{"id":17293,"date":"2018-06-26T15:27:27","date_gmt":"2018-06-26T19:27:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/live-immigrationreform.pantheonsite.io\/?p=17293"},"modified":"2018-12-28T10:20:11","modified_gmt":"2018-12-28T15:20:11","slug":"outcry-over-immigration-policy-is-about-politics-not-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2018\/06\/26\/outcry-over-immigration-policy-is-about-politics-not-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"Outcry Over Immigration Policy is About Politics, Not Reality"},"content":{"rendered":"

Four years ago this week, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told<\/a> reporters outside a detention center where unaccompanied minors were being housed that it was her \u201chope that while some may have tried to politicize it, I hope that was not the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was then, this is now. After President Trump signed an executive order to ensure families are kept together during asylum and deportation proceedings, Pelosi asserted<\/a> the action \u201cseeks to replace one form of child abuse with another\u201d by paving \u201cthe way for the long-term incarceration of families in prison-like conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bar has been raised. Family detention is akin to child abuse? If so, then Barack Obama better hire an attorney because when it suited the moment<\/a>, he increased the number of family detention centers and, albeit sporadically, used deportation as a policy of deterrence.<\/p>\n

The political polarists and cable talking heads will say it is wrong because Trump is using it as a \u201cdeterrent\u201d to others who might consider putting their own kids at risk to illegally cross the border.<\/p>\n

But that is exactly<\/em> one of the reasons \u2013 which Obama himself conceded in a 2015 exchange with open border immigration lawyer R. Andrew Free, which was\u00a0detailed on Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to Free, he told Obama at an event that his detention policy would be a stain on his legacy and the president asked him if he was an immigration lawyer.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo when I said \u201cYes\u201d, the President looked back and engaged: \u201cI\u2019ll tell you what we can\u2019t have. It\u2019s these parents sending their kids here on a dangerous journey and putting their lives at risk,\u201d recounted<\/a> Free in a June 18 Twitter commentary.<\/p>\n

But Free is not the only historical record showing deportation as deterrence is not new.<\/p>\n

Following an uptick in immigration enforcement in early 2016, Jeh Johnson, the head of Obama Department of Homeland Security (DHS), defended the deportation of families and unaccompanied minors.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have said publicly for months that individuals who constitute enforcement priorities, including families and unaccompanied children, will be removed,\u201d said Johnson in a January press release<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Johnson conceded in a Sunday interview<\/a> with Fox News\u2019 Chris Wallace that \u201cthe images and the reality from 2014, just like 2018, are not pretty\u201d and was \u201ccontroversial\u201d among open border activists at the time.<\/p>\n

According to a Washington Post report<\/a>, U.S. officials \u201csaid the operations are aimed at sending a strong message of deterrence to Central American families and avoiding a repeat of the 2014 border crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lastly, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said in his 2015 ruling<\/a> in a lawsuit against the Obama administration that<\/em> there was \u201cample support\u201d to show that \u201cDHS policy directs ICE officers to consider deterrence of mass migration as a factor\u201d in detention policies.<\/p>\n

He went on to note that government lawyers \u201chave essentially conceded that the recent surge in detention during a period of mass migration is not mere happenstance, but instead reflects a design to deter such migration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike today\u2019s revisionist historians, Johnson concedes that \u2013 controversial or not – family detention and deportation remains is a far better alternative to the failed policy of catch-and-release.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still believe it is necessary to [maintain]a certain capability for families. We can’t have catch and release and in my three years we deported, or repatriated or returned over a million people,\u201d he added.