PleasePleasePleasePrettyPleaseWithSugarOnTop Virginia 7th CD voters, boot Brat in November and remove this disgrace to Virginia and to the nation. Thank you!
A constituent of @RepDaveBrat wrote to him expressing her anger at the Trump administration’s family separation policy.
The letter she got back is extremely revealing.
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) June 8, 2018
First, @RepDAvidBrat takes pains to establish his compassion bona fides: “As a seminary graduate and former World Bank employee who worked on ways to improve Third World Economies, I share your concerns for the poor and vulnerable and for those seeking refuge from persecution.”
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) June 8, 2018
But then he pivots to this: “The recent claims of children being separated from their families have been substantially misrepresented by many on the left.”
Before going on to do exactly that: misrepresent what is happening.
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) June 8, 2018
Brat: “Numerous reports have confirmed that a policy of separating children only occurs if officials find that the adult is falsely claiming to be the child’s parent, poses an immediate threat to the child, or is put into criminal proceedings.”
Not.
True.
That is a lie.— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) June 8, 2018
But even more insidiously, the whole vicious point of the “zero tolerance” policy is that the Trump admin is ***choosing to put people into criminal proceedings*** and then taking their children from them.
That’s the heart of the issue!
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) June 8, 2018
These are people who are pursuing asylum claims, by and large, who the last administration *did not prosecute criminally*. But Trump and Sessions and Nielsen are making sure they are being criminally charged AS A NEW POLICY THEY ANNOUNCED.
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) June 8, 2018
It is infuriating that the Trump administration has created this policy, even announced it and speechified about it and bragged about it, and now it and its allies, faced with the sheer moral revulsion in response, want to pretend it doesn’t exist.
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) June 8, 2018
