Last night, reports emerged that a 7-year-old girl from Guatemala died of dehydration and septic shock in Border Patrol custody shortly after crossing the border with her father. Today we learned that Customs and Border Protection failed to notify Congress of the death within 24 hours, as required by law, even as CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan testified before a Senate Judiciary Committee kept in the dark.
Stephen Miller, architect of Trump’s most hateful immigration policies, responded to the news in an interview last night by claiming we need a border wall to stop the “rape, abuse, physical assault, and death” that occurs. Miller is trying to vilify immigrants and frame them as dangerous criminals whom we should fear. But she was a child.
This week, we learned that months after a court order ending family separation, many children remain separated to this day, and the Trump administration is separating still more families.
ICE is even making it hard for unaccompanied children to be reunited with family members and other sponsors in the United States. Earlier this year, ICE set up a sting operation targeting immigrants who volunteered to sponsor children separated from their families. ICE gathered sensitive background check information and arrested 170 immigrant volunteers–most of whom had no prior criminal record.
The swamp is overflowing. Wages have not increased. The deficit has exploded with tax cuts for the people he promised to raise taxes on. But Trump has lived up to his hateful, racist rhetoric by going after immigrant children, separating them from their families, arresting anyone willing to help them, and brushing off their deaths. Don’t look away.
A LIFE OF CORRUPTION.
Day by day, the picture becomes clearer: where Trump goes, corruption follows. Essentially every enterprise Trump has ever been associated with has fallen under investigation or legal scrutiny:
The Trump Organization
This week, Trump’s fixer Michael Cohen was sentenced to 3 years in prison for running a hush-money scheme to impact the 2016 election and then lying to investigators and Congress about the allegedly illegal activities of the Trump Organization. Federal investigators are looking into the Trump Organization’s involvement in these crimes.
Trump University
Last year, President Trump was forced to settle a $25 million lawsuit for Trump University after defrauding students out of their money for years.
The Trump Foundation
The New York Attorney General filed a lawsuit earlier this year accusing the Foundation and the Trump family of campaign finance violations and illegal coordination with the presidential campaign. A few weeks ago a judge allowed it to proceed. A central purpose of the supposed charity appears to have been buying giant portraits of himself with other people’s money.
The Trump Campaign
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating the links between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and the Russian government—97 known contacts so far—and coordination to defraud the American people in the 2016 election.
The Trump Transition
The Trump Transition is a primary focus of the Special Counsel investigation, including the root of Michael Flynn’s crimes. He has pleaded guilty and Mueller reportedly believes he has told them everything.
The Trump White House
While under FBI investigation, Paul Manafort reportedly advised Trump and other White House officials on how to undermine and discredit the FBI’s investigations into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign during the early days of the Administration. And that’s just one tiny part of the pattern of possible obstruction of justice.
The Trump Inauguration
Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee is under criminal investigation in New York for possibly funneling donations from foreign countries including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to curry influence over U.S. policy.
DECLARATION FOR AMERICAN DEMOCRACY.
Earlier this month, House Democrats unveiled their first agenda item of the new Congress: a robust anti-corruption bill. Now, incoming freshmen members of Congress are mobilizing voters across the country to voice their support for the biggest government reform package since Watergate. Find an in-district event near you, and go voice your support for a democracy that works for all of us–not just a select few.