“The reason we’re here is because the government of the United States wants you to leave the United States,” Judge Ubaid ul-Haq, presiding from a courtroom on Varick Street, told a group of about a dozen children on a recent morning on Webex.
The parties included a 7-year-old boy, wearing a shirt emblazoned with a pizza cartoon, who spun a toy windmill while the judge spoke. There was an 8-year-old girl and her 4-year-old sister, in a tie-dye shirt, who squeezed a pink plushy toy and stuffed it into her sleeve. None of the children were accompanied by parents or attorneys, only shelter workers who helped them log on to the hearing.
Immigrant advocates and lawyers say an increasing number of migrant children are making immigration court appearances without the assistance of attorneys, which they say will lead to more children getting deported.
“That child will be ordered deported from this country — that could all happen without that child ever speaking with an attorney and given the opportunity to obtain representation,” Shah said. “The cruelty is really apparent to all of us out here in the field.”
This was painful to read. Wtf are we even doing?
Well your dictator is dictating and his cronies are carrying out his orders. What the citizens are doing, one could only guess.
Immigration law is based on the idea that deportation is not a punishment. So people in immigration court don’t get the same protections people in criminal court do - lower standards for evidence, no right to an attorney, guilty until proven innocent instead of the reverse, etc.
Because technically (coughbullshitcough) we’re not convicting or sentencing them, we’re just sending them back to their home country.
Which has always been offensive and cruel, but with the goal of this administration being to hurt as many immigrants as possible as badly as possible, the cruelty is turned up to 11.
This has been going on for I think roughly 10 years.
I am happy if the news wants to get concerned now about any particular aspect of our immigration system, now that the whole operation has reached overt-King-George levels of tyranny and fucked-up-ness and is starting to metastasize to engulf citizens also, but really the whole system already needed to get thrown away completely and unfucked from the ground up. Fortunately there’s approximately a 0% chance of that happening now for the forseeable future without a revolution.
Hooray.
Agree, trump’s White House is bad and evil and dumb all at the same time, but they are just exploiting the soles and loopholes and pushing boundaries. They’re not coming up with much new shit. The Republican Party need to get a spine and the Democrats need to get some balls.
No, both need to fucking go. The only reason Trump had as much success as he did is because the GOP has been proto-fascist for at least 40 years and the DNC in the pockets of the oligarchs for about as long. The implication that either is salvageable if they just do one simple thing is not only fundamentally flawed; it’s dangerous. Americans, you’re now staring down a revolution and need to think long and hard about what kind of society you want to make after it ends.
Jesus fucking Christ… Is there a think tank out there specifically trying to think of evil deeds?
Project 2025, was what came to mind. I thought it was too out there but apparently they’re tracking it online…
https://www.project2025.observer/
Honestly, terrifying.
Yes, yes there are many, many of them.
The worst is The Heritage Foundation.
Them and ALEC, writing more state legislation than politicians do, all of it awful.
Yep, there are many of them, and they’re all truly awful.
This is a 50 year slow rolling coup. I truly don’t know how we can stop them. Hopefully, some folks smarter and more capable than me can figure it out.
Hopefully, some folks smarter and more capable than me can figure it out.
I have some terrible, chilling news for you: nobody is that much smarter or more capable than you. We’re all in the same boat, looking at each other with raised eyebrows while the screeching gibbons some other arsehole put in charge throw their own shit at each other instead of doing their supposed jobs. Some of the crew have tried bailing out the bilge or correcting course to avoid the impending iceberg, but then they get hit by gibbon shit with startling accuracy. Everyone’s varying levels of worried, nobody has any answers.
edit: sorry, allowed myself a little fun with the analogy. It’s a dark morning. I don’t think some extraordinary hero is going to come fix this, though.
edit: sorry, allowed myself a little fun with the analogy.
I, for one, appreciated your wordsmithing.
Yes, it’s called The White House.
The White House is a tank, but there’s not much think going on there.
I believe OP meant the Heritage Foundation - the root of a lot of evil in the United States, including the ongoing terribleness.
They should be recognized, and branded as a treasonous, insurrectionist terrorist organization.
Because that’s what they are.
Yes, many in fact, but this particular evil deed is 100% homegrown.
Relevant Last Week Tonight segment from 7 years ago when the Mango Mussolini was first infesting the white house.
Not that the problem hadn’t existed for decades already. Every president and congress from Reagan onwards have made conditions in immigration courts and immigration laws in general worse.
Wholly appalling and sickening.
May the perpetrators be treated as they have treated others.
Sounds like MAGAt justice.
