THREAD. I spent a weekend in 2017 making a website that listed all the places publicly reported to be holding kids separated at the border. Can we deal with this “Obama built the cages” claim once and for all? /1

Yes, DHS had facilities at the border during all previous administrations and yes, some children were separated from their parents if, when they entered the country to plead their case for asylum, their parents were determined to be unfit or criminal. And yes, Obama’s /2

deportation policy was hugely problematic. But HERE’S THE DIFFERENCE. Donald Trump was the first President in the history of the US to make entering the country to request asylum illegal, which allowed his administration to the reclassify thousands of parents /3

as criminals and then separate them from their children as a form of deterrence. Know how we know? I made a website in 2017 that used reporting from USA Today, Propublica and the Washington Post to list every facility those kids were known to be shipped off to. They took /4

So many kids they didn’t have room in the DHS cages - they shoved them into abandoned Walmarts, flew them all over the country, and built tent cities to warehouse ‘em. Look at the website I made and read the list of facilities. THOUSANDS OF KIDS. /5 http://everychildreturned.com 

And now, nearly three years later, they still can’t track down the parents of over 500 of them because, like so many cattle, they didn’t even bother to write down which kid went with which parent before they deported the parents. /5

When this is all over, this is the thing that officials in charge of this operation - including Miles Taylor who is currently trying to distance himself from it and Kirstjen Nielsen who claimed it wasn’t happening before she was proved to be lying — must stand trial for. /6

There are heroes in this story, keeping the pressure on all this time; journalists like @jacobsoboroff and @brooklynmarie and citizen researchers like the late great @RachelMcGonagi1 as well as an army of lawyers like @matt_cam @ricardo_de_anda @ImmCivilRights. /7

And elected officials like @BetoORourke @JulianCastro and @JeffMerkley worked hard to find out what was going on and get the word out. Organizations like the ones in @RachelMcGonagi1’s incredible thread have truly done the lord’s work at the border helping these folks. /8 https://twitter.com/rachelmcgonagi1/status/1123287850487767040

But the bottom line is this. The Trump administration and everyone who had anything to do with this crime can run from this, we will never let them hide from the fact that they did something new and evil. There should be tribunals when this is all over. /END

CORRECTION. There was another step before Trump made asylum illegal. Thank you @ImmJusticeNOW for reminding me that we literally closed the bridge. “What initially triggered the mass separations is that they decided to prosecute everyone for illegal entry. Which, of course...

no one actually wants to sneak over the border ideally, but they were metering at the ports of entry so heavily that people just had no choice.”

Also from @ImmJusticeNOW: “They eventually killed asylum too of course, with MPP and such, but it was illegal entry that was the issue at the start.”