By SARAH ALMUKHTAR, JUGAL K. PATEL, DEREK WATKINS and KAREN YOURISH, New York Times, June 21, 2018
[pink] States with shelters [brown] Locations of known shelters
The shelters are part of a system, shown [above], overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services, that was originally established to provide temporary housing for children entering the country without parents.
The system has an estimated 100 shelters in 17 states. The Department of Health and Human Services has not indicated which of these shelters the recently separated children were sent to, but state and local officials have confirmed that some were sent as far as New York, Oregon, California and Florida.
Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City said on Wednesday that 350 migrant children separated from their parents by federal immigration officials had come through a center in Harlem.
The shelter locations above were compiled using information from state agencies and nongovernmental organizations.
Note: Some minors are also placed into foster care. Those locations are not shown on the map.
Additional work by Jasmine C. Lee and Jeremy White.
***
Roger Cohen, "Trump the European Nationalist Puts America Last," New York Times; original article contains links and iustrations
ATHENS — President Trump, in concert with several European leaders, including those of Hungary, Poland, Austria and Italy, is intent on dehumanizing immigrants and refugees. The aim is to equate them with terrorists and criminals ready to “infest” — Trump’s word — American and European civilization, defined as a threatened white Judeo-Christian preserve.
It’s a consistent policy buttressed by insinuation and lies about the supposed threat, and designed to manipulate fear and nationalism as election-winning emotions in a time of rapid technological change, large migrant flows and uncertainty. Vermin infest, not humans.
Every utterance of Trump on immigration is meant to conflate immigration with danger. This is a direct repudiation of America’s distinguishing essence — its constant reinvention through immigrant churn.
The immigrant brings violence. The immigrant brings terror. The immigrant’s humanity is lesser or nonexistent. These are tropes about “the other” whose capacity to galvanize mobs, and wreak havoc, was proved in the first half of the 20th century. Trump does not hesitate to use them.
Nor does Viktor Orban, the right-wing Hungarian leader, who has said that “every single migrant poses a public security and terror risk.” The Hungarian parliament has just passed legislation that would throw people in jail for providing assistance to asylum seekers and migrants.
It’s known as the “Stop Soros” law, a reflection of Orban’s obsession with the liberalizing work of the Hungarian-American billionaire and philanthropist George Soros, who is Jewish. Orban’s propagandists have worked hard to whip up a frenzy over the “cosmopolitan” designs of this “speculator.” From here to words like “infest” is but a short distance, a quick sprint from 1933 to 2018.
Matteo Salvini, the rightist Italian interior minister who has turned away two rescue ships carrying more than 850 migrants since taking office this month, is pursuing a similar objective. Before taking office, he said Italy was packed with “drug dealers, rapists, burglars,” whom he wants to send home. The portrayal of Mexican migrants as “rapists” was, of course, a takeoff point for the Trump campaign in 2015.
It is critical to see Trump as a part of this wider phenomenon. One may debate the reasons for the phenomenon: the destabilizing impact of globalization on Western democracies; stagnant middle-income wages; growing inequality; fear of an automated future; the sheer scale of current migration, with some 68.5 million refugees or internally displaced people in the world; the failure of the United States or Europe to enact coherent immigration policies; the sense of vulnerability that jihadist terrorism since 2001 has propagated; the resultant spread of phobia about Islam; the ease of mob mobilization through fear-mongering and scapegoating on social media.
In the end it does not matter which factors weight most. What matters is to recognize that Trump is strong because of a global nationalist lurch; that his feral instincts make him dangerous; and that he may well win a second term, just as Orban has now won four terms.
To ridicule Trump will achieve little absent a compelling social and economic alternative that addresses anxiety. The Democratic Party, for now, is nowhere near that.
Eighteen months into a presidency during which Trump has shown contempt for the truth, Republican support for him is overwhelming. The fact that this is shameful does not make it any less politically significant. The zero-tolerance border policy that left more than 2,300 children separated from their parents — a policy Trump has now rescinded after coming under enormous pressure — had broad backing until children’s desperate cries delivered what no atrophied Republican conscience could summon: moral revulsion.
