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."
Markets were pointing mostly lower to end the week as investors reacted to the threat of a Covid resurgence in Europe. Jeff Schulze, Investment Strategist at ClearBridge Investments joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss Friday's pre-market activity.
A federal judge tossed out a lawsuit against financial services platform Robinhood following the meme stock saga that swept the investment world. The judge said it found no wrongdoing on Robinhood's part after the platform halted trading on popular meme stocks Gamestop and AMC.
Jill and Carlo are back to cover the latest in the Rittenhouse trial, new information on the origins of Covid, return-to-office and more.
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The U.S. Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against Uber after it was discovered that disabled people were being disproportionately affected by extra “wait time” fees. Attorney Jonathan Bell joined Cheddar to discuss.
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has been accused by the EU of manufacturing a migration crisis along his border with Poland. But, even as tensions appear to be stabilizing at the moment, Ali Noorani, the president and CEO of National Immigration Forum and the host of the "Only in America" podcast spoke to Cheddar about the ongoing danger to the migrants who hail from countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. "What is going to happen to folks who are in Belarus who came from these countries? Is Lukashenko going to provide them asylum and protection in Belarus, or are they going to continue to be political pawns in a geopolitical battle," he said. "Real people's lives are being put at great risk."
A group of crypto investors has come together to raise millions of dollars in the hopes of owning a rare piece of the U.S. Constitution. According to the crypto group, "Constitution DAO" It is time to put the constitution in the hands of the people. CEO and Founder of Metaversal Yossi Hasson, joined Cheddar to discuss more.
Polarization is among the defining traits of American politics in the 21st century. Sometimes it seems like the only thing we can all agree on is the fact that we don't really agree on anything. But those divisions don't just stop at whether you vote red or blue.
A new survey from the Pew Research Center finds that rather than just two political buckets, we have nine. The "2021 political typology" as it's called distinguishes between different ideological subsets in the Democratic and Republican party. It encompasses everyone from the loudest revolutionary lefties, to the loudest insurrection apologists on the right.
Andrew Daniller, research associate at the Pew Research Center, joins None of the Above to discuss.
Tanya Snyder, transportation reporter at Politico, joins None of the Above with J.D. Durkin to discuss the bipartisan infrastructure law, what it means for the electric vehicle industry and whether Democrats will be able to capitalize on the legislative victory ahead of the 2022 midterms.
Heading into 2022, the eyes of political nerds like us are fixed on statehouses across the country. State legislatures are in the process of taking the data from the 2020 census and using it to draw new congressional districts. The process has major implications for midterms, as Republicans could retake the majority just by gerrymandering enough seats into their column. In Maryland, state level Democrats are considering several maps, one of which would completely draw out the only Republican from the state in Congress.
Bruce DePuyt, senior reporter at Maryland Matters, and Helen Brewer, legal analyst at Princeton's Electoral Innovation Lab, join Cheddar Politics to discuss.
