How did we get here?
R. Andrew Free

In 2015, I shook President Obama’s hand, thanked him for DACA, and asked him to reverse course & close the for-profit baby jails (also known as “family detention centers”) he opened in Dilley & Karnes City, Texas. What he said shook me to my core

Specifically, I told him, “It’s wrong. And it’s going to be a stain on your legacy.” He stopped moving on to the next person in the rope line and looked back at me. I’d gotten his attention. He turned back, looked at me and “Are you an immigration lawyer?” “Yes”

Just days before, President Obama’s senior immigration policy advisor @cecmunoz had received a chilly welcome during her keynote address to the @AILANational annual conference attendees in National Harbor. She was greeted with silent protest & signs saying #EndFamilyDetention

I later learned that her meeting with senior AILA attorneys had been testy to say the least. See, Obama had previously timed great news, like #DACA to coincide with the AILA annual conferences. We all watched ecstatic in Nashville in 2012 as he announced it on giant screens.

So the President’s immediate association of “End Family Detention” with immigration lawyers wasn’t random. He’d been told and believed we were basically the only ones who’d care, and even then, it would be a minority of us that wouldn’t extract from him a political cost.

So when I said “Yes”, the President looked back and engaged: “I’ll tell you what we can’t have. It’s these parents sending their kids here on a dangerous journey and putting their lives at risk.”

And he walked on down the rope line. Not, “I know. I’m working on it.” not, “Thanks for your support”. Just, “Yes. This is the right move given what I perceive the facts to be.” I was dumbfounded. Let’s unpack the logic of what he said because it’s that logic which led us here

First, the President tacitly admittedly that he was using detention of mothers and children as a deterrent. Days later, a federal court would find that policy likely violates the due process clause. https://www.aclu.org/cases/rilr-v-johnson …. And rightly so, as @ACLU powerfully demonstrated.

Detention as Deterrence of future migration works only if it’s unpleasant, and only if you can ensure that people don’t get out. You don’t just detain to deter. You detain to deport. You have to do it by sending a Gandalf message down the pipeline to the Northern Triangle.

What’s wrong with that? First, it doesn’t work. It assumes a parent would rationally chose to watch her daughter raped or murdered in Guatemala, El Salvador, or Honduras instead of helping her flee to seek the domestic and international legal protections of US law. Would you?

People in the Northern Triangle were (and are) fleeing for their lives. They’re looking to what we’ve held out as a shining city on a hill and following the beacon to safety. To convince them not to flee, you must convince them a worse fate awaits at the end of the journey.

Today’s DHS Kidnapping policy is the logical extension of yesterday’s family detention decisions. It’s the same mouthful of detention-as-deterrence mouthwash, just swished to the other side. Nothing, NOTHING in our law requires us to abuse and traumatize families and children

The reason otherwise friendly partisans on the left went to the mat with the Obama Admin is because we saw the utter inhumanity that happens inside these internment camps. Women aren’t allowed to let their children farther than 3 feet away from them. Imagine your toddler.

I remember holding back tears when I saw cutouts from Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar on the walls in the “kids’ area” of the legal trailer and thinking about how this would mean those kids will always associate the same book I was reading my child with this jail.

I remember hearing the constant, violent coughing and sickness of small children, and the worry of their mothers who stood in the sun outside the clinic all day only to be told their kids should “drink water.” I remember nearly doubling over when I saw the line of strollers.

if being in these cages ate away at our humanity, getting to know the people locked inside them helped restore it. They women We represented had been raped, beaten, or stalked in some of the most violent places on the planet. They carried on for their kids. They had hope.

And the detention policies of the last administration were set up to deter that hope. All the while yielding a hefty corporate profit. It was and is a moral failing that these places still existed when President Obama left office. It wasn’t for want of trying to close them.

I remember sitting down with my Member of Congress soon after I got back from the baby jail and trying to impress upon him the fierce urgency of taking immediate action to close these places down. I believed if people just knew, it would end. We as a nation would end it.

I’ll never forget what he told me, back in August of 2015. “Do you realize that Donald Trump — DONALD TRUMP!!! — is currently polling at nearly 40% in Tennessee? His point was that politically, I was probably wrong: People might not end up caring, even if they learned.

what I hope for us in this moment of critical mass, in this tipping point, is that we will collectively have the courage to hold our leaders accountable when they tell us putting families in for-profit cages to deter asylum-seeking is necessary to stop family separation.

To do that, we need smart, effective experts helping our leaders formulate the policy solutions. To me, that means helping @ThinkLawLab and @CGRShastings deploy their wealth of knowledge. It means helping @Grassroots_News and @ConMijente and @PuenteAZ and @PuebloSF organize.

