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."
As President Biden travels to Europe this week amid Russia's ongoing invasion of its neighbor Ukraine, former Obama campaign foreign policy advisor and former Bush administration State Department official David Tafuri, joined Cheddar News to discuss the president's stop in Brussels, Belgium, to coordinate with NATO leaders efforts to dissuade Russian President Putin's war. "The maintenance of sanctions and increasingly ratcheting up the sanctions is what he thinks will cause a country like Russia to back off," Tafuri said of Biden. "And so he's committed to that strategy."
John Logan, Director of Labor and Employment Studies at San Francisco State University, joined Cheddar News to discuss the growing unionization push by employees at Starbucks and Amazon, and the wider implications of employee organization at these big companies.
Cheddar's Arielle Hixson sat down with five Black women making history as part of the Biden administration's communications team. Karine Jean-Pierre, the principal deputy press secretary; Khanya Brann, the chief of staff to Kate Bedingfield; Amanda Finney, the chief of staff to Jen Psaki; Erica Loewe, the director of African American media; and Rykia Dorsey, the senior regional communications director, shared their stories.
President Biden has embarked on a crucial trip to meet with allies in Belgium and Poland to discuss new sanctions on Russia as it continues to wage war on Ukraine. The president will seek to address the growing humanitarian crisis out of Ukraine, demonstrate a united Western front against Russia, and reassure Ukraine that it has support from the U.S. Joel Rubin, Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State & President of the Washington Strategy Group, breaks down what to expect from the President's crucial visit to Europe.
Catching you up on what you need to know Mar 24, 2022, with NATO meeting updates, Ukraine retaking suburbs around Kyiv, the spread of omicron subvariant BA.2 in China, Google Pay launching a third-party billing option, and a 16-year-old is suspected of being the Lapsus$ mastermind behind hacks of Microsoft and others.
The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits last week fell to its lowest level in 52 years as the U.S. job market continues to show strength in the midst of rising costs and an ongoing virus pandemic.
Alicia Garza joined Cheddar News to talk about the Black Futures Lab where serves as founder and principal. The non-profit organization seeks to develop grassroots power in the Black community with projects like the Black Census, which takes into account the granular experiences of the demographic. "What we know about Black folks and the reason that we decided to focus on black communities again, it's because we're being left out and left behind their stories being told about us without our input and without our shaping," she said. "If we want a robust democracy in this country, we have to change that equation." Garza also touched on issues around voter suppression and the midterm elections.
Sean O'Hara, President of Pacer ETF's, explains why investors who were down after Jerome Powell's remarks on inflation Monday were more optimistic on Tuesday as the major indexes ended the day near session highs.
