1/The Melania tape reaffirms what we knew: The Trumps have often waffled when forced to confront the individual pain caused by family separations, but ultimately, their opinions were more heavily influenced by arguments made to them about the families essentially "deserving" it.
2/And, by false arguments meant to minimize their perception of the harm by claiming that Obama did the same. This misrepresentation is easy to fact check.
3/People are still writing that families were separated after entering illegally. But many families entered legally and were separated anyway. And legal ports of entry had been effectively sealed. Families that crossed in between often looked for agents & turned themselves over.
4/ For ex: Ms. L, the named plaintiff in the federal separations case, entered legally w/ her daughter. Constantin, who at 4 months was the youngest known separated kid, entered legally in his dad's arms. His dad handed over passports and asked for asylum. Agents took the baby.
Here is, once more, the very easy-to-find federal asylum law. Even for us non-lawyers, it couldn't be clearer that one can legally request asylum regardless of how they entered the country.
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