TRUMP’S LYING APPEARS TO BE CONTAGIOUS

…The Secretary of HAS, Kirstjen Nielsen telling some whoppers at the White House.

White House officials have made it clear that by separating immigrants from their children, there is no real strategy at play.

When five American First Ladies, including the current First Lady, Melania Trump, along with Laura Bush, Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, and even Rosalynn Carter have made statements against Trump’s policy of separating immigrant children from their parents, you know it’s has to be a disgusting policy.

What is making all this that much worse, it that it is appearing that Trump’s practice of continuing to tell lies, it has become contagious.  In major statements by the Secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, she stood at the White House Press Podium and she told some major whoppers.

Trump and Ms. Neilsen continue to lie in blaming this separation of parents and children on a former law brought on by the Democrats.

A TOTAL LIE!!!

This whole action is a way for the president to put leverage on the US Congress to pass the laws to change this situation, while also approving the billions of dollars for building Trump’s Border Wall.  Trump is acting like a New York landlord.  You know, you want to get rid of a tenant, you raise the rent, you cause the electricity and water to go off and on, or you just apply whatever leverage you have to get what you want.

This separating immigrants action is an act from Trump’s stated policy change that says that the Border Security Agents will have “zero tolerance” for all those entering the US illegally, even if they are seeking asylum.  They will now be arrested and they will be separated from their children, no matter what their ages.

So, we now see babies being removed from their mothers and turned over to the HSSA.  The older male children are being held in chain-link cages and even in a converted Wal-Mart building in Texas with no windows.  And they are only allowed outside for 2 hours a day.  (Sure sounds like a prison to me!)

The boys are separated from the girls, but when Ms. Nielsen was asked where the younger girls and the babies were located, she had no clue.  She then had to say she didn’t know and would “have to look into it”.  She really didn’t know where the girls and babies were being held...!  (Talk about being unprepared!)

And it’s not just the First Ladies that are against this action.  There are also some key Republican lawmakers that are speaking out against these separations.

Elected Republican officials have joined Democrats in expressing their moral outrage and calling for an immediate end to the administration’s family separation policy.

In an indication that GOP leaders fear serious negative ramifications in November’s midterm elections, Rep. Steve Stivers (R-OH), who chairs the House Republicans’ campaign arm, called on the administration to change its policy and “stop needlessly separating children from their families.”

Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) said: “It’s time for this ugly and inhumane practice to end. Now.” He added, “It’s never acceptable to use kids as bargaining chips in political process.”

And Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) tweeted: “The administration’s current family separation policy is an affront to the decency of the American people, and contrary to principles and values upon which our nation was founded. The administration has the power to rescind this policy. It should do so now.”

Even the conservative Republican Senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, says the “Humanitarian crisis must be stopped!”

Secretary Nielsen said that those immigrants seeking asylum should just go to a Port of Entry and officially request asylum.  But even she admitted that they have limited resources at these ports and they sometimes have to tell the requestors, to: “Come back at another time when it’s not so busy.”

So, those people that left a country to avoid being killed by gangs and even by their bad governments, where are they supposed to go in order to, “Come back later?”

Nielsen stated that it “not a policy to separate children from their parents”, really?  Then why did this not occur until the “zero tolerance” order was issued by the Attorney General, Jeff Sessions?

This is all starting to backfire as this Trump administration’s move for separating immigrant families at the border is spiraling into a humanitarian and political crisis.  This is as the White House struggles to contain the growing public outcry.

The president has continued to falsely blame congressional Democrats for what he decried as a “horrible and tough” situation. But President Trump is empowered to immediately order border agents to stop separating families as a result of his “zero tolerance” enforcement policy.  However, Trump wants his “Wall”, more than he cares about a bunch of immigrants and their families..

“The White House can fix it if they want to,” said Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT). “I don’t think there’s any question about that.”

What is so sad, it that Trmp’s wall will not stop what he says he’s concerned about.  That being: drugs, gangs and terrorists.  A “Wall” will not stop these.  Drugs are coming through the regular border crossings.  The MS-13 gang started in LA, not Mexico or Central America.  Terrorists fly in on regular airlines, not over the border.  But calling for a Wall is how Trump got elected.

Even Nielsen has admitted that the “zero tolerance” policy was to pressure Congress to act on Trump’s broader immigration agenda and to deter migrants from coming to the country.  But as usual, that statement contradicts the comments from other administration officials, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and senior adviser Stephen Miller.  It is obvious that the right hand of the administration doesn’t agree with the left hand.

Behind the scenes at the White House, aides have scrambled to manage the public relations fallout and to rally support for their policy. Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s daily briefing this week, first scheduled for 1:15 p.m., was pushed back to 3:30 p.m., then to 4, then to 5, so Nielsen could field questions at the White House Press Podium. She was at the White House around 1 p.m. doing extensive prep for the briefing and met with Trump at 3, according to a White House official.  But even after prepping, she still told her whoppers.

                                                                                                                            

And don’t expect this to end anytime soon.

What is bizarre is that White House officials have made it clear that there is no comprehensive strategy at play. “What’s the end game?” a senior administration official asked, but did not get an answer.

In fact, at a meeting with Sens. Richard C. Shelby (R-AL) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.V.) at the White House, Trump re-upped his threat to shut down the government in September if he doesn’t get his billions for the border wall. The president told these senators that he was willing to take such a drastic action, and that he wanted his wall funding along with his strong border security measures.

So, why is this happening now?

It is because the president considers immigration a winning issue for him politically with his base. He has complained repeatedly in recent months that he looks “weak” on border enforcement.  You may recall that he berated Ms. Neilsen for 30 minutes about her weak border results during a recent White House Staff Meeting.  Trump has been concerned that his base could turn on him for not being tough enough.

So, for the Senate Dems, all 49 members of the Democratic caucus have endorsed a bill from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) that would bar DHS officials from taking children away from a parent at the border, absent any evidence of trafficking or abuse.  Unfortunately, they need more than 49 votes, and the Republicans are not going to go against the president.

Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-CA), an outspoken critic of the administration’s immigration enforcement policies, has called on Nielsen to resign, saying her false and misleading public statements in recent days are “disqualifying.”

But that’s nowhere near a strong enough statement about the HSA Secretary’s disgusting actions.

Stay tuned.  This is far from over.

Copyright G. Ater  2018