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Outraged Boston City Council condemns current policies for throwing children into cages

The City Council voted unanimously today to condemn current federal policies on breaking up families at the border, after Councilor Michelle Wu (at large) broke down in tears today as she explained she's had trouble just leaving the house the past couple of days after watching all the news and after Councilor Josh Zakim (Beacon Hill, Back Bay, Fenway), whose family fled the Nazis two generations ago, said comparisons to the actions of Nazi Germany are "entirely appropriate."

"I am ashamed this is being done in all our names," Zakim said.

Wu, whose parents are both immigrants, and to whom an aide handed a box of tissues as she spoke, said she could not keep thinking of her two young children as she watched the news.

"I have not been able to leave the house for the last couple of days without freaking out," Wu said.

"For me, this has truly shaken me to the core, that we have decision makers and policy makers who do not recognize the humanity of us, and the ability to see your babies reflected in the toddlers that are being taken away, that are for life being impacted in this incredibly cruel way."

Councilors recognized the resolution will likely have no impact in Washington, but said they could not simply sit by and continue with their normal business of potholes and playgrounds.

Councilor Matt O'Malley, who has been critical in the past of the council passing resolution on non-city issues, said even councilors have to stand up "for real American values" rather than do nothing about "vile and disgusting" policies." After listening to the audio of children crying for their parents, he thought, "My God, this seems surreal; sadly, it it not, it is happening in the United States of America."

"We cannot be passive in complicity," Councilor Ayanna Pressley (at large), who co-sponsored the resolution with Wu and Zakim, said. She said even in Massachusetts, people could do things to help - by convincing their legislators to pass a statewide "safe communities" sanctuary act and working to get immigrants everything from driver's licenses to counseling.

"It is frustrating, it is upsetting, it is maddening," Councilor Anissa Essabi George - herself the daughter of immigrants - said. "It boggles my mind we are even having conversions about this."

Councilor Ed Flynn (South Boston, South End, Chinatown, downtown) noted Boston's immigrant past and the role immigrants have played in making Boston what it is today.

Council President Andrea Campbell (Dorchester) said the issue was the first thing she and her staff discussed at a weekly Monday meeting. It was a painful meting, she said, because many of her staffers are immigrants

She said what makes it all worse is the attempt by Trump officials to tie their activity to the Bible.

"This is not what Christianity, or any faith, is about - ripping children from their families, ripping children from their parents, treating children in such a way," she said, adding even more disturbing is to realize that some people who agree with the administration are in her own family.

"I haven't felt powerless in a very long time," she said. But she continued she draws hope from the fact that America has had similar "dark circumstances" in its past and has managed to come out of them.

Video of council discussion.

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Comments

Trump is guilty of child abuse. Pence and AG Sessions, both supposedly "Christian" are guilt of hypocrisy. And Abe Lincoln is turning in his grave at what the Republican party has become.

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Trumpkins et al. are making as many asylum-seekers as possible 'criminal aliens' by blocking ports of entry and arresting migrants coming in other ways, then prosecuting them all, not for misdemeanor entry but for a felony, then deporting without an asylum hearing. Under US and international law these people have the right to apply for asylum.

today's news and analysis:

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but I'm not. If you're coming into this thread to drop what-about-isms, or whine about how the City Council isn't going to stop this with condemnation, or try to blame Clinton for this mess, do us all a favor and go piss up a rope. There is some seriously evil shit happening, and it's up to all of us to make sure it's not happening in our names.

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"You cant criticize our lack of prior protest and motive for our current outrage because i said so."

PLEASE>>>>>>>

Also, Adam you keep using the keyword "cages" this is being push among the left after last week spreading a false picture of a child in a cage. Turns out said kid was placed in the cage at a pro-immigrant protest by his crazy mother.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/18/us/photo-migrant-child-cage-trnd/index.html

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Hadn't seen that picture. I was thinking of images like this.

Cage, pen, the end result is the same.

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Trump et al. are criminalizing asylum seekers and until this week using it as an excuse to take children from parents.

It is a reign of terror, the intention of which is to treat migrants so badly--terrorize and traumatize them-- that they destroy the promise embodied in Lazarus' Patriarchan sonnet.

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

They are lawless They are mendacious, They are cruel and inhumane. It is purposeful.

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But why did it take Trump for them to notice and express disgust at the policy when it has been going on for years?

Why now and not during previous administrations or even when Trump started making noise about border enforcement his first weeks in office?

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People DID "notice and express disgust at the policy". YOU didn't notice.

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Can you point me to the stories of the protests at the State house back in 2015?

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Trump is doing things Obama did not do like

  1. jam up ports of entry
  2. arrest asylum-seekers coming across the border at other points.
  3. prioritizing their prosecution over their asylum hearing.
  4. take their children
  5. deport them without their children.

and

  1. Tell ICE to perform "gloves-off" enforcements
  2. arrest parents without records except misdeamenor illegal entry dropping thie kids off at school
  3. arrest a mom when she appeared for her scheduled mtg to get her green card
  4. arrest a dad working two jobs whose family are all american citizens and his paperwork was filed
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Or with our state resources.

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I want for an elected official to stand up and say "(expletive) your mythology" when anybody cites the Bible.

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The City Council could start by dropping the prayer scheduled at the beginning of its meetings.

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So Edgy

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by renting space in jail for ICE detainees?

If so, did anyone speak to that?

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Those are adults. Still sucks, but a different ball game.

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Not if those adults have children being separated from them. Duh!

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I normally feel like these votes on national issues are a waste of councilors time and just silly grandstanding. But today, I'm OK with this.

