June 21, 2018
VOL. 31, No. 71
TRUMP YIELDS TO PUBLIC PRESSURE ZERO-TOLERANCE POLICY REVAMPED;
NO MORE SEPARATING CHILDREN FROM FAMILIES By Francis Taylor, Asst. Editor
Yesterday Trump signed an executive order that rescinds his earlier policy decision to separate children from migrant families who enter the United States seeking a new life. It is not clear how many children have been taken into U.S. custody over the last month and one half, where those children have been placed, the conditions of their temporary accommodations, or if the parents have been able to speak to their children This issue has captured the attention of the nation and some reports indicate that only 27 percent of Americans supported and had no objection to the separation of children and parents. The vast majority of Americans however, including the president’s wife and daughter, helped to convince the
president that he could end the policy he created, with the stroke of a pen. Before signing the executive order president insisted that there is still a zero-tolerance policy for immigrants who enter the U.S. unlawfully and that families will stay together and maintained in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security. While this new procedure is being implemented immediately, it is not clear how the problem will be fixed retroactively, given the fact that some parents may have already been deported and may not have the resources to locate and retrieve their child from somewhere in the United States. Trump administration officials say they have no clear plan yet on how to reunite the thousands of children sepa-
rated from their families at the border since the implementation and subsequent revamping of a zero-tolerance policy in which anyone caught entering the U.S. illegally is criminally prosecuted. “This policy is relatively new,” said Steven Wagner, an acting assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services “We’re still working through the experience of reunifying kids with their parents after adjudication.” Federal officials say there are some methods parents can use to try to find their children: hotlines to call and an email address for those seeking information. But advocates say it’s not that simple. In a courtroom near the Rio
Grande, lawyer Efren Olivares and his team with the Texas Civil Rights Project frantically scribble down children’s names, birthdates and other details from handcuffed men and women waiting for court to begin. There are sometimes 80 of them in the same hearing. The Texas Civil Rights Project works to document the separations in the hopes of helping them reunite with the children. A woman from El Salvador says she hasn’t spoken to her 8-year-old son in a month, since immigration officials separated them after they crossed the U.S.-Mexico border to seek asylum. They have one hour to collect as much information as they can before the hearing begins. The immigrants plead guilty to illegally entering the U.S., and they are typically sent either to jail or directly to an immigration detention center. At this point, lawyers with the civil rights group often lose access to the detainees. “If we don’t get that information, then there’s no way of knowing that child was separated,” Olivares said. “No one else but the government will know that the separation happened if we don’t document it there.” Olivares has documented more than 300 cases of adults who have been separated from a child. Most are parents, but some are older siblings, aunts, uncles or grandparents. Some are illiterate
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INGLEWOOD’S RENT CONTROL BALLOT-PETITION INITIATIVE
By Francis Taylor, Asst. Editor
Early indications suggest that the 2,000 petition forms inked with more than 14,000 resident signatures that were presented to the Inglewood City Clerk by members of Uplift Inglewood, may not have enough certified signatures to ensure that the rent-control measure will be placed on the November ballot. The community based organization focused on affordable housing in Inglewood with demonstrations to suggest the
City of Inglewood needs affordable housing and does not need multi-billion dollar sports and entertainment facilities. Uplift Inglewood began their campaign in late Oct 2017, when they submitted an amendment to the city’s charter that would: Reset rents to Oct 2017 prices; The maximum yearly rent increases to the Consumer Price Index with a cap at 5%. Establish a “just cause” eviction framework, which dras-
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