Way to set an example for the rest of us, y’all.
Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick frequently talk tough about illegal immigration, but they refuse to publicly support the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy that’s spurred outrage for ripping thousands of undocumented children out of the arms of their parents.
Neither are they criticizing it.
Texas’ top Republicans are making a calculated decision to hide from the humanitarian crisis, largely taking place on Texas soil, because they are afraid of upsetting their political base.
The governor has tried to say as little as possible about the White House policy, making only one public comment backing Trump’s argument that the children’s and parents’ traumatic experiences can be used as leverage for an immigration overhaul.
“This is horrible and this rips everyone’s hearts apart about what’s going on,” Abbott told a Dallas-area TV station. He added that Trump had offered to “end the ripping apart of these families” if Democrats agree to a new immigration law.
Abbott declined repeated requests for comment from the Houston Chronicle. Instead, his staff forwarded the statement made last weekend to NBC TV. The governor seeks to appear loyal without attracting attention to himself.
“It shouldn’t be a tightrope to do the right thing,” said John Weaver, a longtime campaign strategist from Texas who has consulted for Republicans like George H.W. Bush and now Ohio Gov. John Kasich. “It’s disappointing that we haven’t heard from the governor but not surprising. We’ve gone from Texas having very strong leaders to having leaders who are very calculating.”
[…]
Patrick never brought up the separation policy or the border when he spoke for half an hour at the Texas Republican Party convention in San Antonio on Friday. His office and campaign have not returned repeated calls for comment.
“Dan Patrick’s silence, in the face of such brutality committed on Texas soil, makes him as culpable as the administration. Morally, it’s as though he wrenched the children from their parents with his own hands,” said Mike Collier, a Democratic businessman running against Patrick for lieutenant governor in November.
As the Lone Star Project noted, Abbott has expressed his support for the Trump detention policy previously, before it became untenable for everyone this side of Ken Paxton and Sid Miller to oppose it. I suppose he and Patrick were just taking their time and hoping this would all go away, as befitting their cowardly natures, but their absence was definitely noticed.
“What is happening on the border tonight is an affront to humanity and to all that we as proud Americans hold dear,” state Rep. Jason Villalba, R-Dallas, told the American-Statesman Tuesday. “We are better than this. To watch our own governor remain silent in the face of this atrocity is an affront to all that we as Texans hold dear. As a member of the Texas Legislature, I am ashamed that my ‘so called’ leader is so controlled by his fealty to the president’s myopic vision of America that he is frightened like a feeble squirrel from taking action. It is time to act. NOW. Governor Abbott. Can you hear me?”
Both of those stories were from yesterday morning. By around lunchtime, Abbott had been forced out of his spider hole to make a few grudging remarks.
Gov. Greg Abbott is asking Texans in Congress to take bipartisan action to address the crisis of thousands of immigrant children being separated from their parents.
“This disgraceful condition must end; and it can only end with action by Congress to reform the broken immigration system,” he wrote in a letter to all members of the Texas delegation, including Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn.
Abbott called family separations, which are the result of a Trump administration policy announced earlier this year, “tragic and heartrending.” But he also called the separations the “latest calamity children suffer because of a broken U.S. border” — and urged members to “seize” the opportunity to work across the aisle and finally fix the problem.
“Texans are not fooled by the partisan divide on this issue,” Abbott wrote in the letter, which was obtained by The Texas Tribune. “They know that even if all Republicans agree, a bill fixing the problem will not pass without Democrat support in the Senate.”
Naturally, as befitting his craven nature, Abbott hid behind the lie that Trump was forced into the family separation policy and only Democrats could save him, to which Trump himself quickly put the lie with a hasty afternoon executive order, one that has ulterior motives. But as one Democratic Senator pointed out prior to that, it was easily within the power of even one Republican Senator to force the issue. And if Greg Abbott is sincere about wanting to keep families together and make progress on immigration, here’s a bill he could support. Don’t hold your breath would be my advice. Greg Abbott always, without fail, takes the easiest way out. Vox and ThinkProgress have more.
Womp womp is the face of the former Republican Party now the Trump Party.
https://people.com/politics/corey-lewandowski-womp-womp-migrant-girl-down-syndrome-separated-mom/
The Trump Party are Animals!
A few of them may not be.
Even if you are a cold-blooded bastard who doesn’t give a damn about the suffering of children, and a die-hard bigot, if you have any ability to think ahead, you would have seen that this would cause a major PR nightmare. Incredibly stupid, even from a completely selfish perspective.
