Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

~~~

~~~

Thursday, August 29, 2019

Inhuman and Depraved. Trump goes after sick migrant children.



The Trump administration is ending a program implemented by the Obama administration that allowed very sick migrant children to temporarily stay in this country while they are being treated for life-threatening illnesses.

The families have followed the rules, applied for the program, and been accepted. Many of the children are being treated for illnesses and life-threatening diseases that they cannot be treated for in their own countries. 


The Trump administration is taking very ill and terminally ill children and kicking them out of a hospital bed in 33 days; deporting them to countries that don't have the facilities to keep them alive.


What kind of a monster does this? Who supports this?


Trump, the monster, does this, and the people who voted for him support this.



"This attack on children and their families is inhumane and unjust," said Ronnie Millar, executive director of IIIC, in a press release. "These families are all here receiving treatment that is unavailable in their home countries, and our government has issued them a death sentence."

Trump Administration Ends Protection For Migrants' Medical Care


Dismaying immigrants and advocates, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has sent out letters saying the agency will no longer consider most deferrals of deportation for people with serious medical conditions, documents show. 

 The agency is now saying those decisions will be made by another agency: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement That was not made clear to Boston-area immigrants who received the denial letters last week. Advocates said they received no formal announcement of a change in policy. The small program, known as "medical deferred action," allows people to remain in the U.S. for two-year periods if they can prove extreme medical need. 

Many of the people affected by the policy change came to the U.S. through a visa or other permitted status and are requesting to stay beyond those terms to receive medical treatment. Hours after this story was published Monday, a USCIS spokeswoman responded to several requests for clarification about the policy shift to say that "medical deferred action requests are now submitted to ICE for consideration." 

 This shift in policy has not been announced publicly by the government, and immigration advocates and attorneys question why this new process wasn't mentioned in the denial letters. In response to a WBUR request for details, a spokesman for ICE sent this statement late Tuesday morning: "As with any request for deferred action, ICE reviews each case on its own merits and exercises appropriate discretion after reviewing all the facts involved." 

 Anthony Marino, director of legal services for the Irish International Immigrant Center, explained that up until now, federal immigration officials would routinely permit eligible sick people to stay in the country under this program. But last week, five of his clients — who he says would have typically qualified — received what appeared to be template denial letters with the exact same language. 

 "The denials say specifically that the immigration service is just no longer considering deferring action at all in these cases, which would be a first in decades," he said. Marino added many of the affected clients at the center are families whose children have cancer, cystic fibrosis, HIV, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy and epilepsy. 

 According to the apparent form letters, USCIS field offices "no longer consider deferred action requests, except those made according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) policies for certain military members, enlistees, and their families."




Throw this wicked, wicked monster out of office in 2020!

24 comments:

Doctor Tomato said...

"Inhuman and depraved" is the definition of the Trump administration.

Anonymous said...

Hmmm....seem to shy from the word "illegal."

Dave Miller said...

33 days. His admin has given ppl 33 days to get out. This should go over well in South Florida, one of the communities that got these letters.

He's just a bad person. I never thought that about the Bushes, nor even Nixon, whose campaign I worked for as a kid. Those other guys might have harbored evil, or even racist ideas and thoughts, but like Mafia bosses, they had some honor. They would never have done this, or have hired people who would have pushed a policy like this one.

Disgusting...

Shaw Kenawe said...

Doctor Tomato That is the most accurate definition so far of the Trump regime.

Anonymous You didn't read the post, or you're being willfully obtuse. The families in this program to give migrant children life-saving medical help have done it all legally and within the parameters of the program started by President Obama.

But even, EVEN if these kids were not legal, what kind of a person would begrudge giving them life-saving medical help. What kind of a human being are you and the rest of the TrumpCultists?

Dave, In the Trump administration, cruelty is not a bug; it's a feature. It's the whole point. This appears to have the odious Steven Miller's fingerprints all over it.

Mary from New Hampshire said...

If they stand by this, their "pro-life" position goes straight down the crapper.

You DON’T get to call yourself “pro-life” if you stand for this.

You just DON’T.

