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The Fate of the Officials Who Carried Out the Family Separation Scandal? Promoted Instead of Punished; Celebrated Instead of Prosecuted

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In an interview on Fox News, acting ICE Director Ronald Vitiello — who has been nominated to become the permanent ICE Director — was asked if he supported the President’s family separation policy. His response: “We supported what the President did.” After talking about the chaos that resulted, he said “we’ve recovered from that now.”

ICE may have supported what the President did, but the American people do not. ICE may have recovered from the crisis, but the 3,000 family members separated by ICE have not. ICE may be trying to rehabilitate its reputation but our reputation as a nation that respects the basic human right of family integrity is permanently damaged.

To hear how the Trump administration, and DHS in particular, schemed and lied and positioned to intentionally design and execute these horrific policies, listen to today’s version of the New York Times’ podcast, The Daily. The cruelty, mendacity and indifference are stunning. This was no accident, misstep or bureaucratic mixup. This was intentional, dehumanizing and terrifying.

Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America’s Voice, said:

Here we are. The Trump administration is responsible for one of America’s darkest chapters. No one has taken responsibility for this moral scandal and no one has been held accountable. The President just held a celebration in the White House for ICE and CBP, the agencies that carried out these awful deeds, and the Republican Congress does virtually nothing. Not one of the officials or agents involved in ripping kids from their parents with no plan to reunite them stood up, blew the whistle, or quit. Not one.

To add insult to injury, the architects of this zero humanity policy are being promoted:

  • Kathy Kraninger, a central figure in the family separation policy from her current position as the point person at the Office of Management and Budget for DHS and DOJ, has been nominated as Trump’s pick to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Kraninger has no experience dealing with banking or consumer protection issues, but evidently her work at OMB merited, in the eyes of President Trump, a promotion.
  • Ron Vitiello served in the Border Patrol before getting promoted to head ICE. With Vitiello leading the way, CBP has exhibited a stunning lack of planning, common sense and basic humanity in implementing its ‘zero tolerance’ policy. This policy has resulted in: children torn from their mothers’ and fathers’ arms; the detention of children in cages; parents tricked into deportation without their children; family separations with no system in place to reunite children and parents; the intervention of the federal courts to order that families be reunited; and an astounding 565 children still apart from their parents nearly three weeks after the court-ordered deadline.
  • Carla Provost has been nominated to lead the CBP after serving as acting chief of the Border Patrol. According to the New York Times, “Ms. Provost’s official move to the top job comes at a moment of transition for the agency, as the Trump administration pushes forward with plans to add an additional 5,000 agents to carry out the president’s plans to more aggressively target illegal immigration. The agency has frequently come under fire for its immigration checkpoints up to 100 miles away from the border and for its role in the Trump administration’s so-called zero-tolerance policy, which resulted in the separation of thousands of families at the southwest border. Ms. Provost defends the actions of the Border Patrol.”