SUMMARY
Outrage over Family Separation Continues to Build
As the number of children separated from their parents at the border tops 2,000, prominent conservative and faith leaders are condemning the practice and imploring the Trump administration to end the underlying policy, which it implemented hoping to deter asylum seekers and leverage support for its broader immigration agenda.
Former first lady Laura Bush penned an op-ed Sunday urging more compassionate solutions (see Must Reads below), echoing a letter Republican senators sent to administration officials demanding an explanation for the zero-tolerance practices.
Since prominent evangelical leaders sent a letter to Trump June 1 urging him to keep families together, more than 1,900 people have co-signed, including more than 700 pastors and other local evangelical leaders. More than 300 Catholic bishops and the United Methodist Church issued statements condemning the policy, and Franklin Graham, a prominent evangelist and vocal Trump supporter, called the policy “disgraceful.”
Despite claims to the contrary, neither of the two immigration bills on which the House may vote this week ends the practice.
Votes Expected on Immigration Bills
The House is slated to vote on two Republican immigration proposals this week in an attempt to end the longstanding impasse over a legislative solution for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients.
Similar to the earlier Securing America’s Future Act Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Virginia) introduced, a new 293-page immigration bill would couple a pathway to citizenship for some DACA-eligible immigrants with border wall funding and significant cuts to legal immigration. However, both bills propose a solution for which only some Dreamers would qualify, leaving hundreds of thousands of Dreamers without a permanent solution.
Although some have claimed that the new bill also would end family separation at the border, experts have pointed out that the bill would not actually end the Trump administration’s policy that caused it to increase dramatically, and the bill could ramp up family detention and deportation of children without full due process.
If either bill passes, it would need bipartisan support to overcome a filibuster in the Senate. Without modifications, the bills are unlikely to attract the Democratic support needed to garner the 60 votes required.
World Refugee Day to Dawn on More Refugees Worldwide, Fewer in U.S.
Ahead of World Refugee Day on Wednesday, the U.S. is on pace to resettle fewer than 22,000 refugees this fiscal year — a drop from 85,000 in 2016 and more than 200,000 in 1980.
Leading evangelical women spoke on a press call today urging compassionate, constructive immigration solutions, including resettling more refugees. Some of the speakers will also join a delegation of evangelicals meeting with congressional offices on Tuesday to call attention to the plight of refugees, asylum seekers including separated families, and Dreamers.
The support from evangelicals coincides with a new Forum report highlighting refugees’ vital economic contributions to the U.S., including how they drive economic growth at the state and local level.
LEGISLATIVE BULLETIN
Summary of immigration legislation introduced and government reports on immigration: https://immigrationforum.org/article/legislative-bulletin-friday-june-15-2018/
MUST READS:
WASHINGTON POST (Bush Op-Ed): Separating children from their parents at the border ‘breaks my heart’
By Laura Bush
June 17 2018
Laura Bush is a former first lady of the United States.
On Sunday, a day we as a nation set aside to honor fathers and the bonds of family, I was among the millions of Americans who watched images of children who have been torn from their parents. In the six weeks between April 19 and May 31, the Department of Homeland Security has sent nearly 2,000 children to mass detention centers or foster care. More than 100 of these children are younger than 4 years old. The reason for these separations is a zero-tolerance policy for their parents, who are accused of illegally crossing our borders.
I live in a border state. I appreciate the need to enforce and protect our international boundaries, but this zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart.
NEW YORK TIMES: How Trump Came to Enforce a Practice of Separating Migrant Families
By Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Michael D. Shear
June 16, 2018
WASHINGTON — Almost immediately after President Trump took office, his administration began weighing what for years had been regarded as the nuclear option in the effort to discourage immigrants from unlawfully entering the United States.
Children would be separated from their parents if the families had been apprehended entering the country illegally, John F. Kelly, then the homeland security secretary, said in March 2017, “in order to deter more movement along this terribly dangerous network.”
For more than a decade, even as illegal immigration levels fell over all, seasonal spikes in unauthorized border crossings had bedeviled American presidents in both political parties, prompting them to cast about for increasingly aggressive ways to discourage migrants from making the trek.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/16/us/politics/family-separation-trump.html
CINCINNATI ENQUIRER (Alawadhi Op-Ed): I help save American lives, but Donald Trump’s travel ban could have cost my wife her life
By Mohammed Alawadhi
June 15, 2018
I’m a doctor who has spent every day working to save American lives for the past five years, serving communities across the United States, from Pennsylvania to Arkansas to Washington state. But my own wife’s life has been in the hands of the Trump administration and our court system ever since the president announced his Muslim travel ban.
Rasha has two serious heart conditions. We fought desperately for more than a year to bring her to the USA from our war-torn birth country, Yemen, to get the treatment she needs. She was finally granted a visa last week after our story received attention from the media and members of Congress. But it is no stretch to say President Trump’s Muslim ban could have cost Rasha her life — and if the Supreme Court upholds the ban this month, it will cost others their lives.