Chris Hayes is covering the shameful loss of 1500 immigrant

[Ilsa]

Children they placed in foster care while their parents are in custody.

[Mountain Mule]

1. I'm watching also - heartbreaking

God how I hate twitler!

[ecstatic]

2. This is so disgusting, outrageous and horrifying!

I think dump and his appointees are systematically taking the babies/kids for their own purposes. I wouldn't put anything past them at this point. I hope the UN or some other outside group gets involved because it's clear that congress, etc. won't do shit.

[secondwind]

3. ICE is now wanting to destroy records of all sorts. This is fucking unbelievable.

[grantcart]

4. I believe that when the facts of these children are known that almost all of these children

were placed in foster care with family relatives who are in the US legally and who now are refuse to cooperate with the federal government in disclosing where they are, it demonstrates that when you create a culture of fear in the immigrant community it makes it more difficult to ensure that abuses don't happen.

Frontline (PBS) was able to show that about a dozen have been handed over to known traffickers and another dozen had run away. Out of the 1500 perhaps 90% are living with their relatives but do not respond out of fear.

It doesn't mitigate the fundamental injustice to the parents or the separation, nor does it lessen the responsibility to make sure that the number (whether it is 10% or more) of children that placed in situations that they were likely to be abused are well taken care of.

It is simply another collateral damage in Trumps war against human values.

[lostnfound]

7. I don't believe that at all. There's nothing kind about trump policies.

Sending them to relatives would be kind. NO sign of that. This is psychopath policy by Stephen Miller and his ilk.

One mom with young baby said they told her the kid had gone to Chicago. She didn’t even know what is Chicago.

Something very sinister.

[grantcart]

9. Its not about 1500 children that didn't show up for a hearing. Its about 320,000 families

You are right that it is about Stephen Miller's policies but its not about unaccompanied minors not showing up its about 320,000 families losing their legal status and now they are afraid to come to immigration hearings.

To begin with the wave of tens of thousands of undocumented migrants started under Obama and not Trump.
Most of the undocumented minors arrived under Obama not Trump and the procedures developed from that.

President Obama issued Temporary Protection Status for 320,000 individuals from Haiti, El Salvador and Honduras who arrived in the US about 20 years ago fleeing hurricane, earthquake and other natural disasters. The TPS allowed them to live here legally.

In 5 years 47,000 undocumented minors were brought into the US

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2014/07/02/the-surge-in-unaccompanied-children-from-central-america-a-humanitarian-crisis-at-our-border/

The difference lies in the number of children making their way from Central America to cross the Rio Grande Valley into South Texas. According to the Border Patrol, apprehension of unaccompanied children increased from 16,067 in FY 2011 to 24,481 in FY 2012 and 38,833 in FY 2013. During the first eight months of FY 2014, 47,017 children were apprehended, most of them from Honduras.

What do you do with 47,000 children? Try and reunite them with their family. So in the policy known as "catch and release" these children were sent to live with their relatives in 90% of the time. When no relative is available they are sent to live with licensed foster care parents.

The reality is that insufficient space exists to house the large number of apprehended children and the Immigration Courts are seriously overwhelmed by the number of removal proceedings. Consequently children wait on average 578 days before a Hearing. During that time, the child is placed with a parent or family member who must vouch that the child will appear in Court. The Migration Policy Institute anticipates that approximately 85-90 percent of children are placed with a parent or close relative.

When they say that they are "Missing" what they are really saying is that the children don't appear in court.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/hhs-official-says-agency-lost-track-of-nearly-1500-unaccompanied-minors/

Between October 2016 and December 2017, he said, the agency was unable to locate almost 1,500 out of the 7,635 minors that it attempted to reach — or about 19 percent. Over two dozen had run away, according to Wagner, who said the agency did not have the capacity to track them down.

. . .

Sponsors are meant to ensure that minors show up at their immigration hearings. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) pressed Wagner on why more than half of unaccompanied minors in 2017 did not show up to their immigration hearings.

Its the same employees and the same placement policies between the Obama and Trump administration. The only thing that has changed is the fear in these immigrant communities which creates a disincentive for people to come into the system.

The real issue is not that the children are missing but that entire communities are being pushed under ground because of fear that even though they are here legally that the Trump administration is going to break the word of the US government and take people who are here legally one day and illegal the next.

You will note that the Brookings Institute stated that most of the undocumented children were from Honduras.

There are about 60,000 people from Honduras who came here illegally but gained temporary protective status under Executive Order from President Obama. Tens of thousands from Haiti and El Salvador (including my son-in-law) also were given this legal umbrella to live and work here legally. Most of them have been here about 20 years.

Trump has ripped the legal basis for these people to be here and that is the reason that the children are not showing up for their hearings. Their parents (or other close relatives that are taking care of them) have lost their legal status and are afraid to go to an immigration court for the child. In any case the child is not going to get a permanent legal status to live here so there is little reason to go to an immigration court until there is a new President.

