Rantt Rundown: The Trump Admin’s Dehumanization Of Latino Immigrants Has Gone Too Far
President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions stand for the national anthem during the 37th annual National Peace Officers Memorial Service on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, May 15, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Thursday: May 24, 2018
I thought long and hard about what story should lead today’s Rundown.
Should we start with the canceled North Korea summit? Should we start with Roger Stone seeking Clinton emails from Wikileaks? Should we start with the White House’s effort to see classified information on an investigation the President is a subject of?
I’ll get to all that in a moment, but why don’t we start with the migrant woman who was shot and killed by a border patrol agent this week? Or the immigrant children being separated from their families at the border?
I lead with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and President Trump’s corruption scandals every day. But today, I want to highlight what should be one of the biggest scandals plaguing this presidency: the dehumanizing cruelty the Trump administration has been unleashing on Latino immigrants.
Today, President Trump said of unaccompanied minors who are crossing the border: “They look so innocent. They’re not innocent.” Trump said this in spite of the fact that only 56 out of 250,000 unaccompanied minors apprehended by border patrol were suspected or confirmed to have gang ties. Last week, President Trump once again conflated MS-13 with Latino immigrants, calling them “animals.” This fear-mongering rhetoric goes back years. But this dehumanization has moved far beyond rhetoric and has gone even further than the inhumane ICE raids we’ve seen.
A few weeks ago, Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued an order, which DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen implemented, that requires all undocumented immigrants crossing the border be referred for criminal prosecution…including migrants seeking asylum from violence.
The move would also mean that even if immigrants caught at the border illegally have valid asylum claims, they could still end up with federal criminal convictions on their record regardless of whether a judge eventually finds they have a right to live and stay in the US.
Many of these immigrants are seeking refuge from cruelty, only to be welcomed by cruelty. NBC News reported:
From October 2017 to mid-April, before the new prosecution strategy officially went into effect, more than 700 children were reportedly separated from their parents at the border. The federal government has not released figures from May, but those who work on immigration cases have observed a large increase in the number of children affected. Nogueras said he previously saw only one or two such cases a week in the McAllen courtroom in the Southern District of Texas; last week, he saw about 33 cases.
Here are some specific examples:
Border Patrol agents arrested Esteban Pastor and prosecuted him for coming back into the country illegally. They took away his 18-month-old son, telling him he was ‘somewhere in Texas.’ Three months later, the father was deported. Alone. https://t.co/3pWX0da74k via @HoustonChron pic.twitter.com/qEnNeNdpM5
— lomikriel (@lomikriel) May 24, 2018
A weeping mother has been forced to wear a yellow insignia (bracelet) as she is ripped away from her children indefinitely.
In the United States. By policy.
Read this story.https://t.co/kUdogZ2B6L pic.twitter.com/vQ7XutNDiR
— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) May 25, 2018
Make no mistake, this is a new policy. Children have never been systematically separated from their parents at the border, as was noted in a segment on Chris Hayes’ show:
“this is unprecedented, this is the worst thing I’ve seen in 25+ years of doing this civil rights work” — ACLU immigrant rights lawyer https://t.co/L1P0y3aOQE
— ryan cooper (@ryanlcooper) May 26, 2018
And last year, 1,500 migrant children were misplaced.
These people aren’t animals. They aren’t criminals. These are mothers, fathers, and children. Some are seeking refugee or opportunity in America only to be met with tragedy.
There are countless examples of Latino Americans feeling the fallout from this dehumanization as well.
Border patrol questioned these 2 U.S. citizens in Montana because they were speaking Spanish. This is America in 2018. pic.twitter.com/GZKliyg6WZ
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) May 22, 2018
U.S. citizen detained at the border. Agents thought she had drugs so they:
– Pat down search. No drugs.
– Dog sniff. No drugs.
– Strip search. No drugs.
– X-rays. No drugs.
– Pelvic exam. No drugs.
– Rectal exam. No drugs.
Finally, they concluded she had no drugs and let her go. pic.twitter.com/Pb5HtTD8bA— Brad Heath (@bradheath) May 24, 2018
I shouldn’t have to remind you of the historical parallels here. That’s a story for another piece.
We have to shed a light on this. Especially when Trump questions whether undocumented immigrants should have the right to a trial at all. Hopefully, these actions of the Trump administration treating Latino immigrants like animals will begin to garner as much outrage as his “animal” comments received.
Updated May 26, 2018
Donald Trump falsely blamed this policy on Democrats.