Hey Manny,
As Paul Harvey would say, how about the rest of the story, courtesy of the Dallas Morning News:
“McALLEN — A Mexican immigrant separated from her 10-year-old daughter with Down syndrome is being detained as a witness in a smuggling case, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
As outrage mounted about the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy, officials issued the statement after Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Secretary Luis Videgaray put a spotlight on the family’s case at a news conference Tuesday.
He told reporters that the girl and her 10-year-old brother were being held at a facility in McAllen while their mother had been sent to a detention center in Brownsville.
.@Zac_Petkanas says on Fox News a 10-year-old girl with Down Syndrome was separated from her mother at the border.
Corey Lewandowski responds: “Womp womp.” pic.twitter.com/cZMXWmwbjw
— Jon Passantino (@passantino) June 19, 2018
But authorities with U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the separation happened because of the mother’s role as a “material witness,” not because she was being charged with illegal entry under the zero-tolerance policy.
The girl’s plight became nationally known after former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski responded “womp womp” on Tuesday on Fox News when former senior Democratic National Committee adviser Zac Petkanas said the child had been “taken from her mother and put in a cage.”
Lewandowski on Wednesday tweeted that he “mocked a liberal who attempted to politicize children as opposed to discussing the real issue, which is fixing a broken immigration system.” He also incorrectly said that Obama began the policy of separating minors from their parents when they enter the country illegally. The policy began under Trump.
The woman and her five children were traveling in a vehicle driven by a U.S. citizen. The mother admitted to being in the country illegally, Customs and Border Protection said Wednesday.
“This smuggler has a criminal history including a flight, escape, aiding and abetting, making it important that we prosecute,” the agency’s statement reads.
Lots of Fake News today. I mocked a liberal who attempted to politicize children as opposed to discussing the real issue which is fixing a broken immigration system. It’s offenseive that the MSM doesn’t want to talk about the fact these policies were started under Obama.
— Corey R. Lewandowski (@CLewandowski_) June 20, 2018
Three of the woman’s children are U.S. citizens and were released to an aunt, according to the statement.
The Mexican consulate in McAllen contacted the girl’s father, who is a U.S. resident, and is working to reunite them, Videgaray said Tuesday.”
https ://www.dallasnews.com/news/immigration/2018/06/20/mexican-immigrant-separated-child-syndrome-held-smuggling-witness?utm_content=buffer11822&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
What this means is, this adult woman is in custody as a witness to testify against a human trafficker. Read between the lines, she used her disabled daughter to help that trafficker smuggle in more illegal aliens.
Your cause celebre turns out to be tied up in human trafficking.
Womp Womp!
Quoting a lickspittle like Lewandowski about politicizing children is rich. This whole rotten exercise by Miller and BigT has been exclusively about politicizing children.
Don’t doubt that the Trump supporters and their man god are not animals, below is how they are treating children
“When they couldn’t get one of the kids to calm down, the guards would put us in a chair — a safety chair, I don’t know what they call it — but they would just put us in there all day,” the teen said in a sworn statement. “This happened to me, and I saw it happen to others, too. It was excessive.”
A 15-year-old from Mexico held at Shenandoah for nine months also recounted being restrained with a bag over his head.
“They handcuffed me and put a white bag of some kind over my head,” he said, according to his sworn statement. “They took off all of my clothes and put me into a restraint chair, where they attached my hands and feet to the chair. They also put a strap across my chest. They left me naked and attached to that chair for two and a half days, including at night.”
Bill you are an animal, live with it, actually animals like you are like cockroaches.
You are spreading lies Bill, go worship your man god.
The Animals and their man god are going to court to try to change the Flores case, they want to treat them worse than military prisoners as they will not provide health care for them. The animals will be filing a lawsuit soon.
By them I mean children and their parents that crossed the border without papers.
Manny,
Do you really want to go 0-2 this morning? Quote your source. I’d bet dollars to donuts the kid you mentioned is an MS-13 gang banger. Prove me wrong. I’ll wait.
I do appreciate that you consider the Dallas Morning News as “spreading lies.” So you admit they are “fake news,” huh? I’m sure I can find the same story somewhere else. Which media outlet would be acceptable to you as a source?
I don’t deal with scum like you Bill, google it you can find it.
Bill why do you an the other animals hate veterans so much? They are putting in debt after being injured while fighting for this country. You animals don’t have Hearts.
They are animals below is more of what they are doing to children
Officials at the Shiloh Treatment Center, near Houston, Texas, told children the drugs were vitamins and said they had to take them in order to see their parents again, according to the suit. It alleges the drugs made children “dizzy, listless, obese and even incapacitated,” Reveal reports. After they were given the drugs, children became tired and unable to walk, they told lawyers, according to court documents. “Two staff grabbed me, and the doctor gave me the injection despite my objection and left me there on the bed,” one girl said. She also alleged a supervisor at the center threw her into a door and choked her until she lost consciousness.