Ducky's here said...

@Dave Miller - He's just a bad person.

-----------------
And so are the people who support him and make excuses for him.

I can't grasp exactly what kind of a country he envisions but he is desperate to be the dictator and the sermon on the mount and the acts of mercy are for suckers in his mind.

I wonder if this policy will be the subject of a "Sunday faith blog" on suffer the little children to come unto me. How can a supposed christian countenance this slug?

Dave Miller said...

No Anon... what Trump is doing is not illegal. And the kids are not illegal either, having previously received VISAS to come here for treatment.

It's just like a guy who gets a VISA to attend school and gets on a plane to get here. But once he gets here, CPB says he has been rejected. Not illegal, just disgusting. And happening all too frequently here in America.

I bet the world is respecting us now, just like conservatives said it would once Obama was out of office and Trump was elected.

Dave Miller said...

Well Duck, you hit the nail on the head.

This claims to be a Christian and leading speakers on the Christian right, defend him and yes, vouch for his Christian faith. Trump must think Jesus was an idiot when, he chose to willingly go to the cross. For what? So his followers could insult people in print and to their face, calling them names? So his followers could deny medical care to the "least of these"?

How would Pres Trump, and the Sunday Faith Blog followers deal with this statement from Jesus... "I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me."

Like you suggested I fear...

Shaw Kenawe said...


Mary from NH unfortunately they'll continue to call themselves Christians, but people who witness this inhumanity and their silence know that they are really like the Pharisees in the NT: A member of an ancient Jewish sect, distinguished by strict observance of the traditional and written law, and commonly held to have pretensions to superior sanctity.
a self-righteous person; a hypocrite.

Ducky: "I wonder if this policy will be the subject of a "Sunday faith blog" on suffer the little children to come unto me. How can a supposed christian countenance this slug?"

Of course you won't see any of this cruelty discussed on those blogs. Especially the ones that brag about what Christ-like Christians they are. Somewhere inside them they have to know how depraved this particular policy is, but they dare not talk about it -- at least on a public blog. Their silence is complicity. Their silence means they approve of these children who are here leagally and seeking live-saving medical treatment that that is not available in their countries. They apparently believe only "suffer the little children," and nothing more.

Dave, It's all so discouraging and demeaning to America and what we once stood for before this TrumpCult minority took over and fundamentally changed what America meant to us and the world.

But there is light at the end of this dark and miserable tunnel. Trump's numbers are not good, and they're only going to get worse because he's deteriorating and getting worse before our eyes and the eyes of the world. MAGA!

skudrunner said...

It is deplorable but it does say may and might, not will.
I doubt if anyone needing advanced medical care will de denied unless they are a citizen and can't afford the care then they are just out of luck.
Our entire healthcare system is broken and needs to be fixed. Why do we pay for non citizens to get care and we don't pay for citizens. Why not use some of the money spent on illegals and spend it on street residents.

Shaw Kenawe said...

What the...

"But the administration’s focus on deporting Vietnamese specifically, on which I’ve reported for The New York Times and The Atlantic, is unique, because officials in Washington and Hanoi agreed in 2008, under the U.S. administration of Republican President George W. Bush, to exempt a certain category of Vietnamese immigrants in the United States from deportation: those who entered the U.S. before July 12, 1995, the day the two former foes re-established diplomatic relations. The exemption states simply:

“Vietnamese citizens are not subject to return to Vietnam under this Agreement if they arrived in the United States before July 12, 1995, the date on which diplomatic relations were re-established between the U.S. and Vietnam.”


Steve Wilkerson

It just gets worse every day...

SOURCE

Dave Miller said...

Shaw... re the Vietnamese...

Remember that it was Sen John McCain who spearheaded the effort to normalize relations with Vietnam.

Does Trump's behavior surprise you?

Shaw Kenawe said...

skudrunner: It is deplorable but it does say may and might, not will.

Families have already received the letters telling them they have to leave in 33 days. From the NPR report:

Anthony Marino, director of legal services for the Irish International Immigrant Center, explained that up until now, federal immigration officials would routinely permit eligible sick people to stay in the country under this program. But last week, five of his clients — who he says would have typically qualified — received what appeared to be template denial letters with the exact same language.

