Houston Chronicle opinion echo ~ Donald Trump failed border policy

Donald Trump should have listened to Colin Powell.*

“The government readily keeps track of personal property of detainees in criminal and immigration proceedings.” U.S. District Court Judge Dana Sabraw wrote Tuesday. “Yet, the government has no system in place to keep track of, provide effective communication with, and promptly produce alien children.”

The president’s knee-jerk, zero-tolerance policy affecting mostly Central American asylum-seekers remains hopelessly oblivious to a prescient bit of wisdom from the former secretary of state: “You break it, you own it.”
Trump didn’t just break up families, he broke the bank with this extravagantly expensive scheme of feeding, housing and clothing thousands of children and parents for an undetermined amount of time — roughly $2 billion in extra spending per year, according to Roque Planas at the Huffington Post — and rejecting more affordable alternatives to detention. He also broke with the priorities of the Justice Department, which should be targeting dangerous drug-traffickers and smugglers, not on moms, dads and toddlers.

And he broke his promise to run government like one of America’s best companies. Instead, he ran it like one of his own companies: into the ground. This time, though, the billionaire braggart who has declared bankruptcy six times doesn’t have that convenient out.

Migrant families cannot be housed indefinitely

Frankly, the man (Donald Trump), who once boasted, “I alone can fix it,” will have to do so. But how?

Much of the damage can’t be undone: Too many children have suffered psychological harm. Some parents have been deported while their children remain in U.S. custody. Many kids may never see their families again.

Trump could have foreseen these consequences if his administration had spent more time contemplating this policy than the president takes to fire off a tweet.

“This crisis was made as a result of a decision to separate the kids,” the emergency manager at the Tornillo detention camp outside El Paso told reporters recently. “It was an incredibly dumb, stupid decision that our leadership made.”

At this point, more than 2,000 children remain in custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement after being forcibly separated from their parents. Even though a federal judge mercifully has ordered them all reunited within a month, it seems the administration never established a plan for doing so.

“The government readily keeps track of personal property of detainees in criminal and immigration proceedings.” U.S. District Court Judge Dana Sabraw wrote Tuesday. “Yet, the government has no system in place to keep track of, provide effective communication with, and promptly produce alien children.”

Meanwhile, actual bad guys are getting away. Federal prosecutors have been forced to divert time, money, and manpower from prosecuting serious drug-smuggling along the border in order to handle the surge of immigration cases.

Another key force in fighting drug smuggling — the U.S. Coast Guard — will also have its resources redirected to help pay for Trump’s fiasco to the tune of $77 million. An agency that routinely intercepts professional drug runners, last year seizing 455,000 pounds of cocaine at sea, will now have funding dedicated to stopping peaceful families seeking asylum.

That same agency, by the way, is also tasked with search-and-rescue missions in the aftermath of major flooding events. Does anyone think detaining 4-year-olds is a better use of time and money than responding to a Category 5 hurricane?

The Department of Defense, too, will have to rally resources under Trump’s plan to house up to 20,000 immigrant children on military bases.

Further inland, other Republicans must grapple with Trump’s policy of steering parents and kids into controversial detention centers. U.S. Rep. Pete Olson, R-Pearland, has called for the closure of the Shiloh Treatment Center, which houses immigrant minors. Shiloh made headlines after being caught giving kids psychotropic drugs without parental consent. 

And as the Center for Investigative Reporting revealed, the doctor overseeing the operation, Dr. Javier Ruíz-Nazario, lost his certification years ago.

In Williamson County, north of Austin, the majority-Republican commissioners court voted this week to end its contract with the T. Don Hutto detention center, which currently houses detained immigrant women. Hutto has a history of accusations of abuse, including sexual misconduct and medical neglect, and has been the subject of a series of lawsuits.

Those less moved by the damage Trump has done to migrant parents and children should open their eyes to the damage his ill-run government is doing to our nation. Trump has been lucky that, outside of hurricane season, the only real challenges he’s faced were ones of his own making. From the looks of this immigrant disaster, though, Mother Nature has found a formidable opponent.

*Immigration is part of our life’s blood
We invite skilled workers to come to America from all over the world to fill the good jobs that are waiting here. I think that’s great. Immigration is part of our life’s blood. It’s part of the essence of who we are as Americans. I am the son of immigrants. But I also want our kids here educated and trained for those jobs. We owe it to them, and we’ve got to get on with the task right now.

Source: Speech at the Republican convention , Jul 30, 2000