Translation: “I got nuthin’.”
0-2
@C.L.: I hope you are appreciating the entertainment value you are receiving here. Well worth twice the price you paid, a real value.
I believe Bill (secretly perhaps, perhaps not) has a Jules Verne-ish time machine. How else could he have come up with statements like, “What this means is, this adult woman is in custody as a witness to testify against a human trafficker. Read between the lines, she used her disabled daughter to help that trafficker smuggle in more illegal aliens.”
I will say, I find it comical that Lewandowski and the rest of the Trump minions have chosen to blame the prior BO Administration for the policy positions THEY’VE taken. Might as well blame Eisenhower’s 1956 Interstate Highway program from causing the traffic problems of 2018.
*for causing…
God made you stupid Bill, can’t help you there, maybe he will give you another chance and send you back as a cockroach.
All the Trump enablers (Abbott, Patrick, Cruz, etc) are complicit, they are all animals, enablers as they called Hillary. A witness to the physical abuse of the children had this to say
A former child-development specialist who worked inside the facility said she saw kids there with bruises and broken bones they blamed on guards.
C.L.: No time travel needed, just literacy.
From the article:
“McALLEN — A Mexican immigrant separated from her 10-year-old daughter with Down syndrome is being detained as a witness in a smuggling case, U.S. officials said Wednesday.”
“He told reporters that the girl and her 10-year-old brother were being held at a facility in McAllen while their mother had been sent to a detention center in Brownsville.”
“The woman and her five children were traveling in a vehicle driven by a U.S. citizen. The mother admitted to being in the country illegally, Customs and Border Protection said Wednesday.
“This smuggler has a criminal history including a flight, escape, aiding and abetting, making it important that we prosecute,” the agency’s statement reads.”
If you have an innocent witness that you want to keep safe before trial, you don’t toss them in jail, or separate them from family. You do that if the witness is unwilling and a flight risk.
Now, ask yourself why this woman and her kids were rolling with an alleged trafficker with a lengthy rap sheet. I bet you can figure it out, too.
They are animals make no mistake about that Trump and his supporters are animals. Below if from a court proceeding.
During cross-examination of one agent, I asked if she was aware that my client was arrested with his 4-year-old daughter. She said no. I was shocked, but this is the game. I asked whether she was the lead investigator, and if she had talked to field agents in this case. She said yes. I asked if it had become known to her that my client had his 4-year-old child with him. Yes, she said, but added that she didn’t know the child was a 4-year-old female.
The judge just glared at her.
This is how it goes. I ask about the child; the government objects; the judge forces the agent to answer. The answer is always the same.
“Do you know the location of the child?” No or unknown.
“Did you provide my client with information as to the location of his child?” No or unknown.
“Did you provide my client with any information as to how he could go about finding his child?” No or unknown.
In a rare instance, one agent said a child was in a particular city — one far from El Paso. But of course, no details were known regarding the child’s specific location.
At another hearing before a different judge, as one of my colleagues asked the agent on the stand about the whereabouts of my client’s child, the prosecutor objected to the relevance of the questions. The judge turned on the prosecutor, demanding to know why this wasn’t relevant. At one point, he slammed his hand on the desk, sending a pen flying.
This type of emotional display is unheard of in federal court. I can’t understand this, the judge said. If someone at the jail takes your wallet, they give you a receipt. They take your kids, and you get nothing? Not even a slip of paper?
While the number varies there are about 6 to 7 thousand children that are missing. Our government does not know where the children are.
How does one ask an a one year old to tell them who their is?
THEY ARE ANIMALS
How does one ask a one year old who is your parent?
No Link Manny:
Found the article you referenced. As usual, you cherry pick. Why not post the link so people can read the WHOLE article like Kuff does. In fact, Kuff usually gives background links, too, to help understand the whole issue.
Let me help you:
https ://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/families-will-no-longer-be-separated-at-the-border-but-where-are-my-clients-kids/2018/06/20/9d9e59a0-74b6-11e8-805c-4b67019fcfe4_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.a52be68eedff
You failed to quote the very beginning of the story.
“I sat across from my new client, a petite woman from Central America in her late 20s or early 30s, behind the plexiglass at the El Paso County Detention Facility. She had fled her country with her preteen son. Like many of the clients I’ve represented in the past four weeks, she had been charged with illegal reentry.”
