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Ivanka Trump Travels All the Way to Colombia to Visit a Migrant Camp
What about the immigrant detention camps here in the U.S.?
In her vague but official role as a White House adviser, Ivanka Trump visited a camp for Venezuela migrants in Colombia this week. Along with State Department officials on an official visit to South America, she toured a women-run strawberry farm before visiting a migrant shelter run by Red Cross near Cúcuta, a city near the border that's become destination for Venezuelans fleeing economic turmoil. There she "bonded with a young boy in a wheelchair" while smiling "brightly," according to the Daily Mail.
South America has been experiencing its own migration crisis for years now. According to the U.N., as many as 4 million people have fled Venezuela, which has been wracked by economic depression and political chaos. Donald Trump has spent his political career maligning such refugees who come to the U.S., and Ivanka's brother Donald Trump Jr. has compared Syrian refugees to secretly poisoned candy. Since taking office, Trump has made it official policy to detain anyone legally applying for asylum, and has drastically slowed the asylum process as part of a campaign to deter people from applying at all. As a result, there are many migrant camps Ivanka could have visited in the U.S., and shelters in northern Mexico are overflowing with Central American migrants who are waiting for U.S. immigration courts to hear their asylum claims. Perhaps the lack of soap and space makes the U.S. detention camps less ideal photo ops for the first daughter.
In the camps that the Trump administration has set up across the U.S.-Mexico border, at least six children have died, including three of flu-related health problems. Despite this, the administration will not be administering flu vaccines to the men, women, and children kept in cells and chainlink pens so overcrowded that there are reports of people standing on top of toilets just to have room to breathe. The Centers for Disease Control announced this week that there have also been outbreaks of mumps in some detention centers. Trump's Justice Department has argued in court that its obligation to keep migrants in "safe and sanitary" conditions does not require it to supply children with soap, toothpaste, or blankets. Some women reported that when the water fountains in their cells stopped working, guards told them to drink toilet water instead.
The Trump administration seems to view migrants from Central America and migrants from Venezuela very differently: the former are a dangerous threat to national security while the latter are sympathetic figures, largely because Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro has become something of a proxy for failed socialism for conservatives. After Ivanka's visit, the administration announced it would contribute another $120 million to relief programs for Venezuelan migrants in South America, and she tweeted, "We stand with the people of Venezuela in their struggle to restore democracy, freedom and rule of law. It was deeply moving to meet female leaders of the Guaidó coalition as well as some of the women impacted most by the brutal Maduro dictatorship in Cucuta today."
https://www.gq.com/story/ivanka-trump-colombia-migrant-camps?mbid=social_twitter&utm_source=twitter&utm_brand=gq&utm_social-type=owned&utm_medium=social
In her vague but official role as a White House adviser, Ivanka Trump visited a camp for Venezuela migrants in Colombia this week. Along with State Department officials on an official visit to South America, she toured a women-run strawberry farm before visiting a migrant shelter run by Red Cross near Cúcuta, a city near the border that's become destination for Venezuelans fleeing economic turmoil. There she "bonded with a young boy in a wheelchair" while smiling "brightly," according to the Daily Mail.
South America has been experiencing its own migration crisis for years now. According to the U.N., as many as 4 million people have fled Venezuela, which has been wracked by economic depression and political chaos. Donald Trump has spent his political career maligning such refugees who come to the U.S., and Ivanka's brother Donald Trump Jr. has compared Syrian refugees to secretly poisoned candy. Since taking office, Trump has made it official policy to detain anyone legally applying for asylum, and has drastically slowed the asylum process as part of a campaign to deter people from applying at all. As a result, there are many migrant camps Ivanka could have visited in the U.S., and shelters in northern Mexico are overflowing with Central American migrants who are waiting for U.S. immigration courts to hear their asylum claims. Perhaps the lack of soap and space makes the U.S. detention camps less ideal photo ops for the first daughter.
In the camps that the Trump administration has set up across the U.S.-Mexico border, at least six children have died, including three of flu-related health problems. Despite this, the administration will not be administering flu vaccines to the men, women, and children kept in cells and chainlink pens so overcrowded that there are reports of people standing on top of toilets just to have room to breathe. The Centers for Disease Control announced this week that there have also been outbreaks of mumps in some detention centers. Trump's Justice Department has argued in court that its obligation to keep migrants in "safe and sanitary" conditions does not require it to supply children with soap, toothpaste, or blankets. Some women reported that when the water fountains in their cells stopped working, guards told them to drink toilet water instead.
The Trump administration seems to view migrants from Central America and migrants from Venezuela very differently: the former are a dangerous threat to national security while the latter are sympathetic figures, largely because Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro has become something of a proxy for failed socialism for conservatives. After Ivanka's visit, the administration announced it would contribute another $120 million to relief programs for Venezuelan migrants in South America, and she tweeted, "We stand with the people of Venezuela in their struggle to restore democracy, freedom and rule of law. It was deeply moving to meet female leaders of the Guaidó coalition as well as some of the women impacted most by the brutal Maduro dictatorship in Cucuta today."
https://www.gq.com/story/ivanka-trump-colombia-migrant-camps?mbid=social_twitter&utm_source=twitter&utm_brand=gq&utm_social-type=owned&utm_medium=social
Link to tweet
9 replies
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So appropriate for a visit to a camp! Those Trump women really know how to dress!
Like her father, she does not have one ounce of empathy in her. This is all about photo-ops and padding her resume for a future in politics. She is so phony and transparent. I hate this entire family with a passion! 
I'll bet the migrants would believe they were in heaven if only someone handed them some cans of Play-Doh to get their minds off their hunger.