"The denials say specifically that the immigration service is just no longer considering deferring action at all in these cases, which would be a first in decades," he said.

Marino added many of the affected clients at the center are families whose children have cancer, cystic fibrosis, HIV, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy and epilepsy.

According to the apparent form letters, USCIS field offices "no longer consider deferred action requests, except those made according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) policies for certain military members, enlistees, and their families."

The dated letters notified families they must leave the country within 33 days of the government's writing. Otherwise, they face removal and exclusion from the U.S. for several years. Legal advocates across the country have reported clients receiving similar denial letters."



skudrunner: "I doubt if anyone needing advanced medical care will de denied unless they are a citizen and can't afford the care then they are just out of luck."

SK: That not just cynical, but it's a lie. One of your own fellow GOPers has told people who need medical care but have no insurance that they can go to a local ER and get help. I've forgotten who the clown was, but he claimed no American goes without medical care. You must have missed that.



skudrunner: "Our entire healthcare system is broken and needs to be fixed.

SK: President Obama tried to do something about it, but the Republicans would have none of it, and they've tried to sabotage and kill whatever he did to solve the problem. Medicare was not perfect when that was implemented, but in those days, Dems and Repubs worked together to iron out the problems and make it work.


skudrunner: "Why do we pay for non citizens to get care and we don't pay for citizens."

SK: Where in that report does it say these people get care without paying? Maybe there are organizations that raise money to pay. You're making an assumption here.

skudrunner: "Why not use some of the money spent on illegals and spend it on street residents."

The people being treated are NOT illegals. They're here with the permission of the US for a specific medical treatment. Where is your humanity?

Shaw Kenawe said...

Dave, "Remember that it was Sen John McCain who spearheaded the effort to normalize relations with Vietnam.

Does Trump's behavior surprise you?"

It's difficult for me to believe Trump knows anything about this. He's not engaged in policy, and he spends his time Tweeting out insults to places like Puerto Rico that faced possible destruction again from a hurricane. I believe it's a Stephen Miller policy. He doesn't even want LEGAL immigration anymore. But since Trump is the POTUS, he is responsible for this insanity.

Dave Miller said...

Shaw... according to our former Ambassador to Vietnam, who resigned after 2 years of the Trump Admin, Trump did indeed raise the issue of these immigrants to the Pres of Vietnam, right after Steven Miller whispered in his ear.

Trump knew.

But even if he didn't, it's his admin.

Case closed.

Ray Cranston said...

Timothy Egan of the NYTimes:

"Religious hypocrites are an easy and eternal mark. The French Revolution was driven in part by the revulsion of starving peasants toward the overfed clerics who had taken vows of poverty. The Protestant Reformation took flight on disgust at a church in Rome that sold passages to heaven, enriching men who had multiple mistresses after taking vows of chastity.

White evangelical Christians, the rotting core of Trump’s base, profess to be guided by biblical imperatives. They’re not. Their religion is Play-Doh. They have become more like Trump, not the other way around. It’s a devil’s pact, to use words they would understand.

In one of the most explicit passages of the New Testament, Christ says people will be judged by how they treat the hungry, the poor, the least among us. And yet, only 25 percent of white evangelicals say their country has some responsibility to take in refugees.

Evangelicals give cover to an amoral president because they believe God is using him to advance their causes. “There has never been anyone who has defended us and who has fought for us, who we have loved more than Donald J. Trump,” said Ralph Reed at a meeting of professed Christian activists earlier this summer.

But what really thrills them is when Trump bullies and belittles their opponents, as counterintuitive as that may seem. Evangelicals “love the meanest parts” of Trump, the Christian writer Ben Howe argues in his new book, “The Immoral Majority.” Older white Christians rouse to Trump’s toxicity because he’s taking their side. It’s tribal, primal and vindictive.

So, yes, people hate religion when the loudest proponents of religion are shown to be mercenaries for a leader who debases everything he touches. And yes, young people are leaving the pews in droves because too often the person facing them in those pews is a fraud.