Trump likes to go for the jugular. He sees opportunity in a Europe that is split down the middle between nations like Hungary and Poland that make no attempt to sugarcoat their anti-immigrant nativism and states like Germany that have not forgotten that the pursuit of racially and religiously homogeneous societies lay at the core of the most heinous crimes of the last century.
In this split, Orban and his ilk are in the ascendancy. In fact, Orban is the most formidable politician in Europe today. It’s no coincidence that Trump called him last weekend. Their aims overlap.
Nor is it a coincidence that Trump tweeted this week that “Crime in Germany is way up” and that allowing immigrants in “all over Europe” has “strongly and violently changed their culture.”
Let’s put this bluntly: Trump (whose stats on German crime were wrong) backs Orban against Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany in the continuing bid to make racism and xenophobia the new normal of Western societies.
Le Monde, the French daily, had a banner headline on its front page this week: “The U.S. President Is Indifferent to Human Rights.” It’s true, of course; we’ve known that for a while. In fact, Le Monde was being charitable. Trump is hostile to human rights.
There are many flashpoints around the world today. But the greatest danger is within. A two-term Trump presidency would likely corrode American institutions and values to the point at which they could scarcely be resurrected. Then, even the screams of traumatized immigrant children torn from their parents may fall on deaf ears.
***
Megan Cerullo, "Trump-autographed photos of people killed by undocumented immigrants at White House event for ‘Angel Families," New York Daily News
A White House event Friday honoring people who’ve been killed by undocumented immigrants featured photos of the victims — all of which were autographed by President Trump.
Trump highlighted the so-called “Angel Families” in an attempt to shift the narrative around his “zero tolerance” immigration policy, which has sparked outrage for separating more than 2,000 immigrant children from their families.
“We’re gathered today to hear directly from the American victims of illegal immigration,” Trump said.
“You know, you hear the other side, you never hear this side.”
"These are the American citizens permanently separated from their loved ones. The word 'permanently' being the word that you have to think about. Permanently — they're not separated for a day or two days, these are permanently separated because they were killed by criminal illegal aliens," he said.
Trump accused his opponents of “burying” the families’ stories. ‘’
“These are the stories that Democrats and people that are weak on immigration, they don’t want to discuss, they don’t want to hear, they don’t want to see, they don’t want to talk about,” he said.
The event had “Angel Parents” standing on stage against a backdrop emblazoned with the phrases “Protect Our Communities” and “Secure Our Borders,” holding photographs of 11 deceased relatives, which bore Trump’s autograph in bold marker.
It wasn’t immediately clear when the President signed the photos or if the families had asked him to sign them.
Trump used the occasion to tout his immigration policies — insisting that the families’ losses will not have been for nothing.
“We will secure our borders, and we will make sure that they’re properly taken care of,” he said.
He insisted that illegal immigrants commit violent crimes at a far higher rate than U.S. citizens, despite several studies that have found the opposite. "You hear it's like they're better people than what we have, than our citizens. It's not true," he said.
He also griped about the lack of uproar over the mayor of San Diego’s alleged warning to residents about an imminent ICE raid, saying there should be far more outrage.
“And what are they going to do about looking at her, by the way? I've been asking this question now for four weeks. She can do that?” Trump fumed.
However it was Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, a Democrat, who had issued the warning, not San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, a Republican.
A White House event Friday honoring people who’ve been killed by undocumented immigrants featured photos of the victims — all of which were autographed by President Trump.
Trump highlighted the so-called “Angel Families” in an attempt to shift the narrative around his “zero tolerance” immigration policy, which has sparked outrage for separating more than 2,000 immigrant children from their families.
“We’re gathered today to hear directly from the American victims of illegal immigration,” Trump said.
“You know, you hear the other side, you never hear this side.”
"These are the American citizens permanently separated from their loved ones. The word 'permanently' being the word that you have to think about. Permanently — they're not separated for a day or two days, these are permanently separated because they were killed by criminal illegal aliens," he said.
