Ripping families apart is just the beginning for the Trump administration, Politico reports, and Steven Miller is at the helm. This isn't even about bargaining chips at this point. This isn't about giving Republicans any kind of job-saving legislative negotiating tools. It's about aide Steven Miller's white supremacist wet dreams.
First up is an idea they've also worked into the supposed "compromise" immigration bill the House is expected to take up later this week. They want to rescind rules limiting how long migrant children can be kept in custody. In the House bill, they worked in a provision that allows Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain children and parents seeking asylum indefinitely.
“Once you rescind that regulation, then you go back to being able to do whatever you want and the detention becomes the complete discretion of ICE,” said Leon Fresco, former deputy assistant attorney general for the Office of Immigration Litigation at the Department of Justice. “That is where people think this is headed.”
The next thing you know, asylum-seekers will be headed to Guantánamo. But that's not all. Some of the other things they're talking about: "tightening rules on student visas and exchange programs; limiting visas for temporary agricultural workers; making it harder for legal immigrants who have applied for any welfare programs to obtain residency; and collecting biometric data from visitors from certain countries."
By all means, do more to piss off the agriculture states! That's brilliant. This is all the proof Republicans should need that Trump—and his immigration brain, Steven Miller—do not care whether or not congressional Republicans are re-elected. They are seizing this opportunity to do one thing: make America whiter. That's the one and only intent, elections be damned.