Head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection John Sanders resigned on Tuesday as controversy over the living conditions of migrant children in the CBP's custody continues to escalate. Homeland security expert Juliette Kayyem joined Boston Public Radio to explain ways of ameliorating this situation, as well as why the Trump administration is choosing not to solve the crisis.
"I believe that the White House knows exactly what is going on and has made it clear not to fix this. Because it's fixable emergency. This is absolutely fixable," Kayyem said.
While President Trump signed an executive order last year to stop family separation at the border, Kayyem believes that the practice is still ongoing. She pointed to the current number of migrant children in custody. "The only way that we're seeing the numbers that we're seeing at these CBP camps is because family separation has to still be going on. I don't know how to explain these numbers except to say family separation has clearly been ongoing over the year that President Trump ordered that they stop."
Kayyem explained that it is possible to empty the detention facilities but that the Trump administration wants them to remain as a way of deterring other migrants.
"Almost all these kids are going to have family members. The reporting has shown most of them have phone numbers of parents or an aunt or an uncle, and you empty these camps," Kayyem said. "What you have to understand is they don't want to. This is the hardest thing to get through to people. They don't want to, because cruelty is the policy, I mean that. Cruelty is the statement that they believe will stop the migration of people like this poor man and his child who died. They want these children to be treated this way. They had one of their senior lawyers defend before the Ninth Circuit that basics - soap and toothbrushes - were not necessary."
Kayyem listed ways that she believes would promptly and efficiently empty the detention camps.
"I know how to close these facilities, let me just tell you how easy it is. Half of them will have family members and 90-95% of these families are going to return to whatever legal proceeding you have, because they are lawful family members who do not want to get on the wrong side of immigration enforcement. Then another quarter you put into facilities that actually know how to care for kids. And then another quarter are going to go to foster facilities. I have emptied out CBP in 72 hours," Kayyem said. "I know how to do it, and they know how to do it. And so it's not a mistake, it's not lack of resources, it's not lack of mission. This is the mission and it's horrible to say, but the more we can just say it out loud the more maybe we begin to understand what kind of government we have right now."
Kayyem is on the faculty of Harvard’s Kennedy school, a CNN analyst and CEO of ZEMCAR.
