If the issue weren’t so serious, the politics of the left on illegal immigration could make one laugh aloud.
The latest came Wednesday after the Trump administration gave the left what it has been begging for – the ability to keep illegal immigrant parents and children together, despite rules that predated the administration that said they should be separated.
OK, the administration said, we’ll keep them together. That’ll speed up hearings about their improper presence in the U.S. – or their asylum claims (of which fewer than one-fifth were granted during a 10-city pilot program over the past year) – and quicken their potential deportation should their hearing not go their way.
Democrats, only since Trump has been in office, have taken exception to separating illegal immigrant children from families, as has been the law. It’s cruel, it’s inhumane, it’s wrong, they said.
But a Bill Clinton-era court agreement, the 1997 Flores settlement, laid out how illegal immigrant children were to be treated while in custody. And a Barack Obama-era court ruling in 2015 said children could only be held for 20 days, which is nowhere near quick enough for hearings to be held for their parents, who are among thousands of illegal immigrants awaiting hearings.