Their warnings fell on deaf ears…
Now it its the judges that are trying make sense of things….
On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee held the first and possibly only congressional oversight hearing on the Trump administration immigration policies that led to the forced separation of thousands of parents and children. At the hearing, administration officials revealed that hundreds of children remain separated nearly a week after a court-imposed deadline to reunite them, that pregnant detainees can be shackled as long as they are not in “active labor” and that there was significant internal pushback within agencies as the family separation policy was being developed by President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
When Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) asked officials from the various agencies involved in the family separation crisis if anyone within the administration said, “hey, maybe this isn’t a good idea,” Office of Refugee Resettlement official Jonathan White said he and others did try to sound the alarm.
“During the deliberative process over the previous year, we raised a number of concerns about any policy that would result in family separation due to concerns we had about the best interest of the child,” White said.
“You told the administration that kids would suffer as a result, that pain would be inflicted?” Blumenthal pressed.
“Separation of children from their parents entails significant risk of harm to children,” White answered. “There’s no question that there is potential for psychological traumatic injury.”….
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