Weekend Read: Trump鈥檚 anti-immigrant campaign gets even crueler
The list of cruelties that the Trump administration is inventing in its zeal to punish migrants and their children keeps getting longer and more extreme.
This week, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) that, beginning on Oct. 29, U.S. government employees and members of the armed services who are overseas will no longer be considered to be 鈥渞esiding鈥� in the United States.聽
Shockingly, that means that, for some service members,if their children are born overseas, those children are . They would have to apply for it.
The announcement, which came a week after President Trump , caused widespread confusion and consternation among military and diplomatic groups.
鈥淔orcing [members] to go through bureaucratic hurdles for no apparent reason, just to get their children naturalized as American citizens, does a great disservice to people who have dedicated their lives to serving their country,鈥� American Foreign Service Association President Eric Rubin. 鈥淔rankly, it is hard to explain and deeply worrying.鈥�
a Navy officer who said the policy was causing anxiety among military spouses. 鈥淵ou should go onto a spouse Facebook page and see the freakouts,鈥� the officer said.聽
It wasn鈥檛 the only new policy that came to light this week,
In a major departure from longstanding policy, critically ill children who have been granted special status to get medical treatment in the United States
Bess Levin : 鈥淲hen you鈥檝e already separated families, thrown children in cages, and held them in that 鈥渃ould be compared to ,鈥� it鈥檚 a bit of a challenge to come up with your next act. Evil takes creativity, and once you鈥檝e forced migrant kids to go weeks a shower or change of clothes and fed them food, it鈥檚 tough to continue nailing those Hitler comparisons. Somehow, though, the Trump administration always rises to the .鈥�
This policy was also hatched by the USCIS, the same agency that came up with the new idea for the children of diplomats and members of the armed services. The agency is now headed by Ken Cuccinelli, who has been dubbed the 鈥溾�� by The Atlantic. Cuccinelli, a former Virginia attorney general, is a longtime anti-immigrant, anti-LBGTQ ideologue and 鈥渂irther鈥� who once proposed legislation to make speaking Spanish on the job a fireable offense and defended a state law prohibiting sodomy.聽
Lately, he鈥檚 been a reliable Trump cheerleader on cable TV.
鈥淐uccinelli may well have been created in a Trump-branded petri dish,鈥� wrote Elaina Plott for The Atlantic. 鈥淗e鈥檚 spent decades advocating for far-right positions on a variety of social issues, and the 50-year-old practicing Catholic enjoys widespread support among conservative evangelicals.鈥�
Thousands of children, including those with leukemia, cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy, could be affected by this new USCIS rule. Some of them will likely die as a result.
Mariela Sanchez, a native of Honduras, that her 16-year-old son 鈥渨ould be dead鈥� if he had not gotten permission to be treated in Boston for cystic fibrosis. His sister already died of the disease. Now, he is being told to leave.
鈥淐an anyone imagine the government ordering you to disconnect your child from life-saving care 鈥� to pull them from a hospital bed 鈥� knowing that it will cost them their lives?鈥� , who is representing immigrant families at the Irish International Immigrant Center in Boston.聽
Yes, we can imagine.
We鈥檙e battling the administration in the courts on numerous immigration policies.
Last week, we filed a class action suit on behalf of migrants who are being denied health care and disability accommodations while being held in inhumane detention centers. Through our Southeast Immigrant Freedom Initiative, we鈥檙e providing free representation to migrants held at some of the largest detention facilities in the South.
We鈥檙e also representing migrants in administrative complaints against the federal government to help them receive compensation for the physical, mental and emotional harm caused by the administration鈥檚 family separation 辫辞濒颈肠测.听
We don鈥檛 know what the Trump administration will do next.
But, over these last two years and seven months, if there is one thing we鈥檝e learned, it鈥檚 to expect the worst.
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