First of all, I want to congratulate former Full Frontal writer and friend of the show
Travon Free on winning an Oscar for his short film Two Distant Strangers! And I also want
to congratulate one of my favorite actors of all time, Frances McDormand, for winning
Best Actress for her role in Nomadland. It was a brave, powerful, nuanced performance.
Also, she s***s in a bucket. And hey, if s****ing in a bucket leads to winning an Academy Award,
I should have, like, three Oscars already. Anyway, speaking of three s***s in a bucket,
here’s Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, and Tucker Carlson.
- The border right now is wide open because the Biden administration dismantled the very
effective policies of the Trump administration. - All of us today witnessed the Biden cages.
This is inhumane. It is wrong. - It is a crisis. It is a crisis that was
created by the Biden administration by their own policies.
- Huge numbers, large numbers of illegal immigrants with the coronavirus have come across our
border illegally. Meanwhile you have to stay huddled in your home with an obedience mask
on. Tucker Carlson knows he doesn’t need to
wear a mask at home, right? Like, if someone in his house is telling him to put on a mask,
it’s because they hate looking at his s****y, stupid, confused face. When Republicans use
rhetoric like the "border crisis," they’re just whipping their base into a racist feargasm
by pretending that the people who seek asylum are somehow a threat to our country. The only
threat to our country is Ted Cruz acting like he cares about kids, when mostly he just uses
them as a scapegoat when he skips town during an actual crisis. Republicans using inflammatory
language distracts from the real crisis: how migrants are being treated. The truth is the
Biden administration should face criticism for its handling of the border—not for the
xenophobic lies Republicans are spreading, but for its continuation of some Trump policies
and for walking back promises made on immigration. - The Biden administration is poised to break
a major promise to increase the number of refugee admissions to 62,000, calling it unlikely,
instead signing an emergency presidential determination that keeps the cap at 15,000,
which was President Trump’s historic low number.
How in the world is Biden on track to admit fewer refugees than the Trump administration?
He got rid of Trump’s Diet Coke button on day one. Immigration should be at least as
much of a priority. After receiving blistering criticism from allies on the left, Biden reversed
course, but the administration is still unlikely to accept the number of refugees he initially
promised. During his campaign, the president pledged to secure our values as a nation of
immigrants. So why has their administration’s immigration response been so hesitant? This
month, Biden blamed his delayed action on the growing number of migrants arriving at
the U.S.-Mexico border. So “secure our values as a nation of immigrants, but whoa, that’s
a lot of people, not that many, hold on!” It’s true that March was the busiest month
at the border in nearly two decades, with migrant encounters up 71%. Border agents took
more than 170,000 migrants into custody, and many of them were families. But the reports
you see on Fox are exaggerated. - A lot of reporting about the southern border
has sort of used terms like a “surge” or a “crisis,” and the data don’t really
reflect that. When winter ends and the weather begins to warm, we see an increase of undocumented
immigration at the southern border. Which leads to an increase in apprehensions by Customs
and Border Protection. Border crossings are cyclical, and right now,
there is a cyclical increase. Many migrants are arriving from Guatemala, Honduras, and
El Salvador—Central American countries they’ve left to escape poverty, gang violence, and
corruption. And there are new reasons for the uptick in migration as well. For one,
many migrants are here because the pandemic devastated their communities. For another,
climate change. Last year, a series of deadly hurricanes swept through Central America,
destroying crops and homes and leaving an estimated 9 million people displaced. The
Biden administration has moved away from Trump-era policy by choosing not to expel children at
the border because doing so would put them in greater danger. But the number of unaccompanied
minors arriving at the border has risen sharply, and the administration seems wholly unprepared
to take care of them. - A young boy approaching a U.S. Border Patrol
agent last Thursday in the middle of the desert, alone and sobbing. Can you help me, he says.
They left you alone, the agent asks. They abandoned me, he says, adding his parents
were not with him, and he was afraid of being kidnapped. There are currently more than 19,000
unaccompanied migrant children in U.S. custody, more than 4,000 held by the Border Patrol
in severely overcrowded detention facilities like this one in Donna, Texas, where they’re
packed shoulder to shoulder in a pandemic. That is disturbing and disgusting and it should
not be happening under any administration, let alone one that promised compassion. The
number of unaccompanied minors has reached an all-time high. Biden’s positions on immigration
may stand in direct opposition to Trump’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy, which
cruelly separated families and placed children in cages. But the images from today look inexcusably
like the ones from back then. Under the law, the federal government has three days to move
unaccompanied children from adult border control facilities—which have been criticized for
exposing children to disease, hunger, and overcrowding—into shelters maintained by
the Department of Health & Human Services. But as of March, more than 42% of children
in custody at the border were held longer than the three-day maximum.
- The Biden administration has now released its first images from inside two Texas detention
centers. Many of the facilities are now home to a record number of migrant children who’re
being held well past the 72 hour maximum for unaccompanied kids.
- These Border Patrol facilities are not places made for children.
- A wave of asylum seekers seen huddled in close quarters, some sleeping on floors and
under foil blankets. Several of the border stations are overcrowded and overwhelmed.
Furthermore, once children are transferred to HHS shelters, they spend an average of
31 days in custody before they’re released. Right now, in 2021, under a Democratic administration,
children who are alone, vulnerable, and terrified are being held in government custody for a
month. Americans should care that kids are being held in custody for that long. We’ve
held convicted white collar criminals for less than a month! Hell, they let Felicity
Huffman out of prison after 11 days! And why? It’s not like she’s going to win an Oscar
now. She hasn’t even s*** in a bucket.