Although lots of attention has turned to President Donald Trump’s attempt to get Ukraine to investigate his domestic political opponents thanks to the ensuing impeachment proceedings, other serious issues with the Trump administration still remain. In addition to the well documented dangerous conditions that they’ve subjected asylum seekers to, about 900 children are reported to still be separated from their families following the Trump administration’s high-profile implementation of punitive immigrant family separations. During an interview that aired this weekend on CBS, the president’s daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump just about dismissed the issue, claiming that the administration is doing great with immigration and she won’t be personally engaging.
She’d been discussing her efforts to secure paid family leave for American workers. Like universal healthcare, that’s a development that’s emerged much slower in the U.S. than other economically developed countries. Host Margaret Brennan asked her about her take on the ongoing separation of families considering her apparent concern about keeping families together, and she essentially tried to sweep the grave issue under the rug.
She said:
‘Well, immigration is not part of my portfolio, obviously. I think everyone should be engaged. And the full force of the U.S. government is committed to this effort to border security, to protecting the most vulnerable. That includes those being trafficked across our border, which this president has committed to countering and combating human trafficking in an incredibly comprehensive, aggressive way. So the full United States government has been focused on this issue, starting with the president.’
Watch:
The president, in reality, has explicitly touted separating immigrant families as a strategy that he likes simply to try and scare potential asylum seekers out of trying to make it to the U.S. Sure, he has made a public show of saying he’s actually concerned about criminal activity like human trafficking, but his descriptions of what he’s actually concerned about, including supposed Muslim prayer rugs in the desert and large heavy-duty vehicles with women whose mouths are duct taped inside, seem drawn from Hollywood, not what’s actually happening. Crime in communities near the southern U.S. border is actually lower than similar areas further inland.
Yet, the Trump administration’s campaign against migrants has not stopped. In addition to routinely and wrongfully painting them as dangerous, the president’s team has pressured Central American governments including Mexico, Guatemala, and others into taking custody of those looking for freedom and safety in the United States. As the Associated Press notes, there are now “bilateral agreements aimed at sending migrants to Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras to seek asylum there” instead of in the United States, where Trump continues to spout his racist rhetoric in preparation for the 2020 election.
In the same interview that aired on Sunday, Ivanka also claimed that impeachment had “energized” her father — who’s spent his time focused on lashing out against his opponents over and over and over again (check his personal Twitter feed) — and she insisted that the Trump administration has enacted supposedly great economic benefits for the people of the United States. The president’s team is circling around the same talking points as an impeachment trial looms.
