Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic’s editor in chief, joined workers author Caitlin Dickerson to debate her cowl story, a years-long investigation into the key historical past of the Trump administration’s family-separation coverage. Dickerson’s story argues that separating kids was not an unintended facet impact, as beforehand claimed, however its core intent. How did officers work to maintain households aside longer? Did they obscure the reality to each Congress and the general public? What’s going to occur if the Trump administration is restored to energy within the 2024 election? This dialogue is an edited and condensed model of a dialog Dickerson and Goldberg had on Friday for The Atlantic’s “Large Story” broadcast.
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Jeffrey Goldberg: When did you understand that the Trump administration was doing one thing new?
Caitlin Dickerson: There have been two issues right here that basically stood out from the norm in my expertise as a reporter. The primary, with household separations, is simply the mere undeniable fact that they came about in relative secrecy. In 2017, lots of of separations came about beginning out in El Paso, Texas, in a program that later expanded. However when reporters would ask about it, the administration would inform us, “No, this isn’t occurring. You recognize, we’re not separating households.” There’s some difficult causes for that which we are able to get into, however that’s actually not regular. As a reporter, you’re used to listening to “no remark” in response to a narrative that the federal government doesn’t need you to report. Otherwise you’re used to listening to a public-affairs officer supply some context that at the least helps to melt the blow of a narrative that they know the general public just isn’t going to react kindly to. However on this case, we truly bought denials.
After which, after all, having seemed again at immigration coverage all the way in which again to the nineteenth century in the US, separating kids from their dad and mom as an immigration coverage hasn’t occurred earlier than. It was the harshest utility any of us have seen of this fundamental idea of prevention by deterrence, which is how we method immigration enforcement usually. And it was so harsh and painful for fogeys and for kids, and continues to be, that I needed to keep it up.
Goldberg: So to be clear, no presidential administration going again all the way in which had ever accomplished something this dramatic?
Dickerson: No. As you recognize, there are examples of children being taken from their dad and mom in American historical past, although not in a border context. We’ve had some fairly merciless and fairly harsh border-enforcement insurance policies. However the forcible separation of kids from their dad and mom is simply not one thing that the Border Patrol has ever engaged in in American historical past.
Goldberg: One of many nice achievements of your story is that you simply take us all the way in which into the bureaucratic resolution making that allowed this to occur. However any individual had to consider this primary. The idea, on the half of people that take into consideration this, is that it will need to have been Stephen Miller, Donald Trump’s very hard-line adviser. He labored for Jeff Periods and introduced loads of his concepts to Donald Trump. However it’s extra difficult than that.
Dickerson: It took much more than Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and Jeff Periods to forcefully separate 1000’s of children from their dad and mom. The thought truly got here from inside the border-enforcement equipment: a person named Tom Homan, who began out as a Border Patrol agent in his early 20s, spent a profession in enforcement, and in the end grew to become the top of ICE underneath President Trump.
He first got here up with the thought to separate households as an escalation of the idea of prevention by deterrence: this concept of introducing penalties to discourage unlawful border crossing, even when it’s for the needs of searching for asylum. He first proposes separating kids from their dad and mom in 2014, through the Obama administration, which is once we noticed the primary main surge of kids and households crossing the border. Border Patrol was completely overwhelmed on the time. Congress didn’t intervene. And so you have got, primarily, a police drive that’s left to determine this out—this coverage, which is de facto humanitarian coverage; it’s financial coverage. Whenever you go away this to the Border Patrol, the answer that they provide you with again and again is punishment. So Homan proposes it, and Jeh Johnson, who was Homeland Safety secretary on the time, rejects the thought. Then the thought resurfaces very quickly after Donald Trump takes workplace.
Goldberg: So there was a bureaucratic impetus from under. Take us by that—Donald Trump wins in 2016, comes into workplace, and this dormant thought is dropped at whom?