It means making sure @RAICESTEXAS and @AlOtroLado_Org and @NWIRP and @MigrantFreedom and @DetentionWatch have the resources they need to represent, visit, and document the abuses committed against human beings in cages. And it means showing up when we’re called to be present

If this is true, it’s an example of tribalism at its worse. President Obama basically said that no one would care about what they totally care about now, just because he was president. And Hillary was totally going to beat Trump. The press didn’t care, even though it was all right there in front of them.

This isn’t saying that Donald Trump and his administration didn’t possibly make matters worse. They definitely don’t seem to have their stories straight if it’s the Democrats fault, or if they are bragging about Trump’s zero-tolerance policies. Okay? Okay.

But Trump didn’t invent the mess. Something an intellectually honest media should be pointing out if what they really, honestly care about are children. Not pushing a narrative to make Trump look bad in hopes of picking up seats in the midterms.

Democratic Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar admitted Saturday that the Obama administration attempted to cover up the child migrant crisis occurring at the Southern border.

“It was kept very quiet under the Obama Administration. There were large numbers of people coming in. The Obama administration was trying to keep this quiet,” Cuellar told CNN’s Fredricka Whitfield.

Whitfield displayed a 2014 image of migrant children held in cages at a detention center, and Cuellar said that he released similar photos of children separated from their parents.

Cuellar added that the number of children being held at the border right now is similar to the amount during the Obama administration.

“We still see the numbers,” he said, adding that “not all of them are being separated. Some of them are coming alone.”

Although business abroad has been booming and the chain has been opening more and more cafes, U.S. sales growth has stalled for the company that brought espresso to the masses. With about 14,000 stores domestically, Starbucks is now pumping the brakes on licensed and company-operated locations, with a renewed focus on rural and suburban areas—not over-caffeinated urban neighborhoods where locals already joke that the next Starbucks will open inside an existing store.

...

The closing stores are often in “major metro areas where increases in wage and occupancy and other regulatory requirements” are making them unprofitable, Johnson said. “Now, in a lot of ways, it’s middle America and the South that presents an opportunity.

50 Notable Mistakes and Missteps in Major Media Reporting on Donald Trump

1. Aug. 2016-Nov. 2016

The New York Post published modeling photos of Trump’s wife Melania and reported they were taken in 1995. Various news outlets relied on that date to imply that Melania—an immigrant—had violated her visa status. But the media got the date wrong. Politico was among the news agencies that later issued a photo date correction.

2. Oct. 1, 2016:

The New York Times and other media widely suggested or implied that Trump had not paid income taxes for 18 years. Later, tax return pages leaked to MSNBC ultimately showed that Trump actually paid a higher rate than Democrats Bernie Sanders and President Obama.

3. Oct. 18, 2016:

In a Washington Post piece not labelled opinion or analysis, Stuart Rothenberg reported that Trump’s path to an electoral college victory was “nonexistent.”

4. Nov. 4, 2016:

USA Today misstated Melania Trump’s “arrival date from Slovenia” amid a flurry of reporting that questioned her immigration status from the mid-1990s.

5. Nov. 9, 2016:

Early on election night, the Detroit Free Press called the state of Michigan for Hillary Clinton. Trump actually won Michigan.
Nancy Sinatra via Twitter

6. Jan. 20, 2017:

CNN claimed Nancy Sinatra was “not happy” at her father’s song being used at Trump’s inauguration. Sinatra responded, “That’s not true. I never said that. Why do you lie, CNN?…Actually I’m wishing him the best.”

7. Jan. 20, 2017:

Zeke Miller of TIME reported that President Trump had removed the bust statue of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. from the Oval Office. The news went viral. It was false.

8. Jan. 26, 2017:

Josh Rogin of the Washington Post reported that the State Department’s “entire senior administrative team” had resigned in protest of Trump. A number of media outlets ranging from politically left to right, including liberal-leaning Vox, stated that claim was misleading or wrong.

9. Jan. 28, 2017

CNBC’s John Harwood reported the Justice Department “had no input” on Trump’s immigration executive order. After a colleague contradicted Harwood’s report, he amended it to reflect that Justice Department lawyers reportedly had reviewed Trump’s order.

10. Jan. 31, 2017:

CNN’s Jeff Zeleny reported the White House set up Twitter accounts for two judges to try to keep Trump’s selection for Supreme Court secret. Zeleny later corrected his report to state that the Twitter accounts had not been set up by the White House.

