Trump is worried about the Democrats taking one or both houses of Congress in November. He wants to fire up his base for the elections. Immigration, he believes, is key to doing that.
To prove to his base that he’s the toughest on immigration, Trump decided he needed to separate migrant children from their parents. Trump, who primarily gets his news from far-right Fox News and Breitbart, felt that most Americans would accept the separation policy. The policy had the added benefit, Trump believed, of allowing him to pressure Democrats to agree to $25 billion for his wall on the Mexican border, the one that he promised Mexico would pay for.
The so-called “zero tolerance” policy began in early May and children separated from their parents were kept in chain-link cages. Children as young as three were required to represent themselves in immigration courts without their parents or an attorney.
On June 5th, the United Nations told Trump that his family separation policy was illegal. Trump decided on Tuesday to remove the U.S. from the U.N. Human Rights Council. Allegedly that was for prejudice against Israel, although if that were the real reason one wonders why Trump waited a year and half to act.
Trump’s zero-tolerance approach seems to have worked with many in his base but he badly misjudged the rest of the country. By more than 3 to 1 American voters oppose separating immigrant children from their parents.
Trump did not expect the huge backlash from most Americans and the media. This included Republicans, faith leaders, all the living First Ladies and Melania and Ivanka Trump. Conservative commentator Steve Schmidt quit the Republican Party this week and another long-time conservative commentator, George F. Will, urged Republicans to vote Democratic in November.
Under immense pressure, Trump changed his story on the separations no fewer than 14 times.
With the separation issue controlling the airwaves, Trump was forced to end the policy, a rare Trump concession and a major defeat. After lying and denying that he had the power to change the policy his own Attorney General recently put in place and blaming the Democrats for the situation, Trump issued an executive order preventing the further parting of parents and children. It said nothing about reuniting the families already separated, though, and it stated that the families would be held indefinitely. The order resulted in the usual Trump chaos. Trump, of course, further attacked immigrants.
The controversy is not going to subside. Although the Trump administration would prefer not to reunite previously separated families, political pressure will force him to do that. It is not going to be easy and will take months. Families have been separated into locations in 14 different states and it’s not at all clear that the Trump administration has kept track of which children and parents have been sent where. Some of the children are babies and toddlers who cannot talk well enough to identify themselves and their parents. DNA tests will likely need to be conducted.
Trump plans to hold immigrants on military bases where the media and others cannot see the conditions. There are other alternatives, but Trump will refuse to use them because he wants to look as tough as possible on immigration.
Because of a severe shortage of immigration judges, immigrant parents will likely have to wait two to three years in the camps before their cases are heard. Many have asylum claims that, if proven, the U.S. is required to honor by law.
Trump is quickly going to run into an earlier consent decree where the government agreed not to hold children in detention for more than 20 days. Trump’s executive order specifically directed a challenge to that decree. It seems very unlikely that the judge in charge will agree to change it. Trump then will blame the courts and say that they are the ones forcing him to separate families. That, of course, will be a lie: There are other alternatives. If Trump tries separating families again he will run into the same media hurricane.
It has to terrify Republicans running for Congress this fall.