Dickerson: Trump comes into workplace and is visiting Border Patrol headquarters and Customs and Border Safety headquarters and saying, “Hey, we’ve bought to close this border down, and, actually, we’ll cease at nothing to do it. Carry me your finest concepts.” Tom Homan, who was the top of ICE, and a person named Kevin McAleenan, who was the top of Customs and Border Safety, in a short time reraise this idea that they’d already talked about and already favored. They inform Miller about it, who will get actually excited and sort of obsessive about it. And Miller continues to push for the following yr and a half till it’s formally carried out. Donald Trump additionally begins to favor it.
I used to be shocked about this, in the end, however the story finally ends up being sort of a case for the paperwork. I discovered, in reporting this, the way in which the insurance policies are made. Sometimes, you have got principals, who’re the heads of companies and have nice decision-making energy however have enormous portfolios. Coverage concepts ought to solely ever attain the desk of somebody like Kirstjen Nielsen—who was the Homeland Safety secretary, who in the end indicators off on household separation—in the event that they’ve been totally vetted. Topic-matter consultants have decided these insurance policies are logistically possible, they’re authorized, they’re moral. They make sense politically for the administration in workplace. All these layers exist to forestall dangerous insurance policies from ever even reaching any individual who has the authority to signal. And these techniques have been actually both sidelined, disempowered, or simply fully minimize out of the dialog. All people who was elevating purple flags was actually minimize out.
Goldberg: I would like you to speak about baby separation in its particulars. The thought is preventative. Which is to say, if phrase will get out into Guatemala, Honduras, wherever, that in the event you attempt to cross the border together with your child, the U.S. authorities will take your child from you—truly kidnap your baby in some sort of bureaucratically authorized means—then all of the people who find themselves making an attempt to return to America, asylum seekers, staff, and many others., won’t come. Is that the speculation of the case?
Dickerson: That’s the principle of the case. And there’s loads of purpose to imagine it’s not a great principle.
Goldberg: Why is it not a great principle? It sounds fairly scary in the event you’re sitting in Guatemala and any individual says you may lose your child.
Dickerson: It does. That’s what’s tough about it: that it’s considerably intuitive, this concept of prevention by deterrence. Teachers have been learning it for a very long time and know what methods it really works, and what methods it doesn’t work. Within the early 2000s, we began prosecuting particular person adults who crossed the border illegally.
To start with, there’s this program known as Operation Streamline. It fully floods courts alongside the border, and instantly, prosecutors—assistant U.S. attorneys—are sad with it as a result of they’re saying it’s taking away sources from these extra vital circumstances that we have to cope with. And never solely that, nevertheless it doesn’t appear to be influencing long-term tendencies.
If you happen to take a look at shifts in migration which have taken place during the last 20 years, these will be defined totally by taking a look at financial shifts and demographic shifts in the US and the international locations the place individuals are coming from. All of these modifications are attributable to the provision of sources right here and the provision of jobs right here, after which the inverse: what alternatives individuals have accessible to them of their house international locations, in addition to whether or not individuals truly really feel secure.
Regardless that prevention by deterrence, first within the type of Streamline, wasn’t making a dent in border crossings in any important means, this concept turns into an increasing number of common till in the end we get to the purpose of separating kids from their dad and mom. Anecdotally, Lee Gelernt—the ACLU lawyer who’s heading up the federal case in opposition to household separations, the principle case that prompted household reunification—talks about asking each dad or mum that he interviewed for that case, “If you happen to had identified about household separation, would you have got left your nation to start with? Would you have got determined to remain house?” And so they’d simply sort of shrug their shoulders and say, “Nicely, what was I going to do? You recognize, we left as a result of our lives have been in peril. I couldn’t keep.” That’s one thing that folks like Tom Homan, who got here up with the thought to separate households, didn’t actually take note of.
Goldberg: The extent of desperation at house is the important thing determinant of whether or not any individual goes to start out the trek.
Dickerson: It’s a really, very excessive bar to surpass while you’re speaking to a dad or mum who not solely can’t feed themselves or their baby, however on a day-to-day foundation fears that their baby could also be killed.
Goldberg: Keep on that for one second so individuals perceive this inhabitants. You’re speaking about people who find themselves dwelling in very harmful Central American international locations, primarily.