Trump accused his opponents of “burying” the families’ stories. ‘’
Image from article, with caption: President Donald Trump speaks on immigration in the South Court Auditorium, next to the White House on June 22, 2018 in Washington, DC, next to people holding posters of people allegedly killed by illegal immigrants.
“These are the stories that Democrats and people that are weak on immigration, they don’t want to discuss, they don’t want to hear, they don’t want to see, they don’t want to talk about,” he said.
The event had “Angel Parents” standing on stage against a backdrop emblazoned with the phrases “Protect Our Communities” and “Secure Our Borders,” holding photographs of 11 deceased relatives, which bore Trump’s autograph in bold marker.
It wasn’t immediately clear when the President signed the photos or if the families had asked him to sign them.
Trump used the occasion to tout his immigration policies — insisting that the families’ losses will not have been for nothing.
Image from article, with caption: The News' front page for Saturday, 23, 2018.
“We will secure our borders, and we will make sure that they’re properly taken care of,” he said.
He insisted that illegal immigrants commit violent crimes at a far higher rate than U.S. citizens, despite several studies that have found the opposite. "You hear it's like they're better people than what we have, than our citizens. It's not true," he said.
He also griped about the lack of uproar over the mayor of San Diego’s alleged warning to residents about an imminent ICE raid, saying there should be far more outrage.
“And what are they going to do about looking at her, by the way? I've been asking this question now for four weeks. She can do that?” Trump fumed.
However it was Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, a Democrat, who had issued the warning, not San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, a Republican.
***
Julie Turkewitz and Jose A. Del, "Why Are Parents Bringing Their Children on Treacherous Treks to the U.S. Border?" New York Times, June 22; original article contains additional illustrations
President Trump hopes to deter the flow of migrants into the United States, but near the busy border crossing in Arizona, some said that the threat of separation from their children would not deter them.
Image from article, with caption: Miriam, a Guatemalan asylum seeker with her son Franco at Casa Alitas, a private shelter that provides temporary housing in Tucson, Ariz.
TUCSON, Ariz. — When Luis Cruz left behind his wife, four of their children and the house he’d built himself, he’d heard that American officials might split him from his son, the one child he took with him. But earlier this month, the two of them set out from Guatemala anyway.
The truth, he said this week, moments after they arrived at a cream-colored migrant shelter in Tucson, was that he would rather be apart from his child than face what they had left behind. “If they separate us, they separate us,” said Mr. Cruz, 41. “But return to Guatemala? This is something my son cannot do.”
For years, children and parents caught crossing the nation’s southern border have been released into the United States while their immigration cases were processed, the result of a hard-fought legal settlement designed to keep children from spending long months in federal detention. In the eyes of the Trump administration, this practice has served as an open invitation for people like Luis Cruz, and has played a major role in driving thousands of families across the border with Mexico.
Mr. Trump’s newest immigration policies — first an effort to separate families crossing the border, and now an effort to change the legal settlement on migrant family detention — represent an aggressive effort to rescind that invitation, one that has plunged the nation into a debate about the limits of its generosity.
But interviews at shelters and passage points along both sides of the border this week, as well as an examination of recent immigration numbers, suggest that even with tightened restrictions on families, it’s going to be difficult for the president to stanch the flow.
Though it’s impossible to know yet whether the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” crackdown on illegal border crossers will have a significant deterrent effect, one thing was clear this week at the Arizona-Mexico border: Many families — especially those from countries in Central America plagued by gang violence and ruined economies — are making the calculation that even separation or detention in the United States is better than the situation at home.
“Why would you undertake such a dangerous journey?” said Magdalena Escobedo, 32, who works at the migrant shelter here in Tucson, called Casa Alitas. “When you’ve got a gun to your head, people threatening to rape your daughter, extort your business, force your son to work for the cartels. What would you do?”
Attorney General Jeff Sessions in April announced a policy of prosecuting all illegal border crossers, yet federal agents caught nearly 52,000 people at the border in May, marking a steady rise in illegal entries after a sharp decline during the first year of Mr. Trump’s administration. More than 250,000 migrants had been arrested this year as of late May, according to data by United States Customs and Border Protection; that number is close to the total number arrested in all of 2017, about 311,000.