She is in jail for REENTRY, meaning that she’s already been busted at least once for sneaking in, and she obviously doesn’t have a valid asylum claim. If she didn’t know that illegally entering the US was a crime the first time, I’m sure she figured it out the first time she was caught. She willfully made a choice to come to America and break our laws…..AGAIN. She’s an unfit parent, an unfit mother. Her kid should be taken from her, as we take away the kids from unfit mothers that are US citizens.
But hey, law enforcement folks are big meanies, amirite? Next time you get carjacked, call Erik Hanshew. A-B-O-G-A-D-O. Not sure what the El Paso area code is.
There’s one word that aptly defines this malignant fiasco: kafkaesque https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/families-will-no-longer-be-separated-at-the-border-but-where-are-my-clients-kids/2018/06/20/9d9e59a0-74b6-11e8-805c-4b67019fcfe4_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.932dec895a58
Bill why aren’t you bragging about the Dow last year?
Have you noticed how kind I have been Bill have not said Russian, rabbit, or racist.
You are worse than an animal, how many of those children do you wish dead Bill?
Dow like last year?
Why do you hate veterans Bill?
Locked up for being a material witness? Not being charged with a crime or convicted of a crime?
Why do you hate everyone Bill?
No Link:
Stay on topic. Here’s another link for you, one of your own, a female, leftist, Hispanic, NPR reporter and her left leaning followers discussing this very situation, specifically, the foundational issues of how we got here. Surely Ms. Hinojosa has the street cred and gravitas you can trust, right?
https ://twitter.com/Maria_Hinojosa/status/1009754630509748224
Maria Hinojosa
Verified account @Maria_Hinojosa
Maria Hinojosa Retweeted Franco Ordoñez
It started with Bill Clinton signing immigration reform in 1996 when no one was paying attention. It ramped up under George W. Bush. It went on steroids under Obama. Setting up the machinery-wheels turn by targeting ppl who were not born in this country. ICE Industrial Complex.
Maria Hinojosa added,
Franco Ordoñez
Verified account @FrancoOrdonez
Neither Obama nor Democrats created Trump’s zero-tolerance policy, but Obama’s policy helped create the road map of enforcement that Trump has been following — and building on.
Show this thread
4:07 AM – 21 Jun 2018
131 Retweets
214 Likes
RY
Crystal M. Fleming, Ph.D.
Ameena Higgins
LaMuerteNoPide I.D.
Mark Roberts
S. E. Knickerbocker
PepePewPew
Erika Jasmin
BetsyAimeeC
13 replies 131 retweets 214 likes
New conversation
Daniel Solomon
@dansolomonza
5h5 hours ago
Replying to @Maria_Hinojosa
So when the media says it is 100% Trump policy and previous administrations had nothing to do with it, they are lying?
2 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
Maria Hinojosa
Verified account @Maria_Hinojosa
4h4 hours ago
Policy of taking children frm parents as they arrive at the border is specifically new to Trump administration w Sessions. Do not be mistaken. But families have been separated for years through other means, like deportation. There had been whole family detention under Bush &Obama
Bill, I must have missed the part where you substantiated this claim, “Read between the lines, she used her disabled daughter to help that trafficker smuggle in more illegal aliens.” Perhaps you can enlighten me after the fact ?
@Jules:
You read the same article I read. Tell me, how do YOU interpret the facts? I mean, other than Bill, Trump, and the Border Patrol are all big meanies. If you think this woman is an innocent victim, there is a special visa available for her to legalize her status, in exchange for testifying against the human trafficker. Why has she not made that claim?
As to the no crime part, you may or may not be right, depending on how she entered the US. Did she overstay a visa? Yes, no crime, but a civil infraction. Did she come across with a coyote? Sorry, that’s a crime.
So, what’s your interpretation? The trafficker and the woman and her kids were all headed to Bible study that day?
C.L.:
You going with the “they were all headed to Bible study that day” theory, too?
What’s your interpretation of all of this? Where’s your appreciation for the entertainment value you are getting here?
Bill, you have claimed you worked for the federal government, lately the state of Texas, but I think you do have a job and that is being a paid troll for the Trump Party, no other way to explain you being here posting all day long.
Me, I am retired.
Bill, why aren’t you bragging about the Dow. I remember telling you that this year belonged to the monster that you adore. Did you notice that it reached its peak a year after Obama left. 2017 was Obama’s market he is a hell of lot smarter and much better person than the piece of manure you worship.
Manny:
I said no such thing. For the record, I have never worked as an employee for any governmental agency or NGO.
Any thoughts on the woman who repeatedly and willfully committed federal crimes that you are so enamored with?