While losing 1500 children would be a great tragedy, that's not what is happening. What is really happening is that 200,000 law abiding families have lost their legal status and are now living underground and avoiding contact with immigration authorities.

Here is Trump taking away TPS (Temporary Protection Status) from various non white populations which is the real strategy of Miller:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44013763

The Trump administration has announced the end of temporary protections for thousands of Honduran immigrants.

Up to 57,000 people could be forced to leave the US by 5 January 2020, when their temporary protected status (TPS) will be revoked.

Hondurans were granted this status after Hurricane Mitch hit the Central American country in 1998.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/08/us/salvadorans-tps-end.html

LOS ANGELES — Nearly 200,000 people from El Salvador who have been allowed to live in the United States for more than a decade must leave the country, government officials announced Monday. It is the Trump administration’s latest reversal of years of immigration policies and one of the most consequential to date.

Homeland security officials said that they were ending a humanitarian program, known as Temporary Protected Status, for Salvadorans who have been allowed to live and work legally in the United States since a pair of devastating earthquakes struck their country in 2001.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/20/us/haitians-temporary-status.html

The Trump administration is ending a humanitarian program that has allowed some 59,000 Haitians to live and work in the United States since an earthquake ravaged their country in 2010, Homeland Security officials said on Monday.

Haitians with what is known as Temporary Protected Status will be expected to leave the United States by July 2019 or face deportation.

The decision set off immediate dismay among Haitian communities in South Florida, New York and beyond, and was a signal to other foreigners with temporary protections that they, too, could soon be asked to leave.

This isn't about 1500 children that have "slipped through the cracks" its really about hundreds of thousands of families who came here decades ago and have established themselves as productive citizens and had legal protection. Trump has ripped that away and these families are living in fear and are too afraid to go to immigration court and risk losing their minor children being ripped from them.

Its actually much worse than it seems.

[Cha]

5. call @DHSgov at 202-282-8495 and tell your friends to do the same

Link to tweet

[leanforward]

6. Disgusting, what is being done.

Why? For me, there is no reason for separating kids from their parents.

The person(s) behind this policy needs to lose their privilege to life rights.

Separating a 53 week old infant from their mother. NO. Fifty-three weeks or 16 years, if they came with their parent(s) they stay with them.

May the policy maker(s) be subjected to the same inhumane treatment.

[Alethia Merritt]

8. I cried watching this. Why doesn't media make this a BIG issue.

This goes against everything I was ever taught about America.

[grantcart]

11. why doesn't the media take the underlying problem and make it a big issue.

The underlying issue is that Trump has reversed President Obama's Executive order that gave Temporary Protection Status to 320,000 Haitians, Hondurans and El Salvadorans who have lived here for 20 years and had legal status.

They have now been pushed underground and live in fear.

320,000 families destroyed.

For nothing.

[Hortensis]

12. You know BECAUSE of the media. As for a BIG issue,

it's one in a huge flood of big issues. If you google, you'll find it's all over the media anyway. They can't force people to do that, though, can they?

What becomes big to each of us depends on each of us. This Republican atrocity has been out for a while, Alethia. How much reading about it have you been doing?

Btw, in case you missed the reporting, the Republicans controlling our federal and most state
governments have now STARTED taking children away from their parents at the border. That was reported back when it was in the planning stage months ago. And reported at various times since. Now it's happening.

I strongly suggest you stop blaming the media because people aren't paying enough attention to the evil that's taken over the Republican Party. The media aren't the problem, and shooting at the media won't rescue even one child.

[grantcart]

10. I didn't watch it so I don't know if he related that the 1500 were children whose parents were in

custody, but if he did that is not the case.

The 1500 are part of nearly 50,000 UNACCOMPANIED MINORS that were handed over at the border to Border Patrol agents.

They were put into foster care and in virtually all of the cases they were placed with family members who were already here and who had to promise to bring them to court.

Under President Obama they showed up to court because they were part of a group of 320,000 migrants who were allowed to stay in the US legally and work because they were from Haiti, Honduras and El Salvador and were allowed to stay with Temporary Protective Status because their home countries had experienced terrible Hurricanes and earthquakes.

NOW they are too frightened to show up to immigration court so they are counted as "missing". All but a few dozen of these kids are with their relatives who have lost their legal status and are now too scared to show up for their court date.

In addition the Trump administration has started separating mothers and their children in an attempt to create another kind of fear, but these are not the 1500 who are classified as "missing" because they refused to show up for their court date.

More details here;

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210658852

[dembotoz]

13. 1500 same as the death toll on the Titanic

The Titanic made the news

[Demsrule86]

14. They aren't screening foster parent properly and there are not enough home for all these kids...some

of these kids are ending up in the hands of sex traffickers/child porn. This is a disgrace and a national tragedy. I hope Trump eats lots of fried chicken and big macs...