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."
The Biden administration is making changes to federal student loan programs, bringing more than 3.6 million people closer to debt forgiveness under the new rules, providing 40,000 with immediate debt cancellation, and allowing several thousand more with older loans to get some relief. Rob Franek, Editor-In-Chief of the Princeton Review, joined Cheddar News to break down how these changes might impact the lives of student loan borrowers and addresses some of the pushback against doing even more. "This is not a bankruptcy bailout of industries that are supporting the American economy," he said. These are for students right now who would otherwise be hobbled financially if they didn't experience some sort of forgiveness overall."
After a secrecy-shrouded visit to Ukraine's capital, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says Russia is failing in its war aims and “Ukraine is succeeding.”
Emmanuel Macron staves off the far right challenger Marine Le Pen in France, conservative lawmakers find themselves embroiled in varying controversies, and pickleball is hotter than ever in the U.S.
Catching you up on what you need to know on April 25, 2022, with Secretary of State Blinken and Defense Secretary Austin visiting Ukraine, Emmanuel Macron is reelected as president of France, Twitter is talking to Elon Musk about his purchase bid, and more.
An increasing number of countries are recognizing "Rights of Nature", a legal movement that says ecosystems and species have basic rights to exist and flourish. Grant Wilson, executive director at Earth Law Center joins Cheddar News to explain what the movement is aiming to achieve.
The saga surrounding Elon Musk's bid to buy Twitter has made its way to Washington, DC. A group of 18 House Republicans are calling on the social media platform's board to preserve all records and documents related to the company's response to the offer from the Tesla CEO. Caleb Silver, editor in chief of Investopedia, joined Closing Bell to discuss. "This is a long term play, but it's just a shot across the bow by congressional Republicans, who probably will end up taking the House, that they're going to be tough on Big Tech and they're going use Musk's bid for twitter to take it private, so that he can get the platform to be open source and remove its censorship."
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed a bill dissolving Walt Disney World’s private government after the entertainment giant criticized a measure that critics have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law.
Autumn Peltier, an indigenous water activist, joined Cheddar News to talk about the lack of access to clean water among indigenous communities in Canada. “I say the government to hold themselves accountable for the promises that they make because Canada and indigenous people have a long history of broken promises and they still continue to this day to keep breaking promises with the nation's people," she said. "Less talk and more action is very much expected from me."
Robert Bonnie, farm production and conservation undersecretary for the USDA, spoke to Cheddar about climate-smart strategies to help farmers reduce carbon emissions from agriculture. "We share the costs of installing those practices on their lands in ways that will protect the climate and maintain agricultural productivity, and we're also partnering with farmers to draw in private investment in greenhouse gas emissions reductions provided by agriculture and forestry," he said. The hope is to get farmers and ranchers to produce climate-smart commodities to lessen the impact of climate change.
