The Bubble: Trump's executive order doesn't fix 'zero tolerance' immigration, liberals say
CLOSE
The Homeland Security Secretary briefed House Republicans on President Donald Trump’s executive order ending the process of separating families. She also pushed for passage of GOP immigration bills, but neither appears to have enough support. (June 20)
AP
Each week, USA TODAY’s OnPolitics blog takes a look at how media from the left and the right reacted to a political news story, giving liberals and conservatives a peek into the other’s media bubble.
This week, commentators reacted to President Donald Trump’s decision to issue an executive order to end his own immigration policy that involves separating families. Liberals were unsparing in their attacks on the policy, which they called “cruel and inhumane,” and said the order only swaps splitting up families for jailing children.Â
Many conservatives were also critical of Trump’s policy and his handling of the controversy. But they also attacked Democrats for refusing to compromise on immigration. Some accused those on the left of not wanting the separations to stop because they wanted to continue using the issue as a political football.Â
Last week: How would conservatives have reacted to Obama meeting with Kim? liberals ask
Liberal bubble: White House totally botched itÂ
Trump’s sudden shift on his immigration policy was the result a “fundamental miscalculation,” said CNN’s Chris Cillizza. Being “tough” on immigration is not a political positive when it leads to images of kids being ripped from their parents.Â
“That miscalculation was bad,” Cillizza said. “But it was compounded by another strategic decision by Trump: To cast the border crisis as something that not only wasn’t his fault but that he was powerless to fix — neither of which were true.”Â
More: Donald Trump’s immigrant children flip-flop reveals president who puts drama over policy
Conservative bubble: Democrats don’t really care about those kids
Radio host Rush Limbaugh said the media and Democrats would react to Trump’s executive order by both triumphantly crying that they forced Trump to “cave” on the issue while also backing legal challenges to keep the issue alive.
“All of this has been set up by the media so that the Democrats can convert all of this into an issue, and the kids that they’re supposedly concerned about are nothing more than the throwaways,” Limbaugh said. “Democrats don’t really care about these kids, because they’re gonna try to block anything Trump does. If it’s not letter perfect and if it doesn’t grant them a 1,000% victory, they’re gonna block it because they don’t want this issue to end.”Â
More: What happens next for undocumented immigrant families? All your questions answered
Liberal bubble: A dark stain on the history of our nation
“The Trump administration’s inhumane treatment of immigrant children has left a dark stain on the history of our nation,” said New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a New York Times op-ed. “It is a human tragedy and a threat to our values.”Â
Trump’s executive order “claiming to solve a problem that was of his own creation” is really “no solution at all,” Cuomo said. “It still leaves open the long-term detention of immigrant children” and the administration’s “family separation policy has already done potentially irreparable harm to those children who were used as pawns in the president’s political agenda.”
More: States rise up in resistance to Trump immigration policy of separating families
Conservative bubble:Â Democrats have zero tolerance for immigration solutions
The Federalist’s David Harsanyi concedes that family separation is “callous and ineffective” but he says “its existence does not excuse ginned-up moral panic, pious grandstanding, and comparisons to Nazi death camps.”Â
Harsanyi says the Democrats are the defenders of a policy that incentivizes “more migrants to bring children (sometimes their own, but sometimes not)” and at the same time they are “unwilling to make any compromise on the issue.”Â
“Sooner or later the situation becomes untenable,” Harsanyi concludes.Â
Jeff Sessions: We don’t want to separate parents from kids
Liberal bubble: Trump wants credit for ending crisis he createdÂ
“Trump wants credit for ending the crisis he created,” wrote Slate’s Jamelle Bouie. “But the order neither ends the crisis nor produces a more humane status quo. It’s a public relations stunt, meant to dampen criticism without changing the fundamentals of the policy. ‘Zero tolerance’ is still in effect, and Trump’s manufactured crisis may well get worse.”
With this executive order, the policy of separating families appears to cease. But child internment will continue, with families together as prisoners in federal custody. Young children will still be locked in “tender age†camps; asylum-seekers will still be criminalized as dangers and threats to national integrity. And there’s still the matter of those children already separated from their parents.
Tim Kaine: Donald Trump’s vicious assault on immigrant children hits America’s moral gag reflex
Posted!
1 of 30
2 of 30
3 of 30
4 of 30
5 of 30
6 of 30
7 of 30
8 of 30
9 of 30
10 of 30
11 of 30
12 of 30
13 of 30
14 of 30
15 of 30
16 of 30
17 of 30
18 of 30
19 of 30
20 of 30
21 of 30
22 of 30
23 of 30
24 of 30
25 of 30
26 of 30
27 of 30
28 of 30
29 of 30
30 of 30
Â