Or, hey, let’s have a closer look at your first no-link article, from the Associated Press:
“In court filings, lawyers for the detention facility have denied all the allegations of physical abuse detailed in the lawsuit, which span from 2015 to 2018.
Many of the children were sent there after U.S. immigration authorities accused them of belonging to violent gangs, including MS-13. President Donald Trump has repeatedly cited gang activity as justification for his crackdown on illegal immigration.”
Hmm, the alleged abuse occurred during the Obama years. How about that? Kids accused of belonging to gangs, including MS-13. Color me shocked.
“The Shenandoah lockup is one of only three juvenile detention facilities in the United States with federal contracts to provide “secure placement” for children who had problems at less-restrictive housing.”
Wait. These sparks of divinity were so violent that they had to be removed from the other illegal alien kids and sent to their own, more secure, facility? You don’t say.
https ://apnews.com/afc80e51b562462c89907b49ae624e79
Looks like they are letting families go now. Source: the Google
That woman sounds like a terrible witness. Let her go.
Al Copone never admitted to having anyone killed your point being what Bill?
Bill you are a known liar, a believer in alternative facts, just like Trump of course you would not want to remember.
Bill why do you hate veterans? Bill why do you hate children?
Did I say employee? So you are a paid troll, I thought so.
Jules,
The Trump E.O. made the processing of asylum claimants with kids a priorityv over those without kids. That means that the ones that pass the credible fear exam get released (unleashed?) on the US public, to await their court cases. And just like giving no bond for Houston’s criminals, how do you think that’s going to go? How many of them are going to fail to show up for their asylum court proceedings?
The ones that didn’t pass their “credible fear” exam get expedited deportation.
I guess there’s a little something for everyone in there, no matter what side you happen to be on.
I’ll add that I am unclear about the disposition of cases where the asylum claimants were caught illegally entering, vs. showing up at an official port of entry and making their claim. Even if they wind up having a valid asylum claim, there’s still the illegal entry charge that has to be dealt with, and if they get a conviction and 6 month sentence, then the kids have to be separated anyway.
Lewandowski got dropped by the speakers bureau he worked for. Whomp whomp.
Source: the interwebs
To expose your lies and hate Bill, 70% of the persons released went back for the court hearing even after 5 years. When they used ankle bracelets it was over 90%.
Animals like you, Bill, operate on hate and lies.
Jules, C.L and Manny….give up arguing with the asshole, he has no soul. He makes my skin crawl.
Robert yes he does, this will be my last post on this topic and you imagine Ted the Canadian saying
Ted Cruz urged Democrats to tone down their rhetoric on immigration, saying it’s not conducive to finding a bipartisan solution.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/6/21/1774193/-Ted-Cruz-yes-that-Ted-Cruz-says-Democrats-need-to-tone-down-immigration-language#view-story
His polls must not look good for him, donate to Beto if you can or just get someone that does not normally vote out to vote straight Democrat in November.
Bill’s like a 13 year school girl with a Snapchat or Instagram account, racking up self worth points based on the furor generated by his outrageous posts. Stop feeding Bill, and he’ll slowly move to a different website.
Did Melania really wear a jacket that said I really don’t care do u on the way to McAllen? Is that for real?
WhoTF cares, Jules. Being all consumed with what the Cheeto in Chief and his minions do on a daily basis is akin to being all consumed with Wall Street like a day trader – pretty soon you realize daily movement is meaningless, that MSNBC recycles the same outrage every morning, and the real worth comes with a long term approach. For the majority of us, that long term is November elections.
Jules,
Snopes says true.
@Manny; all of your righteous posts ring hollow, when, you have the chance to join me in calling for Turner’s impeachment for his segregationist policies. And his persecution of the homeless. Why not help people in your own town rather than getting so revved up over people who are coming into the US illegally. I am opposed to segregation, but, obviously, you are not.
Good God, y’all… with all that trolling, isn’t it getting a bit crowded under the bridge?
Jason Hochman is that your real name? If yes, what precinct do you live in? Let me see if you even live here.
Did anyone read about the Texans Cheerleader lawsuit? These women are justifiably looking for compensation for the value they bring to the Texans Football Inc. Those ladies don’t get a proportional amount of compensation versus the value they bring to the brand and their contract puts the power in the hands of the wealthy. Is that a problem?
@David… It’s a problem if you’re a cheerleader, I suspect, but as far as value goes, it’s highly unlikely anyone paying $200/ticket to see the Texans play associates a value with the sideline cheerleaders…
C.l. what would it be without them.
David Fagan how many babies have you traumatized today?