Federal government agencies, primarily the Health and Human Services (HHS) arm tasked with holding migrant children, were “blindsided” by the Trump administration’s official implementation of the barbaric “zero tolerance” policy, an investigation from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) has found, with some officials saying they “became aware” of the policy only “when it was announced publicly."
Donald Trump’s administration had been “piloting” family separation in the months following his inauguration, with one 16 year old separated from his mom for more than nine months starting in the summer of 2017. But following the official implementation of the policy, thousands of kids were separated in a matter of weeks, with agencies like Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), wholly unprepared for the massive influx of children.
Adding to this chaos, the investigation continues, is that border agents were kidnapping babies, some not even old enough to speak. "Shelters converted space previously used for classrooms for older children to be space for children under age 5, with one shelter adding cribs, smaller tables and chairs, and toys appropriate for younger children," the New York Times reports.
In June, one report alleged officials ripped a baby from a mother as she was breastfeeding. Attorney Natalia Cornelio of the Texas Civil Rights Project, told CNN that her client, a detained migrant mom from Honduras, was breastfeeding her baby daughter when federal immigration officials ripped her away, leaving her so distraught that she had to be handcuffed. "The government is essentially torturing people by doing this," she said.
The investigation also confirms what we already knew: border agents had torn families apart with no plan set in place on how to reunite them. The vast majority of kids under ORR custody were minors who came here by themselves, but “computer systems often did not flag when a child was separated from his or her parents. As a result, it wasn't always possible to verify that crucial fact. ORR said that Homeland Security sometimes did not provide the information.”
This is further indictment of a criminal administration that created a humanitarian disaster repeatedly condemned by the United Nations (UN)—and a humanitarian disaster that Trump is threatening to bring back as he fearmongers about asylum seekers. All the while, his officials repeatedly lie about it, blame children for their own kidnapping—“self-separated,” claimed professional liar Sarah Sanders—with no accountability as children continue to languish in custody.
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