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These kids were relocated to 17 states. Some of the anti-immigration actions are gong down in our city.and state.

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Stop the separations immediately.

#2) know that the orangeangutang pig doubling down on the policy will be reminded of his own humanity through the profound losses coming his way in Nov. you can bet whatever gods you want on that

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Zakim should be embarrassed. It's a grotesque and untrue comparison. It cheapens the memory of the horrors committed by authoritarian fascist and communist Marxist governments who imprisoned and murdered well over 100 million human beings in the 20th century. Some of the things the Nazis, Stalinst USSR, Mao, Pol Pot, etc., did on a macro scale were so evil and obscene it defies sane comprehension. This issue with illegal undocumented economic migrants and housing deportee children separate from parents pales by comparison. They are not being brutally treated. I do agree children and parents shouldn't be separated. Did congress and the executive negotiate in good faith a reasonable immigration deal? I doubt it. My impression they are hoping to create 'outrages' in order to feign outrage. Cynical and disingenuous.

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I just heard some old white dude say this exact same thing on the Howie Carr Show!! Well done, ya know?

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Pig Vomit: "But if they hate him, why do they listen?"

Researcher: "Most common answer: 'I want to see what he'll say next."

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Know Thy Enema?

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I listen to Carr, Kuhner, Savage, the rest of that disgusting lot so that I know what the current idiot narrative is.

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but far from eldely. And I don't listen to Mr. Carr. Why do you if you don't like him?

And I know old whjte dudes who are the salt of the earth. Would give you or anyone in trouble the shirt off their back. I guess it's true; everyone needs someone to hate. For some, it's white dudes.

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White dudes have it SO hard.

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It's hard out here being a shrinking white majority.

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I'm sure it made the councilors feel better (especially Councilor Wu, who claims she had trouble leaving the house?), but the Council is paid to run the City, not to waste their time engaging in empty gestures.

And the Administration has already retreated on this issue, meaning the vote was completely pointless.

Condemnation and outrage is appropriate on this subject, but it's not the Council's job to give voice to that.

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Seems to me from all the pressure from those empty gestures all around the world seems to have worked on the orange racist.

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Yeah, the council vote was before Trump caved.

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Our President is an impulsive adolescent, but it still takes time to draft an executive order and print it on fancy paper.

I'll wager dollars to donuts A. no one in the Administration who matters knows about the Boston City Council's vote, and B. even if they did they wouldn't give a damn about it.

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.

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National Guard members
Airlines that refused en mass to transport the children (or do any charters with ICE/DHS)
Governors in hotseats
States refusing to abet the separation efforts
Local jurisdictions threatening to shut any centers on public health, sanitation, child welfare or safety grounds

Etc.

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The resolution came at the very end of the meeting, after they had gone through various budget items, the need to increase minority representation in the BPS teaching staff, increasing the number of trees planted in Boston and projects proposed for funding under that property-tax surcharge voters approved.

Absolutely no city business was held up so that councilors could express their moral revulsion at something that has yet to happen here.

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The Administration had not retreated on the issue yet. The City Council condemnation happened prior to the Executive Order.

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they're not ripping babies from parents but they're still prosecuting parents instead of giving them asylum hearings.

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Adam, how is this relevant when Trump signed a order banning the Obama policy almost 2 hours before you published your story?

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Yes, kids will no longer be taken away from parents - when the government feels like it. The order allows for indefinite detainment - and as Trumpies well realize, after 20 days of detainment, the kids can be taken away, this time unless Congress acts, which it won't, because Republicans (who CONTROL BOTH HOUSES, which needs to be emphasized, because the leader of the party pretends that's not the case) are split between Worse and Worser. A feel-good story this is not.

He's militarizing a judicial process by ordering camps built on military bases (go look up posse comitatus - I'm too disgusted at this point to bother) - and he's continuing to treat a misdemeanor (crossing the border) as a felony, and even the reason it's even being treated as a crime is because many people can no longer apply for asylum, as is their right, as legal points of entry because they are being turned back there.

Plus, ya know, I cover the Boston city council from time to time. They did something today and I wrote about it.

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Is it too much to ask for the country to have an immigration policy and process that is planned, followed, and enforced?

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Of course, it would have to comply with existing laws and the Constitution and not be on par with something a cruel dictator would do.

So, I guess your answer, at least under the current regime, is no.

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Where in the Constitution does it say anything about how immigration and border control is conducted, other than it being the responsibility of the federal government?

The US border could be surrounded by fields of landmines sprinkled with children's toys, and it would be legal, as far as the Constitution is concerned.

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As I said, the US is still nominally a county of laws, and the laws say somebody who gets himself or herself to a port of entry and asks for asylum is allowed certain rights, such as the right to ask for asylum. Congress could change those laws; I'm sure the debate would be most interesting.

And if you think ripping children away from parents is not barbaric and against everything the US allegedly stands for, guess we don't have much more to discuss.

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but they'd have to be on U.S. soil because both of our neighbors are signatory to the Ottowa Treaty.

What's not funny is that Trump and his fellow white supremacists would rather spend money on land mines than give these people asylum good cause hearings.

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Trump Ends Family Separations by Ordering Family Detentions.

Also, let's not forget the 2,300 kids who have already been separated from their parents:

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Melania Trump wears “I really don’t care, do u?” jacket on trip to migrant children. Her spokesperson says the $39 Zara jacket had “no hidden message,” but Trump tweeted otherwise.

The wrecking crew in the White House never pass on an opportunity to deflect.

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