Congress has passed its short-term spending bill in time to go on Christmas vacation. The politicians managed to forget their promises to protect DACA recipients, despite a week of militant protests by Dreamers at the Capitol. Meanwhile, journalist Todd Miller reminds us via tweetthat “separating children from their parents has been part of the policy/strategy for quite a while”; he adds a link to a November 2011 reportby the Applied Research Center. Still, we’ve been seeing an intensification of the practice under the Trump administration, and we can expect things to get worse if we don’t respond forcefully.—TPOI editor
DACA Recipients’ Message to Democrats: Stop Playing with Our Lives, and Pass a Clean DREAM Act Now
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| Dreamers protest in Schumer's office. Photo: The Intercept |
Democracy Now!
December 21, 2017
As Congress passes a massive rewrite of the U.S. tax code that could mean the largest transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top in history, it is also negotiating a stopgap spending measure that will not include the DREAM Act, which would grant legal status to recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. This comes as seven young DACA recipients and one ally were released from jail Wednesday after six days in jail on hunger strike. The eight were arrested Friday during nonviolent sit-in protests inside the offices of Democratic lawmakers, demanding they commit to voting “no” on the spending bill this month unless it includes a version of the DREAM Act without concessions for funding for the border wall or enhanced border security. We are joined by Erika Andiola, one of the eight activists just released and a nationally known immigrant activist who served as a spokesperson for Bernie Sanders and helped him craft immigration policy. She is the political director for Our Revolution. She is a DACA recipient who grew up in Arizona, where her house was raided in 2013 and immigration agents picked up her mother and brother.[...]
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“Pathetic”: Democratic Leaders Called Out for Betraying Vow to Fight for Dreamers
By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams
December 22, 2017In September, Democratic leaders assured 800,000 young immigrants that they would make use of their leverage in year-end spending battles to pass a clean Dream Act. On Thursday, Democrats folded on this promise without much of a fight, allowing a continuing resolution to pass both houses of Congress and heading home for the holidays while leaving thousands of immigrants in "legal limbo."
“Quite frankly, it's a pathetic way for the Democratic Party’s leadership to close out a year in which millions of Americans fought back and resisted the Trump regime’s racist, xenophobic, and dangerous agenda with an inspiring wave of grassroots activism from coast to coast,” CREDO political director Murshed Zaheed said in a statement following Thursday's vote. “This is a monumental failure.”[…]
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The Trump Administration Is Separating Children From Asylum-Seeking Parents at the Border
By Katie Shepherd, Immigration Impact
December 11, 2017
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| José Demar Fuentes and his son. Photo: PBS News Hour |
An alarming trend along the U.S.-Mexico border has escalated within the last year: the inhumane practice of separating immigrant children from their parents at the hands of U.S. immigration officials. Not only is this practice deeply traumatic for the families involved, it flies in the face of established U.S. and international law.
In response to this grave violation, the American Immigration Council, in collaboration with the Women’s Refugee Commission and several other immigration rights organizations, filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) and the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), demanding an investigation into this uptick in family separation.[...]
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Migrant seeking asylum says his toddler was taken away at the U.S. border
PBS News Hour
Dec 22, 2017
At least four Central American men in this California detention facility say U.S. immigration officials took their children after they arrived at the border, asking for asylum. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says the agency separated the children for their safety, because the men didn't have enough proof they were the fathers. Special correspondent Jean Guerrero of KPBS in San Diego reports.[...]
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