Dickerson: You’re speaking about loads of instances a mixture of deep poverty, day by day concern of demise, and day by day encounters with violence. I can inform you about my experiences reporting in components of Mexico, the place individuals come to the US from, and in Central America. When The New York Occasions despatched me to Guatemala to write down a few household that was making an attempt to get into the US, I had safety with me the complete time. Many individuals, simply inside this household, had been murdered. It’s a domino impact the place a gang identifies one particular person in a household and needs that particular person to affix the gang. If that first particular person doesn’t do proper by the gang, kin proceed to be murdered.
After I would go home to deal with to go to with individuals related to this household, we have been hiding. They couldn’t let anyone know the place they lived. They couldn’t let anyone know that I used to be there, as a result of it could have put them in better hazard. The poverty, too, is de facto one thing that I don’t know loads of Individuals have actually sat down and considered. Homes that haven’t any roofs, no flooring. Households of 4 which are splitting a tortilla amongst them. Entry to high school is nearly nonexistent. Youngsters don’t have footwear. It’s stuff that I feel most Individuals have a tough time envisioning. Take into consideration how scared you would need to be to determine to go to the US, understanding that you simply’re going to should journey by a sizzling and harmful desert and encounter murderous gangs. No person indicators up to try this until they really feel like they’ve completely no selection.
Goldberg: Let’s come again to the narrative of the adoption of this coverage. One of many causes, once we have been speaking about doing this story over the previous yr and a half, was to attempt to perceive the mentality of presidency officers and bureaucrats. By some means the thought of taking kids from their dad and mom turns into socialized inside these authorities buildings. Speak about that. Did anyone alongside the way in which say, “Hey, I’m all for deterrence. I’ve these views on immigration. I’m a hard-liner. However this doesn’t appear to comport with my notions”—and I’m utilizing this time period advisedly—“my notions of household values”?
Dickerson: Lots of people mentioned that. And in the end, by the point the choice to pursue separating households is made, they’d been disregarded of the room. When household separations are first proposed, they’re described in fairly blatant phrases. I interviewed Jeh Johnson—once more, who was the Homeland Safety secretary underneath President Obama, and did imagine in deterrence—however he mentioned, “That’s too far for me. I’m not snug with it.” John Kelly, who was President Trump’s first Homeland Safety secretary and thought of the thought after it was proposed by Tom Homan, Kevin McAleenan, and others, mentioned the identical factor. He wasn’t actually an enormous believer in deterrence, however he’d taken the job for the Trump administration. However this felt too far for him.
Goldberg: John Kelly then goes to the White Home as chief of workers and is there when all of that is nonetheless happening. What function did he play there?
Dickerson: Kelly informed me that his method to opposing household separations was to focus purely on the logistics. When the thought is formally proposed to him, he requests a briefing to seek out out whether or not it’s potential. And he learns, rightly, that the federal authorities didn’t have the sources to impose such a program with out complete chaos, which we in the end noticed—with out dropping monitor of fogeys and youngsters, with out actually inhumane conditions the place children are being bodily taken out of their dad and mom’ arms. You want coaching, theoretically, to do that in a means that isn’t chaotic in the event you’re going to do it in any respect.
He informed me that he knew that interesting to the president and to Stephen Miller on some type of ethical foundation wasn’t going to be efficient. They weren’t going to hear. As an alternative, he mentioned, you focus purely on the logistics. “It’s not potential. We simply can’t do it.” He would say, “Mr. President, if you wish to pursue this, that you must go ask Congress for the cash,” understanding that Donald Trump wouldn’t be keen to try this. The issue is that while you ask these extra hawkish members of the administration what their understanding of John Kelly’s view is, they might say to me, “Nicely, I didn’t know he had any problem with it. All he mentioned was that we wanted more cash; we wanted extra coaching.” You’ll be able to see that there’s logic behind Kelly’s method, however there’s additionally, on account of it, repeated conferences the place this concept is being mentioned. He might have jumped up and down and screamed and mentioned, “I oppose this; I don’t need to do it.” However he didn’t. He simply mentioned, “Sir, we don’t have the cash.”