11. Feb. 2, 2017:

TMZ reported Trump changed the name of “Black History Month” to “African American History Month,” implying the change was untoward or racist. In fact, Presidents Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton had all previously called Black History month “African American History” month.

12. Feb. 2, 2017:

AP reported that Trump had threatened the president of Mexico with invasion to get rid of “bad hombres.” Numerous publications followed suit. The White House said it wasn’t true and the Washington Post removed the AP info that “could not be independently confirmed.”

13. Feb. 4, 2017:

Josh Rogin of the Washington Post reported on “Inside the White House-Cabinet Battle Over Trump’s Immigration Order,” only to have the article updated repeatedly to note that one of the reported meetings had not actually occurred, that a conference call had not happened as described, and that actions attributed to Trump were actually taken by his chief of staff.

14. Feb. 14, 2017:

The New York Times’ Michael S. Schmidt, Mark Mazzetti and Matt Apuzzo reported about supposed contacts between Trump campaign staff and “senior Russian intelligence officials.” Comey later testified “In the main, [the article] was not true.”

15. Feb. 22, 2017:

ProPublica’s Raymond Bonner reported CIA official Gina Haspel—Trump’s later pick for CIA Director—was in charge of a secret CIA prison where Islamic extremist terrorist Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in one month, and that she mocked the prisoner’s suffering. More than a year later, ProPublica retracted the claim, stating that “Neither of these assertions is correct…Haspel did not take charge of the base until after the interrogation of Zubaydah ended.”

16. April 5, 2017:

An article bylined by the New York Times’ graphic editors Karen Yourish and Troy Griggs referred to Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, as Trump’s wife.

17. May 10, 2017:

Multiple outlets including Politico, the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, AP, Reuters and the Wall Street Journal reported the same leaked information: that Trump fired FBI Director James Comey shortly after Comey requested additional resources to investigate Russian interference in the election.
The New York Times’ Matthew Rosenberg and Matt Apuzzo, and CNN’s Sara Murray reported the information in sentences and paragraphs that omitted attribution, as if it were an established fact. The Washington Post’s Philip Rucker, Ashley Parker, Sari Horwitz and Robert Costa wrote news articles in the style of opinion pieces and from an omniscient viewpoint as if they were somehow in the mind of Trump. For example, they reported, “Every time FBI Director James B. Comey appeared in public, an ever-watchful President Trump grew increasingly agitated that the topic was the one that he was most desperate to avoid: Russia.” (Other reporters —Reuters’ Dustin Volz and Susan Cornwell— did properly attribute the claim.)
The Justice Department, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe said the media reports were untrue and McCabe added that the FBI’s Russia investigation was “adequately resourced.”

18. June 4, 2017:

NBC News reported in a Tweet that Russian President Vladimir Putin told TV host Megan Kelly that he had compromising information about Trump. Actually, Putin said the opposite: that he did not have compromising information on Trump.

19. June 6, 2017:

CNN’s Gloria Borger, Eric Lichtblau, Jake Tapper and Brian Rokus; and ABC’s Justin Fishel and Jonathan Karl reported that Comey was going to refute Donald Trump’s claim that Comey told Trump three times he was not under investigation. Instead, Comey did the opposite and confirmed Trump’s claim.

20. June 7, 2017:

In a fact-check story, AP reported erroneously that Trump misread the potential cost to a family with insurance under the Affordable Care Act who wanted care from their existing doctor.

21. June 8, 2017:

The New York Times’ Jonathan Weisman reported that Comey testified Trump Attorney General Jeff Sessions told Comey not to call the Russia probe “an investigation” but “a matter.” Weisman was mistaken about the attorney general and the probe. Actually, it was Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch (not Sessions) who told Comey to refer to the Hillary Clinton classified email probe (not the Russia probe) as “a matter” instead of “an investigation.”

22. June 22, 2017:

CNN’s Thomas Frank reported that Congress was investigating a “Russian investment fund with ties to Trump officials.” The report was later retracted. Frank and two other CNN employees resigned in the fallout.

23. December 2, 2017:

ABC News’ Brian Ross reported that former Trump official Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn was going to testify that candidate Trump had directed him to contact “the Russians.” Even though such contact would not be in of itself a violation of law, the news was treated as an explosive indictment of Trump in the Russia collusion narrative, and the stock market fell on the news. ABC later corrected the report to reflect that Trump had already been elected when he reportedly asked Flynn to contact the Russians about working together to fight ISIS and other issues. Ross was suspended.

24. July 6, 2017:

Newsweek’s Chris Riotta and others reported that Poland’s First Lady had refused to shake Trump’s hand. Newsweek’s later “update” reflected that the First Lady had shaken Trump’s hand after all, as clearly seen on the full video.

