Heidi Tran – Page 98 – * Failed Pols

Donald Trump has used the phrase “witch hunt” so often in recent months that the term has lost its potency. Trump casually tosses the term around via Twitter with frequency. His references to Robert Mueller’s investigation of the Trump campaign’s connections with Russia as a witch hunt appear to have accomplished Trump’s apparent goal of diminishing the legitimacy of the investigation – at least to his supporters.

Of Trump’s supporters, 51 percent disapprove of the Mueller investigation, and just 43 percent support it. Overall, 69 percent of Americans support the Mueller investigation.

The modern definition of a witch hunt is “an attempt to find and punish a particular group of people who are being blamed for something, often simply because of their opinions and not because they have actually done anything wrong,” according to the Collins Dictionary.

The origins of the term, of course, harken back to the days of the Salem witch trials. Today, people are fond of applying the term “witch hunt” hyperbolically when they feel – or want to appear – wrongly targeted or scrutinized, even if the application of the term is ridiculous and has no real parallel.

In the 1692 Salem Village witch hunt, those who were accused of witchcraft were held without a fair investigation. Nineteen accused people were hanged, and one was crushed to death. Their “guilt” was based on hearsay and mass hysteria, and little or no real evidence. Robert Mueller’s “witch hunt,” on the other hand, has been a year-long, careful endeavor, aimed at finding facts and amassing solid evidence.

“…Trump comparing the investigation into his campaign to a crisis that left 20 people dead in the 17th century is clearly ridiculous — there is much more evidence in the criminal indictments, the court-sanctioned wiretaps, and the consensus of Republican and Democratic investigators for Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election than there is for witchcraft — and rather unsavory,” write Dylan Scott and Tara Isabella Burton, of Vox.

In 17^th-century Salem Village, the (mostly) women who were charged did not have the option to loudly undercut their accusers. They had no support; those who might have supported them lived in fear of being accused themselves. Regarding Robert Mueller’s “witch hunt,” on the other hand, Trump feels free to speak and tweet his opinion.

“You are witnessing the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history – led by some very bad and conflicted people!” Trump tweeted on June 15, 2017.

“It would seem very hard to obstruct justice for a crime that never happened! Witch Hunt!” tweeted Trump on May 1, 2018.

“This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!” he tweeted on May 18, 2018.

“We’ve turned the expression on its head. Traditionally a witchcraft charge amounted to powerful men charging powerless women with a phony crime. Now it is powerful men screeching that they are being charged with phony crimes,” says Stacey Schiff, author of The Witches, a book about the Salem witch trials.

Hyperbole, though, is Donald Trump’s style. Misappropriation of terms is a Trump hallmark, as is good old-fashioned gaslighting. But to Trump’s supporters, the more often he tosses out the phrase “witch hunt” in a tweet, the more they see the idea as truth.

Donald Trump’s ‘Witch Hunt’ | HuffPost [2018-04-11]

Trump slams Mueller probe calling it a ‘witch hunt’ | Fox Business [2018-03-19]

On April 26, 2018, Steven Wagner, an official at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), stated during a Senate Homeland Security subcommittee oversight hearing that HHS had lost track of 1475 migrant children in 2017. The migrant children had all been placed into HHS custody when trying to cross the Mexican border into the U.S, unaccompanied by adults.

When migrant children attempt to cross the border on their own, the Department of Homeland Security places them into the custody of the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), who provides them with food, shelter, clothing, and other necessities, until sponsors are selected and approved for the children.

Officials at HHS maintain that once the ORR places migrant children into the care of sponsors, it is no longer the responsibility of HHS to keep track of them. HHS did, however, follow up with a survey of over 7,000 of the migrant children, and this is apparently how they discovered that almost 1500 of them are unaccounted for.

According to Snopes, “From October to December 2017, HHS called 7,635 children the agency had placed with sponsors, and found 6,075 of the children were still living with their sponsors, 28 had run away, five had been deported and 52 were living with someone else. The rest were ‘missing,’ said Steven Wagner, acting assistant secretary at HHS.”

But this does not excuse the HHS’ complete lack of concern for following up on the safety and well-being of these children, which could be illustrated by Senator Rick Santorum’s comment on CNN’s State of the Union: “I mean, we lose people all the time in a lot of other government programs.”

Usually, a sponsor is a parent or other close family member, but sometimes, the sponsor is not related, or is a distant relative. When HHS releases migrant children to the care of sponsors, the children become the responsibility of the sponsors. On the one hand, with no oversight or follow-up from HHS, migrant children, if not in the hands of familiar and trusted relatives or family members, could be ripe for human trafficking.

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), chairman of the Senate subcommittee, in response to the revelation the HHS had lost track of 1475 migrant children, cited the case of a group of Guatemalan boys who had been forced to work on an Ohio egg farm after the HHS had released them to the care of human traffickers posing as family members (and hence approved as sponsors).

“These kids, regardless of their immigration status, deserve to be treated properly, not abused or trafficked,” Portman said in the subcommittee. “This is all about accountability. …We’ve got these kids. They’re here. They’re living on our soil,” he told PBS. “And for us to just, you know, assume someone else is going to take care of them and throw them to the wolves, which is what HHS was doing, is flat-out wrong. I don’t care what you think about immigration policy, it’s wrong.”

On the other hand, with the Trump administration’s no-holds-barred approach to undocumented immigration (including the recent announcement that the Justice Department would begin to prosecute 100 percent of those who attempt to cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally), some feel that it’s not altogether bad that the HHS hasn’t caught up with all of the migrant children.

It’s possible that some of these migrant children and their sponsors have not responded to HHS calls because they have chosen to go “off the grid” in order to avoid the risk of deportation or prosecution. There are many other possible explanations for their “disappearance, including explanations as simple as an outdated phone number, or a decision not to answer the phone.

Whether we agree or not with the Trump administration’s policies regarding immigration, it is not ok to put any children, no matter what their status, at any level of risk for human trafficking. Just as true, though, is that undocumented migrant children are quite likely trying to flee a traumatic situation at home, and it is not ok, simply because we “can’t take on everyone in a difficult situation,” to subject these or any children to childhood trauma, whether through government negligence by formal policy.

Outrage over reports of ‘missing’ immigrant children – Daily Mail | Daily Mail [2018-05-28]

Federal Government Lost Track Of 1,500 Immigrant Children | Wochit Politics [2018-05-26]

Author: Heidi Tran

Mueller Investigation a Real Witch Hunt?

Migrant Children: Leaving their Conditions for Worse Ones?