Because Of Course
Leave it to this administration to use DNA tests meant to reunite families as DNA testing is being used to keep families apart–not reunify them“>a stall and barrier.
Some of the records that linked parents and children have disappeared or have been destroyed, according to one report. In other cases, the records are sitting in border patrol or ICE files, but the government has claimed that the fastest way to prove that families are related is to give them DNA tests rather than for one agency to call another. (This came two weeks after Alex Azar, the secretary of health and human services, said that he would be able to find children “within seconds” when questioned about the challenges of reunification.)
In at least some cases, parents were told they’d have to pay for the DNA tests themselves, with money they don’t have. The tests take at least a week for the government’s contractor to process.
As one immigration attorney put it, it could be a delay tactic: The longer the government can keep children and parents apart, the more it can pressure them to accept deportation. Immigration advocates say that DNA tests raise privacy concerns, and only make sense in cases where there’s clear evidence a child might be a victim of human trafficking. When some DNA testing companies offered to donate tests in June in an attempt to help with reunification, some nonprofits working with separated families turned the offers down.
The evidence that they’re actually doing this is kind of slight, but the thing about running the program the way this administration has you don’t get much benefit of the doubt.
I don’t know. Every day it seems like there is more evidence that this administration is filled with horrible people whose attitude towards minorities and immigrants (especially immigrants/asylum seekers who are minorities) is that of absolute malice.
The media is also filled with stories where parents have said that their kids were kept in what seem to be horrible and filthy conditions.
As you said, I don’t see why Trump and company should get any benefit of the doubt here. When Trump was in Europe, he made frequent remarks against immigration and how it destroys the character of Europe and Europeans. If Trump has anything close to sincerely held beliefs it is xenophobia/racism and that tariffs are good.
His admin learned that they can’t get away with everything but they are zealots and true believers, this seems to be inflicting pain by other means and hoping for “self-deportation.”Report
Trump and his administration are acting on sincerely held beliefs when it comes to ending immigration as frequently demonstrated by their public statements. Even if they know they can’t get away with some things, they will try to twist the orders in a way that allows them to further their goals or do it in the most mealy-mouthed way possible.Report