25. July 6, 2017:

The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, CNN and numerous outlets had long reported, as if fact, the Hillary Clinton claim that a total of 17 American intelligence agencies concluded that Russia orchestrated election year attacks to help get Trump elected. Only three or four agencies, not 17, had officially done so.

26. Aug. 31, 2017:

NBC News’ Ken Dilinian and Carol Lee reported that a Trump official’s notes about a meeting with a Russian lawyer included the word “donation,” as if there were discussions about suspicious campaign contributions. NBC later corrected the report to reflect that the word “donation” didn’t appear, but still claimed the word “donor” did. Later, Politico reported that the word “donor” wasn’t in the notes, either.
27. Sept. 5, 2017:

CNN’s Chris Cillizza and other news outlets declared Trump “lied” when he stated that Trump Tower had been wiretapped, although there’s no way any reporter independently knew the truth of the matter—only what intel officials claimed. It later turned out there were numerous wiretaps involving Trump Tower, including a meeting of Trump officials with a foreign dignitary. At least two Trump associates who had offices in or frequented Trump Tower were also wiretapped.28. Sept. 7, 2017:

The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman reported Democrat leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi called President Trump about an immigration issue. Trump actually made the call to Pelosi.29. Nov. 6, 2017:

CNN’s Daniel Shane edited excerpts from a Trump event to make it seem as though Trump didn’t realize Japan builds cars in the U.S. However, Trump’s entire statement made clear that he does.30. Nov. 6, 2017:

CNN edited a video that made it appear as though Trump impatiently dumped a box of fish food into the water while feeding fish at Japan’s palace. The New York Daily News, the Guardian and others wrote stories implying Trump was gauche and impetuous. The full video showed that Trump had simply followed the lead of Japan’s Prime Minister.31. Nov. 29, 2017:

Newsweek’s Chris Riotta claimed Ivanka Trump “plagiarized” one of her own speeches. In fact, plagiarizing one’s own work is impossible since plagiarism is when a writer steals someone else’s work and passes it off as his own.
32. Dec. 4, 2017:

The New York Times’ Michael S. Schmidt and Sharon LaFraniere and other outlets reported that Trump Deputy National Security Adviser K.T. McFarland supposedly contradicted herself or lied about another official’s contacts with Russians. The story was heavily, repeatedly amended. CNN, MSNBC, CBS News, New York Daily News and Daily Beast picked up the story about McFarland’s “lies.”
33. Dec. 4, 2017:

ABC News’ Trish Turner and Jack Date reported that former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort had recently worked with a Russia intelligence-connected “official.” But the Russian wasn’t an “official.”34. Dec. 5, 2017:

Bloomberg’s Steven Arons and the Wall Street Journal’s Jenny Strasburg reported the blockbuster that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had subpoenaed Trump’s bank records. It wasn’t true.
35. Dec. 8, 2017:

CNN’s Manu Raju and Jeremy Herb reported that Donald Trump Jr. conspired with WikiLeaks in advance of the publication of damaging Democrat party and Clinton campaign emails. Many other publications followed suit. They had the date wrong: WikiLeaks and Trump Junior were in contact after the emails were published.
36. Jan. 3, 2018:

Talking Point Memo’s Sam Thielman reported that a Russian social media company provided documents to the Senate about communications with a Trump official. The story was later corrected to say the reporter actually had no idea how the Senate received the documents and had no evidence to suggest the Russian company was cooperating with the probe.37. Jan. 12, 2018:

Mediaite’s Lawrence Bonk, CNN’s Sophie Tatum, the Guardian, BBC, US News and World Report, Reuters and Buzzfeed’s Adolfo Flores reported a “bombshell”— that President Trump had backed down from his famous demand for a wall along the entire Southern border. However, Trump said the very same thing in February 2016 on MSNBC, on Dec. 2, 2015, in the National Journal, in October 2015 during the CNBC Republican Primary debate, and on Aug. 20, 2015, on FOX Business’ Mornings with Maria.38. Jan. 15, 2018:

AP’s Laurie Kellman and Jonathan Drew reported that a new report showed trust in the media had fallen during the Trump presidency. But the report that AP cited was actually over a year old and was conducted while Obama was president.39. Feb. 2, 2018:

AP’s Eric Tucker, Mary Clare Jalonick and Chad Day reported that ex-British spy Christopher Steele’s opposition research against Trump was initially funded by a conservative publication: the Washington Free Beacon. AP corrected its story because Steele only came on the project after Democrats began funding it.
40. March 8, 2018:

