or 2.25 times the number assumed in 2016's budget request for $218 Million for supervision, $345 Million for facilities, and $129 Million for apprehension efforts.

That's not an insubstantial amount of money, to be sure. And given the amount of time a typical family had to wait to get a hearing and finding to either be added tot he asylum program or deported is measured in months or years, it can't be said this amount was sufficient for the demand. A 2.25 increase in just two years is justifiably concerning.

The Trump admin is trying to counter the effects of this prolonged process by sending a new message to families in Central America - if you try to come to the States, you'll be sent back and have wasted your money and time in the process while putting yourself and your family at risk. The risks don't outweigh the rewards. One could reasonably argue that the alternative message was being inadvertently sent by the Obama administration because as it attempted to comply with US and International law it would appear like children and families were getting in due to the long delays in processing and getting a hearing. But the Trump approach requires disregarding both US and international law.

So what to do? The Trump administration is proposing to add more resources at the border but wants those to take the form of infrastructure (a wall) and enforcement. Both of which require additional long term obligations to maintain the infrastructure and enforcement levels. But does it work and send the right message? I think those who don't agree with this approach but aren't just arguing against Trump for the sake of arguing against Trump would say it does not on either count. Instead, the message becomes one of playing cat and mouse with ICE. A wall cannot be 100% effective in keeping people out, we'll continue to have to both fund it's upkeep and increased border enforcement anyway, and people looking at the risk-reward calculations will not be deterred so much as incentivized if they feel the risks of staying outweigh the risks of attempting to try and sneak in. With a $5 Billion per year wall construction budget line item and billions more in enforcement being requested, we're at or over the cost of just attempting to fund the programs for vetting and providing for legal asylum seeking at the increased level.

But suppose we direct the increase in resources to the vetting and hearing process to levels where we are able to comply with US and International Law, and people who are valid asylum seekers are more expeditiously granted entry into the US as asylees while those who are proven to be seeking asylum under false pretenses are sent back within a month? What is the message to those making the risk-reward calculations then? I would argue it sends the message that the US is committed to protecting those who are truly vulnerable but if you are attempting to lie your way in then you will be wasting your time and money.

Add to this increasing funding and availability for visas from Central American countries to provide valid routes to legal immigration and we again shift the risk-reward calculus away from increasingly viewing illegal immigration as the best option to whatever other options might be on the table.

Don't overlook the fact Trump wants to spend grandiose levels of your tax dollars at the border above those being spent now. It isn't a question of spending more or not spending more when looked at through the Trump-supporter lens. So you have to evaluate how effective those dollars will be and what we are committing to going forward once we start down a particular path. Infrastructure requires upkeep, ajax. It's a money pit that Trump is proposing as a solution. I think any truly fiscal conservative ought to be skeptical.