Goldberg: I imply, to be truthful to Kelly, he did have an affordable understanding that Trump would by no means reply to the humanitarian argument.
Dickerson: There are such a lot of completely different approaches that folks say they took to attempt to forestall this, and it in the end didn’t work. The upper the numbers rose, the extra obsessed Donald Trump grew to become with discovering some technique to decrease them.
Goldberg: I do need to ask about two individuals whose names are very intimately related to this. Kirstjen Nielsen, who was the DHS secretary and signed off on this, and Stephen Miller. I would like you to speak about her function, which is extra difficult, morally, than we initially thought. And Miller, who clearly remains to be the ideological driver of an entire set of insurance policies.
Dickerson: Kirstjen Nielsen got here into the Trump administration a average. She was a cybersecurity knowledgeable who helped to determine DHS the primary time underneath George W. Bush. No expertise in immigration, and no actual sturdy emotions about immigration. She’s considered one of lots of people whom I interviewed who joined DHS underneath Trump and simply mentioned, “I didn’t know all that a lot about immigration. It wasn’t that vital to me.” From the very starting, they appeared a bit misguided by way of what their expectations for his or her job may appear like, given how a lot this White Home actually cared in regards to the problem.
Household separations are proposed to her proper after she’s confirmed, in December of 2017, and he or she says, “Completely not. John Kelly has mentioned no to this. I’m not doing it. I oppose it. I don’t imagine in it.” Over time, this different model of reaching the identical finish is proposed to her by way of prosecution, and conveyed to her in these phrases which are fairly bland. You recognize, “We’re going to pursue a prosecution initiative. There are individuals who have been committing misdemeanor crimes; we’ve been letting them go just because they’re dad and mom.” There was loads of fearmongering round this concept that loads of the dad and mom may need been smugglers, that households could not have truly been associated in any respect, that these kids may all have been victims of trafficking. There’s no proof to help {that a} important variety of these false households existed. She’s additionally informed, “It’s been accomplished earlier than,” and that techniques and processes exist to forestall chaos from ensuing. And so, primarily based on that info, she finally ends up approving the coverage.
One other actually vital factor to find out about her is she got here into her function at a drawback as a result of she was considered as a average. She was considered one of lots of people who have been considered very skeptically within the White Home.
Goldberg: Are these people who find themselves making an attempt to show they’re powerful in order that Donald Trump likes them?
Dickerson: Or retains them of their job.I heard in my reporting that, in truth, “You’re not powerful sufficient” is a quote that Trump repeated to Nielsen on a regular basis. At one level an adviser advised, “Possibly it’s best to write a memoir and name it Robust Sufficient as a result of he’s at all times telling you you’re not powerful sufficient.” Nielsen was at all times making an attempt to sort of meet these expectations and present that she wasn’t a closeted liberal. She ultimately indicators off on this coverage that she intellectually, at the least prior, appeared to completely oppose, however had satisfied herself of loads of illogical realities and determined, Okay, I comply with zero tolerance. She’s a extremely sensible particular person, however she labored so exhausting to please her bosses.
The opposite particular person you have been asking about was Stephen Miller. What I perceive from individuals near him and conversant in his pondering is that he continues to imagine that President Trump’s harshest immigration insurance policies have been Trump’s hottest and profitable accomplishments. I feel he nonetheless believes in separating households and doing something to seal the border, stopping at nothing. He’s even made clear to shut confidants that the groundwork has been laid so {that a} future Trump administration, or a future Republican administration that appears like Trump’s, can pursue these insurance policies much more rapidly and much more dramatically.
