Trump Border Fuhrer Tom Homan Explains Family Separation Will Be 'Humane' This Time
Well that's a relief.
Hope everyone enjoyed Christmas, the holiday of cheer and joy and all that, because with that out of the way, the incoming Trump administration has a great big bag of hate and cruelty for America to enjoy. But it’ll be unleashed on undocumented immigrants and their families, so maybe that’s happy and joyful too if you’re a Trumper.
Trump’s designated “border czar” Tom Homan, one of the chief big brains behind family separation in the first Trump administration, is looking forward to jailing entire families in tent cities again before deporting them, Homan told the Washington Post in an interview (gift link). Oh, wait, not tent cities! “‘Soft-sided’ tent structures,” which even have air conditioning and lights, so stop your sniveling. In addition he explained, parents who don’t have papers will be deported as quickly as possible, and if they have US-born kids who are citizens, that’s no excuse. But parents will be given the “choice” — as they were the first time around — to decide whether to take their US citizen children with them when they’re deported, or to leave them behind.
As for the ethics of tearing families apart, that’s not his problem, Homan explained:
“Here’s the issue,” Homan said. […] “You knew you were in the country illegally and chose to have a child. So you put your family in that position.”
How’s that for some tidings of comfort and joy?
The Post offers this semi-idyllic version of what family detention was like:
President Joe Biden ended family detention in 2021, closing three facilities ICE called “residential centers” that offered about 3,000 beds. The facilities had a dorm-like design with recreational and educational programming. They were criticized by immigration advocates and pediatricians who said detention was harmful for children.
Being in jail is bad for children, even with their parents? How can that be, when it’s all the parents’ fault? We fed them, didn’t we? Silly child experts!
There’s also the piddling unimportant fact that under a federal judge’s order, children can only be kept in detention for 20 days — even with their monstrous lawbreaking parents who don’t have papers — but as the Post notes, that’s very inconvenient for the deport-everyone crowd:
The deportation process often requires more time, so ICE has generally preferred to prioritize easier-to-remove adults. But Homan said that may change once Trump takes office.
“We’re going to need to construct family facilities,” he said. “How many beds we’re going to need will depend on what the data says.”
The article didn’t mention whether Homan actually said that meant the administration will simply ignore the 20-day limit on detaining children, or whether the Post bothered asking. Seems like something that should have come up.
Still, Homan wants you to know that while the coming mass deportations will be ruthless, you don’t need to worry too much about it, because he’s aware of optics:
“We need to show the American people we can do this and not be inhumane about it,” he said. “We can’t lose the faith of the American people.”
Nope, no further explanation of how mass deportations will be “humane.” Maybe it’s the thing where parents will be given a Sophie’s Choice about whether to have their US-citizen children deported with them.
We’ve heard this song before: During the first family separation debacle, parents who turned themselves in with their kids were also given a similar “choice,” although it often involved Border Patrol agents handing parents a form giving up all their rights as parents, while telling them that was the only way they’d see their kids again. In many cases, the parents were from indigenous communities and didn’t speak English or Spanish, the only languages on the forms.
The story also doesn’t address Trump’s insistence that he will somehow end the 14th Amendment guarantee of birthright citizenship for children of undocumented migrants, which would be unconstitutional, but only until the Supreme Court negates all previous decisions on the matter. For the moment, Homan seems to be pretending it would remain in effect.
Homan also offered some lovely doublespeak about migrant parents who come to the US without papers, then later send for their kids and claim them from the immigration system once they’ve arrived. They’re supposed to stay in touch with the government to show the kids are still OK, but many avoid such contacts, fearing they’ll be deported.
Homan insisted that while those parents should absolutely be deported, they shouldn’t worry too much, because despite all his talk of huge family detention camps,
“I’m not saying take them into custody,” he said. “We’ll let them get the child and put them in proceedings with the child, so they can go to court and plead their case as a family.”
In other words, please come forward so we can deport you. But your kids will be deported with you, hooray no family separation!
In conclusion, America is headed straight to hell again, and we’ll have no excuse of innocence when the recordings of preschoolers crying for their parents emerge again.
[WaPo (gift link)]
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How this will bring down the price of eggs, no one knows or cares, because it was never about the price of eggs. It was about racism, misogyny, a media in love with trump, and a stupid electorate.
"“We’re going to need to construct family facilities,” [Homan] said. “How many beds we’re going to need will depend on what the data says.”"
And they'll have more efficient computing hardware than IBM tabulating machines.
Just another reminder for those who say "I came here the right way," and "They're only going after the [undocumented.] You cross the border it's bad and wrong and you're a criminal."
Your documentation is only legal until it isn't. It also depends on the local cruelty of whomever is interrogating you. Your documentation is only a piece of paper or plastic in such a situation.
Know how I know how this is going to work? Birthers and the like consider it an article of faith that Barack Obama, a U.S. Citizen, is an immigrant. Because he has brown skin. It didn't matter that he has a birth certificate. They just asked for the "long form." It didn't even matter that there was a CONTEMPORANEOUS BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT in the goddamn newspaper!
This even happened to Kamala Harris too but only fizzled out because there were crappier angles to use to propagandize against her. People were wise to the birther stuff eventually.
Populism, because of its need to have an 'other' to demonize to keep up cohesion and allegiance to the leader, will always expand the size of the net of undesirables. And as always, actual citizens will get swept up in mass deportation efforts. It happened before in the USA in the 1950s after all. Unfortunately Americans don't like to listen to history...a great many have amnesia about the past four to six years after all.