Put pressure on the Democrats to end the horrible law that separates children from there parents once they cross the Border into the U.S. Catch and Release, Lottery and Chain must also go with it and we MUST continue building the WALL! DEMOCRATS ARE PROTECTING MS-13 THUGS.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 26, 2018
President Trump is lying. He is falsely blaming Democrats for his policy.
The Trump administration is making every child at the border an unaccompanied minor by ripping them from the hands of their parents (who are then prosecuted)https://t.co/Lw1NXRz2zLhttps://t.co/snvL8curh5
— Rantt Media (@RanttMedia) May 26, 2018
Meanwhile…
- We reported:
Today, in a letter addressed to Kim Jong-un, President Trump pulled out of the June 12th summit that was set to be held in Singapore. In his letter, Trump cited that his decision to withdraw was the result of the “tremendous anger and open hostility” exhibited in yesterday’s statement from vice-foreign minister and nuclear negotiator, Choe Son Hui.
Choe’s statement warned, “we can also make the US taste an appalling tragedy it has neither experienced nor even imagined up to now” and referred to Vice President Mike Pence as a “political dummy.”
But his reasoning is not as simple as Trump claims.
Trump was unprepared for the summit.
He thought his bluster is what brought North Korea to the table.
He continued this tactic with the “Libya model” rhetoric.
It backfired.
Note to @HouseGOP: Never cry “Nobel Peace Prize” before peace is achieved. https://t.co/AoQCjA57Bz
— Rantt Media (@RanttMedia) May 24, 2018
- To use his phrase, it appears Roger Stone may have his time in the barrel.
New: Roger Stone sought information damaging to Hillary Clinton from Julian Assange during the 2016 campaign: https://t.co/1lcLLFG93g
— Shelby Holliday (@shelbyholliday) May 24, 2018
In an email to his longtime friend Randy Credico, Stone wrote, ““Please ask Assange for any State or HRC e-mail from August 10 to August 30–particularly on August 20, 2011.”
He was seeking info that might confirm a narrative that Clinton botched an alleged peace deal in Libya.
— Shelby Holliday (@shelbyholliday) May 24, 2018
This contradicts Roger Stone’s denials in his congressional testimony, making him susceptible to perjury charges.
- The Justice Department briefed members of the House and Senate on the FBI informant that President Trump has been falsely smearing as a spy. And some White House folks crashed the briefings.
Wow — @LauraAJarrett saw Emmett Flood leaving the Department of Justice alongside Nunes, Gowdy, Ryan and Kelly. Flood replaced Ty Cobb on Trump’s legal team earlier this year.
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) May 24, 2018
For the record, the President’s Chief of Staff and his attorney in an ongoing criminal investigation into the President’s campaign have no business showing up to a classified intelligence briefing.
— Mark Warner (@MarkWarner) May 24, 2018
And in his typical style, Rudy Giuliani admitted what everyone suspected their strategy is.
RUDY tells @dsamuelsohn that today’s briefing will inform Trump’s legal defense:
“We want to see how the briefing went to today and how much we learned from it. If we learned a good deal from it, it will shorten that whole process considerably.”
Exactly what Dems feared.
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) May 24, 2018
- President Trump started his day with a blatant lie, further perpetuating his conspiracy theory in an effort to undermine Mueller’s investigation.
Clapper has now admitted that there was Spying in my campaign. Large dollars were paid to the Spy, far beyond normal. Starting to look like one of the biggest political scandals in U.S. history. SPYGATE – a terrible thing!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 24, 2018
THIS IS A LIE@realDonaldTrump is lying
James Clapper NEVER said this https://t.co/JU2z4DxNNr
— Stephanie Ruhle (@SRuhle) May 24, 2018
- President Trump signed a rollback of Dodd-Frank.
- President Trump said that NFL players who protest shouldn’t be in the country.
- The Daily Beast reported:
FBI agents armed with a court order have seized control of a key server in the Kremlin’s global botnet of 500,000 hacked routers, The Daily Beast has learned. The move positions the bureau to build a comprehensive list of victims of the attack, and short-circuits Moscow’s ability to reinfect its targets.
- The chickens came home to roost for Harvey Weinstein.
“One phone call and you’re done.”
“I have eyes and ears everywhere.”
“I’m Harvey Weinstein, you know what I can do.”
Not anymore. https://t.co/j3x8njJZWJ
— jodikantor (@jodikantor) May 24, 2018
