Trump's immigration policy: Up the cruelty, dodge the blame

You can tell that President Donald Trump has turned against his own immigration policies when he tries to blame them on Democrats.

"Put pressure on the Democrats," he tweeted Saturday, "to end the horrible law that separates children from (their) parents once they cross the Border into the U.S."

Nice try, sir. But as experts quickly pointed out, there is no law that specifically requires the government to separate children from their parents unless the parents are violating a law.

Immigrants who show up at the border without documentation to seek asylum from political violence and other threats are not breaking a law. Yet for that simple act, which has been routine in the past, migrants without documentation will be referred for prosecution and separation of parents from their children under a new "zero tolerance" policy declared by Trump's attorney general, Jeff Sessions, even if they're desperately seeking refugee status.

"If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you and that child will be separated from you, probably, as required by law," Sessions declared in speeches in Scottsdale, Ariz., and San Diego on May 7. "If you don't want your child separated then don't bring them across the border illegally. It's not our fault that somebody does that."

Of course, it's not the child's fault either. Yet children inevitably are punished by the traumatizing experience of suddenly being ripped out of their parents' hands and transported far from wherever their parents are being held.

"Separating parents and children is your administration's choice," the American Civil Liberties Union responded to Trump in a tweet of its own. "Hundreds of kids as young as 18 months are in danger of suffering lifelong trauma. We won't let you shift the blame or use families as bargaining chips for your wall. #EndFamilySeparation"

As those cruel realities emerge in dreary headlines, it is no wonder that the president, who has demonized immigrants since the first day of his campaign, suddenly doesn't want to brag about his own administration's immigration policy.

To paraphrase his stunning observation about another issue, health care, as Republican attempts to repeal and replace Obamacare failed, who knew immigration reform could be so complicated?

Adding to his headaches are other headlines about immigration calamities, some of which actually are holdovers from previous administrations.

Leading that pack are revelations by the Department of Health and Human Services, which is responsible for refugee resettlement, that the government has lost track of almost 1,500 immigrant children. It turns out that most of them were processed during a sudden surge in unaccompanied minors at the southwestern border in 2014 and placed with family members and other sponsors who already were residents the United States. Most of the children came from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala and were fleeing drug cartels, gang violence and domestic abuse, according to government data.

But, as HHS officials testified before a Senate subcommittee in April, efforts to follow up on the status of those resettled children have been stymied by the reluctance of sponsoring families to return government phone calls. Not surprisingly, many of those families include other relatives living in the U.S. illegally who are very reluctant to talk to government officials, especially during Trump's presidency.

No wonder. This is the president who campaigned by describing Mexican immigrants as "rapists," murderers and drug dealers, adding as an afterthought that, "Some, I presume, are good people." During a recent roundtable, he accused migrant children crossing the border of being "not innocent."

He continues to conflate violent criminals with immigration, frequently invoking the MS-13 gang to justify harsh deportation policies. The real numbers are less alarming. For example, from October 2011 to June 2017, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials apprehended around 5,000 individuals they said had ties to gangs, acting chief Carla Provost testified in June 2017. Of those 5,000, 159 of them were unaccompanied minors, and just 56 were confirmed to have ties to MS-13.

Maybe Trump could learn from his legal counsel and spin doctor Rudy Giuliani. When he was New York's mayor, he used to boast in speeches about the contributions that immigrants living in the city illegally had made in generating commerce and bringing depressed neighborhoods back from the brink.

But, as long as his president thinks he can win more votes by bashing immigrants than helping them, we probably can expect more policies from his administration that he wants to run away from later.

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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)