They hate religion because, at a moment to stand up and be counted on the right side of history, religion is used as moral cover for despicable behavior. This is not new to our age. Hitler got a pass from the Vatican until very late in the war."


Les Carpenter said...

Religion, ALL religions, because they are human constructs and designed and used to control folks often turn to the dark side in order to achieve the sometimes evil ends of their "faith".

skudrunner said...

Shaw, Many great responses and some of them were true.
The ER cannot deny treatment but we are talking about advanced care which an ER is not equipped to do.

We spend billions yearly taking care of illegals in this country. Why not have immigration reform and enforce our laws. We could then use those billions to assist the street residents in our country and provide for the less fortunate citizens. You have a party that wants to do everything for the illegals but little for the less fortunate. Your party should be ashamed.

Obama tried to do something for 30 million Americans of which 9 million signed up. It was a disaster for all but those 9 million.

Are the democrats going to nominate a reasonable candidate or stay with the give america away group. Trump need to be beat but not by the wackos running.

R.D. said...


There's Trump, and then there's Trumpism. Trump is the visible lesion on the body politic, and Trumpism is the malignancy that's metastasized in his followers and the GOP.

Apparently it was residual there and only required a catalyst to release it. Defeating Trump in the 2020 election will simply excise the lesion, not cure the cancer he has released, and given voice and sanction to: racism, bigotry, white nationalism, and xenophobia head up a list far too long to include here.

As a cancer survivor myself, I know well that removing the tumor doesn't eradicate the cancer; it's the chemo, radiation, or immunotherapy afterwards that ultimately saves one's life. Similarly, once Trump is history, it will take years of regular infusions of people with impeccable character and mettle, both in society and government, to reverse Trumpism now that it has been released.

Anonymous said...

For your resident troll, skudrunner:

While your busy whining about desperate people getting medical help, Wal-Mart is receiving $6.2 billion in corporate welfare every year! But go ahead and pick on sick children getting medical help and ignore the real leeches.

Doctor Tomato said...

This wins the internet today for the funniest whine!:

SO, I’m thinking maybe his asking for an apology is THE most hypocritical thing most thinking people have heard IN YEARS……Anybody asking for Trump to be apologized to? Anybody saying he’s sorry Trump was blamed for the Russian crap he was found mostly not to have done?

"he was found mostly not to have done" MOSTLY NOT TO HAVE DONE! IOW Trump did do Russian crap!

Very funny. This is Trump's basest base whining. I love it!

skudrunner said...

Anon 1023, you referenced an article written in 2014 using data from 2013 and based on estimates derived from a progressive group. Walmart is one of the largest employers in the country so their numbers are going to be higher than many others. If you remember this was during the previous presidents reign so are you attacking obama or just attacking.

We use so many resources to provide for illegals and throw the street residents to the side. I am going to assume by your dig that you have no interest in putting American Citizen needs before illegals.

You can grow up and use a name instead of hiding behind anon. I assume you are the same anon who does a hit and run on me hoping to get under my skin, doesn't work. I respect Ms.Shaw, Rev and Duckie and some others on this blog because they, sometimes although rare, have valid points and are adult enough to not hide behind anon.

Anonymous said...

How many people does the sick kid employ? The money for Wal-Mart is well spent.

Dave Miller said...

Skud... you seem to be conflating the children being treated and illegal immigration.

The ppl in those programs applied for VISAS to come here for treatment, and those requests were granted. By the US Government. Their medical costs are usually underwritten by the medical provider. If not, through networks in their home country. The US does not let ppl get medical visas if the "state" is going to end up paying the costs.

These programs cost the US nothing, but generate tons of good will around the world.

And now Trump has found a way to ruin that.

And that's before his Admin reneged on agreements we've had since 1995 with the government of Vietnam. Literally his admin is telling post Vietnam War refugees, some of whom escaped across airport runways while they were machine gunned by North Vietnamese soldiers, that they now are subject to deportation.

After 25 of keeping our word, Trump has decided the word of the US, and multiple presidents, of both parties, means nothing.