of the all-ghouls-always dept
Let’s open with a joke:
Mr. Bovino said Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents likely had more experience dealing with young people than “any domestic law enforcement agency.”
“I will say unequivocally that we are experts in dealing with children. Not because we want to, but because we have to be.’
Granted, the punchline is weak and the person delivering it is even weaker, but for ex-Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino – he was for routine violations of court orders and a penchant for Nazi-like outerwear – it is laughable to suggest that any part of the anti-migrant hate train is good for children. That’s gallows humor right there.
Trump didn’t invent separating children and parents when detaining and deporting migrants, but he was the first to make it the rule, rather than a tragic exception. His second administration is definitely the one filled with people whose eyes absolutely light up every time they destroy an immigrant’s life.
This is what Bovino defended, while doing his best to sidestep the issue. This photo is from the school that 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos attended before he was arrested (along with his father) and sent to a detention center more than 1,000 miles away from their home.
That’s a federal officer holding the child’s backpack, as if the frightened child might run to freedom at any moment.
Since that moment went viral, countless conflicting stories have been sent into the public domain. The government has said the usual idiotic, hateful things about the illegal immigrant father who left his child at school when police officers surveilled him. The father’s lawyer claims that the father has a pending asylum application, which does not actually make him an illegal immigrant. It essentially means he cannot be detained or deported until his case is heard.
Stumbling on stage after the second execution of one Minneapolis resident in the past three weeks is JD Vance, who has apparently been dispatched by the president to seduce their critics into submission. But being charming or empathetic or otherwise projecting anything resembling a “normal person” has never been one of Vance’s skills. So while he opened with something close to respecting the humanity of others — namely that he has a five-year-old himself — he quickly veered toward MAGA incantations to claim the child got everything he was due.
In Minneapolis, Vance tried to appear empathetic toward the child. He declared that he too has a five-year-old, and said he was moved by the story. However, he said he did “follow-up research” and discovered the father was an “illegal alien.”
“Shouldn’t they be arresting an illegal alien in the United States of America?” Vance asked, speaking of ICE. He then scoffed: “If the argument is that you can’t arrest people who have broken our laws because they have children, then every single parent gets full immunity.”
“Follow-up research” obviously means “handed over DHS talking points.” And (repeatedly) referring to the father as an illegal alien is just a lie of convenience. And it’s probably not even a deliberate lie, as Greg Sargent notes in The New Republic. It’s just Vance’s worldview — a worldview shared by many people in government — pre-empting his pathetic attempt to calm the waters of Minnesota.
But an even more grotesque Trump-Vance stance goes unnoticed here. Vance simply doesn’t think it’s a misnomer to call the father an “illegal alien,” despite his asylum application. That’s because Vance clearly doesn’t believe that those awaiting an asylum decision here are even legitimate. He and Trump have taken the position that legal loopholes allow them to deport asylum seekers before their claims are heard.
Anyone who wants Trump gone can be labeled an illegal immigrant. All federal officials and prosecutors have to do is strip them of their protected status, revoke their visas, annul asylum claims, or dismiss pending immigration cases to turn people pursuing legal routes to permanent residence into “illegals” who are supposedly “invading” our country.
And that will happen even though there are vulnerable people in the mix – children, the elderly, parents with newborns, people who are likely to be tortured or killed if they are deported to the countries they have fled. And then they will send someone who is not as aggressive as Trump, Noem, Bovino, Bondi, etc. to soft sell the horrors the government will continue to inflict on this nation for the rest of whatever. It is callous, evil and, above all, evil for its own sake. It does nothing to make America greater or safer. All it does is create it whiter.
Filed Under: border patrol, cbp, dhs, gregory bovino, ice, jd vance, mass deportation, minneapolis, Trump administration
#Vance #Children #people #seeking #asylum #illegal #aliens #deported