Casa Alitas, a low-slung building down a dusty street in Tucson, takes in families who’ve presented themselves to border officials to ask for asylum. Once they’re processed at immigration facilities, authorities drop them off here for a meal and a shower before they head off to stay with friends or relatives and wait for their day in court.
On Thursday, men like René Pérez, 40, who made it into the United States with his son this week, said he was well aware that they might have been separated or placed in custody. “If it happens, it happens,” said Mr. Pérez.
Across the border in the Mexican town of Nogales, many parents preparing to cross the border said temporary separation from their children in the United States would be better than facing the violence back home.
Pancho Olachea Martin, a medic, took a group of Central American asylum seekers to a shelter in Nogales.
“I’d rather accept that, to know that my son is safe,” said Lisbeth de la Rosa, 24, who was waiting in line to enter the United States with her 4-year-old son.
“It’s worth it,” said Lidia Rodríguez-Barrientos, 36, standing with her 9-year-old daughter. “Why? Because we’re afraid to go back.”
What has guided much of border detention policy in recent years is a 1997 agreement in the case Flores v. Reno, in which the federal government was barred from detaining migrant children, save for a short period and under certain conditions. The agreement was interpreted later to include children traveling with their families.
Unwilling to separate young migrants from the parents traveling with them, both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations arrived at the policy of releasing families while they awaited immigration proceedings—though Obama administration officials did so only after having been successfully sued over their policy of holding families together in detention.
Critics, including Mr. Trump, have long said that allowing migrants to go free while their immigration cases are pending encourages parents to enter the United States with children, and some conversations bear that out.
“This is the reason I brought a minor with me,” said Guillermo T., 57, a construction worker who recently arrived in Arizona. Facing unemployment at home in Guatemala, he decided to head north; he had been told that bringing his 16-year-old daughter would assure passage. He asked that only his first named be used to avoid consequences with his immigration case.
“She was my passport,” he said of his daughter.
The Trump administration is asking for changes to the Flores settlement that would allow officials to detain children with their families for longer than the short period allowed under the agreement. Lawyers for the Obama administration already asked for changes to that settlement and were denied. In any case, it’s unclear if that will stop people from coming.
Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, a global fellow at the Wilson Center who has interviewed hundreds of Central American migrants in the field, said that they are primarily motivated to leave their countries by violence and lack of economic opportunities, phenomena which she described as closely connected.
She said these migrant families choose the United States because they often have networks in the country already and know that there are many job opportunities. “There are push and pull factors. The push factors are the lack of economic opportunities and the security problems in their countries. It’s a mix of these conditions. The pull factors are of course the jobs and the families.”
Even with steep drops in the number of recorded murders in the past year, El Salvador and Honduras, the home countries of many migrants, are still among the most dangerous countries in the world. Poverty is hammering away at livelihoods in much of Central America, and for some, the decision to leave is a gamble on a better life.
For others, it’s a matter of saving the one they have.
On Thursday, federal officials dropped Mr. Cruz and his 16-year-old son, also named Luis, at Casa Alitas. Both wore black, despite the southwestern heat, and inside, they sat at a table covered with a cloth of bright sunflowers.
They eagerly consumed big bowls of soup before explaining why they had come.
The elder Mr. Cruz, a lemon and orange grove worker, had hoped to live his life in his home state of Suchitepéquez. Then in late May, his son was approached twice by a gang who demanded he join them, flashing a gun and urging him to commit his first extortion. “They kill you if you don’t obey,” said Mr. Cruz.
On June 3, the pair left for the United States, and then presented themselves at the border to ask for asylum. After lunch at the shelter, the younger Mr. Cruz pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, unfolding it to reveal a letter his school director had written before he left — a note they hoped would be the evidence they needed to win asylum in the United States.
“The student had to withdraw himself from school due to violence and gang persecution,” she wrote. “He decided to move to save his life.”
Julie Turkewitz reported from Tucson and Jose A. Del Real reported from Nogales, Mexico. Miriam Jordan contributed reporting from Los Angeles and Frances Robles from Miami.
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