He exerted strain actually sort of shamelessly. He would name not solely Kirstjen Nielsen, who was Homeland Safety secretary, however all of her advisers and even decrease individuals in DHS: individuals who had no authority to log off on something. He was calling individuals incessantly to press for his insurance policies, making an attempt to get buy-in. I heard about one thing he would do on a convention name the place he would introduce an thought and say, “Hey, I imagine X, Y, and Z must occur. And this head of this division of DHS agrees with me.” Then that head of the division may say, “Oh, nicely, I’ve some questions on that. You recognize, I’m not precisely positive.” And Stephen would say, “Nicely, are you saying that this isn’t a precedence?” And they’d say, “Oh, no, I do agree with you that it’s a precedence.” And Stephen would say, “Nice; I’ve your help.” After which he would go into White Home conferences after which repeat it and say that he had buy-in from DHS. He was bullying individuals into by chance or tacitly or passively agreeing together with his concepts. He was not embarrassed to maintain individuals on the telephone after midnight, ranting, not even letting the opposite particular person communicate. It was a singular focus for him.
Goldberg: John Kelly would give him the chilly shoulder. However not everyone had John Kelly’s energy, proper?
Dickerson: Precisely. And John Kelly is a profession army official and basic. He believed actually strongly within the chain of command. He couldn’t imagine that Miller would name individuals under Kelly and make calls for and attempt to strain Kelly into making choices. And so Kelly would name the White Home and really attempt to get Miller in hassle. He’s one of many few individuals to do it. However different individuals a lot increased within the official chain of command, similar to cupboard secretaries, actually let themselves be bullied by Miller. After I would ask why, they principally simply mentioned Miller had this mystique. He was so near the president and was protected due to this narrative that immigration is the explanation why Donald Trump was elected president and was the important thing to him having the ability to maintain on to energy. Due to that, Miller was insulated from any sort of accountability, whilst he defied the chain of command over and over.
Goldberg: Do you suppose that these identical individuals, in the event that they got here again to authorities, would do it higher? Do you suppose that they’ve discovered classes about find out how to attempt to pull this off in a extra environment friendly, efficient means that wouldn’t draw a lot consideration?
Dickerson: I do suppose that loads of them nonetheless imagine on this thought, they usually’ve taken classes away from the expertise so as to have the ability to “do it higher.” They didn’t have a system for maintaining monitor of fogeys and youngsters, so kids have been despatched over to the Division of Well being and Human Companies, which homes any child who’s in federal custody on their very own. That company doesn’t have pc techniques that speak to DHS. One thing like that might be up to date. I do suppose that these officers would go into such a coverage sooner or later a bit bit extra eyes open about what would truly occur as soon as the separation happens. However they nonetheless imagine on this thought. And loads of them, Tom Homan and plenty of others, would type of whisper out of the facet of their mouth to me in interviews like, “No person actually likes to say this, nevertheless it actually labored. And 0 tolerance was efficient.” Once more, the information that they’re citing is inaccurate. There isn’t proof that household separations have been efficient. The truth is, after zero tolerance ended was the yr when one million individuals crossed the border underneath President Trump. It was a record-breaking yr for border crossings.
Goldberg: Are there any heroes within the story, out of your perspective?
Dickerson: There are lots of people inside the federal paperwork who tried to forestall household separations from happening. Inside the Well being and Human Companies company, which cares for kids, there was a person named Jonathan White who oversaw, at the start of the Trump administration, this system that homes children in federal custody. He came upon about household separation in an early and uncommon assembly the place you truly had HHS invited to fulfill with the law-enforcement facet. Usually these two companies—which should work collectively on immigration—actually don’t play nicely collectively, as a result of HHS is made up of lots of people like White, who’re social staff and have backgrounds in baby welfare, after which are sitting within the room with cops. It’s a fraught relationship that’s detrimental for all sides.
White finds out in an early assembly about this proposal to separate households. And he begins writing up stories mentioning that the company didn’t have sufficient area to deal with kids who’re separated, who are typically youthful than those that crossed the border on their very own. They didn’t have the sources to cope with the emotional fallout that was simply anticipated by any knowledgeable conversant in baby welfare and the state a baby goes to be in after they’ve simply been separated from their dad or mum. He additionally identified that kids who cross the border with their dad and mom don’t essentially have wherever to go. A toddler who chooses to cross the border on their very own is often coming right here as a result of they’ve an aunt or a relative, any individual who can take them in in the US. A toddler who involves the US with their dad or mum is anticipating to stay with their dad or mum. Whether or not they get asylum standing or are in the end deported, the expectation is that they’re going to remain collectively. And so White began to level out, together with a number of of his colleagues, that not solely did they imagine this was a foul thought, the sources simply didn’t exist.
