The Trump administration made its latest move on immigration Wednesday when it announced that it will end a long-standing rule that limited child detention to 20 days.
The new rule, ending the so-called Flores agreement, will allow officials to hold families in detention indefinitely for the duration of immigration cases, which could be much longer than previous limit. Details of the new rule will be released Friday and will need approval from a federal judge.
At a press conference in Washington, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan told reporters: "No child should be a pawn in a scheme to manipulate our immigration system, which is why the new rule eliminates the incentive to exploit children as a free ticket".
This rule extends the administration's "zero tolerance" policy, requiring all asylum seekers to be held in detention until their case can be processed.
Speaking before his departure to Kentucky Wednesday morning, President Trump again cast blame for the current immigration conditions on his predecessor, saying, "President Obama built the cells, the cages that you people talk about and attribute them to me."
He said abolishing the Flores agreement "will do even more to bring [migrant families] together."
"We already have about 11,000 children — most of them are unaccompanied — being held in a gulag across America," Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) told Cheddar in an interview on Tuesday prior to the announcement of the Flores rollback. "I thought we'd never see internment camps promoted again".
The senator also said that Americans have to focus less on Trump's tweets and anti-immigrant banter, and more on the issues that matter to the ideals of what makes the nation so unique.
"Right now what is happening in America, with our money, with our government, on our land, is an abomination on human rights."
Merkley, one of the original members of Congress to bring the detention issue to national attention in 2017, has proposed a solution: bringing back the family case management program.
"By this administration, we found that 99 plus percent of families showed up for their check-ins, showed up for their hearings, when they had a case manager. This administration shut it down," he said. "They are causing families, through lack of communication, who fail to show up and then they are complaining about it."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote in a statement, "The indefinite and prolonged detention of children would compound the cruelty and accelerate the heart-breaking humanitarian situation at the border, worsening conditions for children already forced to sleep on concrete floors, eat inedible food and be denied basic sanitation and standards of care."
As anti-immigrant rhetoric continues to be a focal point in Trump's 2020 re-election bid, Democratic candidates are pouncing on the current administration, proposing new solutions to the problem.
Although Merkley did not endorse a specific candidate's plan to Cheddar, he explained, "I think all the candidates up there are firmly saying that we cannot count this dark, evil force of mistreating children as a political strategy."
Terrell Jermaine Starr, senior fellow with the Atlantic Council and host of the Black Diplomats podcast joins Cheddar News to discuss Russia's attempt to invade Ukraine.
With an increasing number of teachers and staff calling out sick by the day, the state of Oklahoma is turning to an unusual solution. Republican Governor Kevin Stitt has issued an executive order that permits state employees to work as substitute teachers. Shaily Baranwal, founder and CEO of Elevate K-12, joins Cheddar News to discuss.
On Thursday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken addressed the stance of the U.S. and its allies should Russia make any forays into Ukraine, a seeming response to President Biden's remarks that should Putin engage in something short of a full invasion, there might be some indecision among allied nations regarding what to do. Ariel Cohen, a senior fellow at the think tank Atlantic Council, joined Cheddar to discuss the difficulty faced by Blinken wrangling unity as tensions run high in the region. "There'll be a smaller incursion, and the president implied, there'll be a weaker response because our European allies have created this horrible situation where they are dependent on Moscow for their gas supply," Cohen explained.
During a nearly two-hour press conference on Wednesday, President Biden spoke on his accomplishments and challenges from the first year of his presidency, and what his administration hopes to accomplish in the coming year. However, his approval ratings are underwater as COVID remains a big concern for voters — as does inflation, noted Tom Bevan, co-founder and president of polling aggregator RealClearPolitics. "The public thinks [inflation] is priority number one, and the administration is concerned about it, they talk about it, but they're not spending enough time on it as far as the public is concerned," said Bevan.
The drama surrounding tennis star Novak Djokovic continues after he was deported from Australia over the weekend due to the nation's COVID-19 vaccine requirements. Djokovic was forced to leave the country on the eve of what was to be his first match in defense of his Australian Open title after three judges ruled in favor of his removal and revealed their reasoning for doing so. Adding to his woes, a law recently passed in France is putting his chances of defending his French Open title in jeopardy. The director of Marist's Center for Sports Communication, Jane McManus, joined Cheddar to discuss the ongoing fallout.
As the midterm elections get ever closer, candidates have been getting creative with their campaigns to stick out and to connect with voters. Gary Chambers, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate from Louisiana, has definitely attracted attention with an advertisement featuring him smoking a blunt, making a point about the inequity of anti-cannabis laws. "We wanted to bring the seriousness of the moment," he said of the ad. "But we also wanted to make sure that people understand that there are 19 states that are legal right now but Black people and brown people are being over-incarcerated in mostly Southern and Midwestern states in America for cannabis possession."
If some members of Congress have their way, there might finally be a 'TLDR' on sites' terms of service, introduced by the terms-of-service labeling, design, and readability act – or TLDR for short. With this act, users will actually understand what they're agreeing to or the many ways in which their data is being used before pressing 'accept.' J.D. sat down with co-sponsor of the bill and Senator Bill Cassidy, to discuss.
President Joe Biden's first year in office is wrapping up. What has he achieved, and what else remains on the table while the Democrats have control of Washington? Amid an ongoing pandemic and rising inflation, Biden's approval rating is at an all-time low and his party is plagued by infighting. Will he be able to continue pushing key parts of his agenda? Paul Glastris, former Bill Clinton speechwriter & Editor-in-chief of 'Washington Monthly,' joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss the president's achievements in his first year, where he's fallen short, and what he must do in order to get more of his agenda signed into law.
Tech giants Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, and Apple are faced with a bipartisan antitrust legislation effort underway in the Senate Judiciary Committee. The companies stand accused of promoting their own goods and services over smaller competitors on their platforms, holding too much monopolistic power via their app stores and services. Adam Kovacevich, founder and CEO of Chamber of Progress, a technology industry trade group, joined Cheddar to argue that the bills that are being debated currently could end up hurting consumers, rather than helping.
