President Trump is frustrated that his border crackdown has been curtailed, and is working on finding a way to legally separate migrant parents and children, The Washington Post reported Friday.
In an effort to dissuade migrant families from attempting to cross the border illegally, the White House is considering several different detention options. One possibility is that families seeking asylum will be detained together for up to 20 days, then will have to decide whether they want to stay in family detention or send the children to a government shelter.
Family detention would allow parents to stay with their children, but they could be detained for months or years as they get through the lengthy legal immigration process. On the other hand, allowing children to be taken into a shelter would mean other family members or guardians in the U.S. could take them into custody.
The consideration is a response to the fierce backlash to the administration's "zero tolerance" policy on immigration. Starting in May, thousands of migrant children were separated from their families to be detained separately as their parents were prosecuted. Trump signed an executive order ending the practice, but Vox reports that various loopholes have continued to separate families even as the administration works to comply with a court order to reunite all migrant family units.
White House adviser Stephen Miller, who has been at the front of the administration's hardline immigration policies, has reportedly been pushing to create a new policy. He reportedly felt that the practice was an effective deterrent against illegal immigration. Miller is apparently determined to reinstate the separations, no matter how bad "optics" may be. Read more at The Washington Post. Summer Meza
British Prime Minister Theresa May on Sunday pushed back on calls for a second referendum on Brexit, the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union.
May particularly condemned remarks from former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who said this week a new vote should be considered if "none of the other options work." May accused Blair of "seek[ing] to undermine our negotiations by advocating for a second referendum," arguing "Parliament has a democratic duty to deliver what the British people voted for."
May's proposed Brexit deal with the EU has stalled, lacking support to pass a House of Commons vote. Bonnie Kristian
The North Korean government on Sunday issued a typically dramatic statement condemning the United States' sanction regime and suggesting denuclearization plans are in jeopardy.
Pyongyang accused the U.S. State Department of being "bent on bringing [North Korea]-U.S. relations back to the status of last year which was marked by exchanges of fire," warning that additional U.S. sanctions would be America's "greatest miscalculation" and would "block the path to denuclearization on the Korean peninsula forever."
This comes as Pyongyang observes the seventh anniversary of the death of former leader Kim Jong Il and the rise to power of his son, current leader Kim Jong Un. Bonnie Kristian
Negotiators representing nearly 200 nations in Katowice, Poland, on Saturday agreed to universal greenhouse gas emissions limits intended to mitigate global climate change.
"It is not easy to find agreement on a deal so specific and technical," said Polish economist Michal Kurtyka, who is leading the United Nations negotiations. "Through this package you have made a thousand little steps forward together," he told the assembled delegates. "You can feel proud."
U.S. negotiators sought to label coal a possible source of clean energy but also pushed for transparency and rules which apply equally to all participant nations. "Overall, the U.S. role here has been somewhat schizophrenic — pushing coal and dissing science on the one hand, but also working hard in the room for strong transparency rules," Elliot Diringer of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions told The Associated Press. "[T]he U.S. pushed harder than nearly anyone else for transparency rules that put all countries under the same system, and it's largely succeeded." Bonnie Kristian