You have got variations of that very same combat, that very same argument, being made inside DHS, the DOJ, and the U.S. Marshal system. I discovered examples in all of those locations of individuals inside the federal paperwork who tried to lift considerations with the White Home, with individuals of their company management, about why this was such a foul thought. There are lots of people who fought again, and in the end they didn’t win the argument.
Goldberg: What’s your evaluation of the success of President Biden’s govt order organising the duty drive for household reunification? What number of kids will we nonetheless suppose are on the market floating within the bureaucratic abyss who haven’t been unified with their dad and mom?
Dickerson: Nearly the entire kids who have been separated have been launched from federal custody. In the event that they haven’t been reunified with their dad and mom, they’re within the care of a sponsor: an prolonged relative or a household pal who went by an utility course of and was authorised to take that baby in. That’s very completely different from reuniting them with the dad or mum with whom they crossed the border, with whom they have been dwelling and planning to proceed dwelling greater than 4 years in the past. That quantity is between 700 and 1,000—those that haven’t been formally reunited with their dad and mom, in keeping with authorities information. A few of them could have, and are thought to have discovered, their dad and mom on their very own and simply not reported it to the U.S. authorities, sort of understandably—not eager to cope with the U.S. authorities anymore and fearing future penalties.
The Biden administration had a extremely tall order in entrance of it when this process drive to reunify separated households was established. A lot time had handed, and report maintaining was so poor that they’d little or no to work with. To date they’ve been capable of monitor down greater than 400 households which were reunified, and there are a number of hundred extra who’re within the means of making use of. What I hear from the ACLU and advocacy teams is that the Biden administration is working actually exhausting and doing its finest to reunify these households, they usually’ve had a major quantity of success within the face of this problem.
However now they’re coping with actually difficult circumstances. I’ve heard about dad and mom, for instance, who have been deported with out their children. That occurred in over 1,000 circumstances. They’ve been again at house since then, they usually’ve needed to maybe take custody of an prolonged relative’s baby. I heard about one dad or mum whose sister had been killed. And so the sister’s kids have been now being taken care of by the separated dad or mum. So then the separated dad or mum is making use of to return again and rejoin their very own baby. And are these different kids eligible to return to the US? It’s not completely clear. I imply, that is what occurs. It’s very messy logistically while you separate a household for 4 years after which attempt to convey them again collectively. And so the numbers are shrinking, however the problem is sort of rising by way of getting these remaining households reunified.
Goldberg: One thing that, within the colloquial sense, is totally unbelievable to me is that when household separation truly began, nobody—for weeks—thought to even write down, hold a log, an Excel spreadsheet, of the place the youngsters have been going, who their dad and mom have been. You possibly can outline that as negligence, however negligence bleeds over into immorality in a short time. That, to me, of all of the unimaginable reporting that you simply did, struck me as virtually an excessive amount of. What for you is the side of this whole multiyear saga that you simply nonetheless can’t get your thoughts round? What’s the factor that also stays in your thoughts as, “I can’t imagine that truly occurred?”
Dickerson: The one which I nonetheless can’t actually imagine is the variety of individuals I interviewed who held very important roles in DHS or within the White Home overseeing this problem, to whom I needed to clarify fundamental tenets of the immigration-enforcement system. They might say to me, “We by no means anticipated to lose monitor of fogeys and youngsters. Couldn’t have imagined issues would go as poorly as they did.” That simply doesn’t make any sense. You’ll be able to name up any prosecutor within the nation and ask them, “Hey, tomorrow I need to begin prosecuting lots of of fogeys at a time who’re touring with younger kids who’re outdoors of their communities, with no person close by to take these kids in. And by the way in which, they don’t communicate the language that almost all authorities officers speaking to them are going to be utilizing. Is that going to work?” They might inform you it clearly received’t. I used to be shocked that, to at the present time, many individuals concerned on this resolution making nonetheless don’t perceive how immigration enforcement works.