The New York Times’ Jan Rosen reported on a hypothetical family whose tax bill would rise nearly $4,000 under Trump’s tax plan. It turns out the calculations were off: the couple’s taxes would go actually go down $43; not up $4,000.41. March 13, 2018:

The New York Times’ Adam Goldman, NBC’s Noreen O’Donnell and AP’s Deb Riechmann reported that Trump’s pick for CIA Director, Gina Haspel, had waterboarded a particular Islamic extremist terrorist dozens of time at a secret prison; and that she had mocked his suffering. In fact, Haspel wasn’t assigned to the prison until after the detainee left. ProPublica originally reported the incorrect details in Feb. 2017.42. March 15, 2018:

AP’s Michael Biesecker, Jake Pearson and Jeff Horwitz reported that a Trump advisory board official had been a Miss America contestant and had killed a black rhino. She actually was a Mrs. America contestant and had shot a nonlethal tranquilizer dart at a white rhino.
Watch Sharyl Attkisson’s TEDx Talk: Is Fake News Real?43. April 1, 2018:

AP’s Nicholas Riccardi reported that the Trump administration had ended a program to admit foreign entrepreneurs. It wasn’t true.44. April 30, 2018:

AP reported that the NRA had banned guns during Trump and Pence speeches at the NRA’s annual meeting. AP later corrected the information because the ban had been put in place by Secret Service.45. May 3, 2018:

NBC’s Tom Winter reported that the government had wiretapped Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen. NBC later corrected the story after three senior U.S. officials said there was no wiretap.
46. May 7, 2018:

CNBC’s Kevin Breuninger reported that Trump’s personal lawyer, Cohen, paid $1 million in fines related to unauthorized cars in his taxi business, had been barred from managing taxi medallions, had transferred $60 million offshore to avoid paying debts, and is awaiting trial on charges of failing to pay millions in taxes. A later correction stated that none of that was true.47. May 16, 2018:

The New York Times’ Julie Hirschfeld Davis, AP, CNN’s Oliver Darcy and others excerpted a Trump comment as if he had referred to immigrants or illegal immigrants generally as “animals.” Most outlets corrected their reports later to note that Trump had specifically referred to members of the murderous criminal gang MS-13.48. May 28, 2018

The New York Times’ Magazine editor-in-chief Jake Silverstein and CNN’s Hadas Gold shared a story with photos of immigrant children in cages as if they were new photos taken under the Trump administration. The article and photos were actually taken in 2014 under the Obama administration.49. May 29, 2018

The New York Times’ Julie Davis reported the estimated size of a Trump rally to be 1,000 people. There were actually 5,500 people or more in attendance.
50. June 1, 2018

In a story about Trump tariffs, AP reported the dollar value of Virginia’s farm and forestry exports to Canada and Mexico was $800. It’s $800 million.

Associated Press • June 20, 2018

BERLIN (AP) — German security officials say left-wing extremists have become more willing to use violence over the past five years.

Figures released by the domestic intelligence agency BfV on Wednesday show the number of left-wing extremists whom authorities consider potentially violent rose 27 percent from 7,100 to about 9,000 between 2012 and 2017.

The number of violent crimes committed by left-wing extremists rose 88 percent during that period, to 1,648 from 876.

Last year saw a spike in left-wing violence partly due to the G-20 summit in Hamburg. The rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany has also given left-wing extremists a new target in recent years.

BfV chief Hans-Georg Maassen called for more public debate about the need to reject violence as a means of achieving political ends.

The Department of Justice today announced the arrest of more than 2,300 suspected online child sex offenders during a three-month, nationwide, operation conducted by Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task forces. The task forces identified 195 offenders who either produced child pornography or committed child sexual abuse, and 383 children who suffered recent, ongoing, or historical sexual abuse or production of child pornography.

The 61 ICAC task forces, located in all 50 states and comprised of more than 4,500 federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies, led the coordinated operation known as "Broken Heart" during the months of March, April, and May 2018. During the course of the operation, the task forces investigated more than 25,200 complaints of technology-facilitated crimes against children and delivered more than 3,700 presentations on Internet safety to over 390,000 youth and adults.

"No child should ever have to endure sexual abuse," Attorney General Jeff Sessions said. "And yet, in recent years, certain forms of modern technology have facilitated the spread of child pornography and created greater incentives for its production. We at the Department of Justice are determined to strike back against these repugnant crimes. It is shocking and very sad that in this one operation, we have arrested more than 2,300 alleged child predators and investigated some 25,200 sexual abuse complaints. Any would-be criminal should be warned: this Department will remain relentless in hunting down those who victimize our children."