In a non-scientific poll conducted at the University of Pennsylvania, an overwhelming 93 percent of students said they are against the Trump administration’s actions regarding illegal immigrant children being separated from their parents.
Red Alert Politics asked this of 60 Penn students and 56 disagreed with President Trump.
Given the dominant leftist political ideology at Penn, these results are not surprising. This is the same school, after all, that sent out a campus wide email from the university president condemning previous executive orders from the Trump administration regarding immigration. However, given the University of Pennsylvania’s reputation for academic excellence, the lack of truth and facts that accompany these opinions is quite disheartening.
“It is inhumane to take innocent children from their parents because Trump is a racist and does not want more brown people into this country,” a Penn student, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told Red Alert Politics.
When further pressed on the history of the immigration laws about parents and children at the border, or the previous actions of the Obama administration regarding the issue, students admitted they did not know much. This “crisis” was created by overwhelming lack of knowledge, combined with the traditional fear-mongering and apocalyptic proclamations by those on the Left.
The narrative that the Trump administration is sweeping up illegal immigrants, separating parents from their children, and throwing those children into what some have deemed “internment camps” — a narrative tossed around on campus — is hyperbolic and just not true.
These are some facts the University of Pennsylvania students do not know or fail to acknowledge.
When an illegal immigrant is caught entering the country with children, the children are taken into custody by the Department of Health and Human Services and cared for at shelters, similarly to what occurs when any adult with children living in the United States is prosecuted for a crime. Unless an illegal immigrant files an asylum claim, the adult who illegally entered the country is usually quickly reunited with their children. If an illegal immigrant files an asylum claim, then children might be separated from their parents for an extended period of time.
Still, in asylum cases, the federal government is only allowed to hold children for a maximum of 20 days, due to the Flores Consent Decree from 1997. As part of this agreement from a case involving children of immigrants being detained, the Flores Settlement Agreement levied multiple duties on immigration authorities.
According to Human Rights First:
- The government is required to release children from immigration detention without unnecessary delay to, in order of preference, parents, other adult relatives, or licensed programs willing to accept custody.
- If a suitable placement is not immediately available, the government is obligated to place children in the “least restrictive” setting appropriate to their age and any special needs.
- The government must implement standards relating to the care and treatment of children in immigration detention.
Students are also unaware that the American Civil Liberties Union filed “a nationwide class-action lawsuit challenging the Obama administration’s policy of locking up asylum-seeking mothers and children to intimidate others from coming to the United States.”
A lack of facts and understanding propel students to deem President Trump a racist. Unfortunately, this is becoming more and more routine. This faux controversy is nothing more than leftist propaganda to obstruct progress made by the Trump administration.
Emotional arguments about a border situation that has not changed in years, but is presented as a brand new issue is just the left’s way of combating Trump’s agenda. And, much like all the other obstruction and acts of resistance attempted from the left, this, too, will disappear when the news cycle changes.
