John Oliver talks family separation and immigration on Last Week Tonight

On Last Week Tonight, John Oliver explains how we got to the family separation policy and immigration fears, all in light of this week’s election

On Last Week Tonight, host John Oliver tackled the issue of immigration, which you may have noticed popping up in the news here and there. Most recently, news outlets have focused on a caravan of thousands of migrants who are moving towards the U.S.-Mexico border.

Some commentators, including the president, have raised the specter of young, “strong” men who might threaten the “security” of America’s women. So, too, is the caravan supposedly full to bursting with gang members, drug lords, violent criminals, and people who are generally different from unnerved American voters.

Trump has threatened plenty of immigration action, including sending troops to the border and revoking the 14th amendment. The 14th amendment promises citizenship to all people who are born within the United States, the so-called “birthright amendment” that was ratified in 1868.

Critics of the 14th say that it’s led to “anchor babies” and “birth tourism,” where people intentionally have children in the United States in order to stake a claim to their own citizenship.

Family separation

This is all a massive and overwhelming topic, so Oliver instead focused on something that Trump has actually done so far: family separation.

The story on family separation has faded after much public outcry earlier in the year. However, recent government reports have made the picture clearer and, as a result, much worse than many thought.

First, how was the whole process of family separation enacted? It was, in short, a mess. Critics frequently pointed out that the government split children from families with little thought to organization. Children as young as toddlers and infants were taken from their parents, without more than the barest information meant to find them in the future.

At the beginning of it all, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar assured Congress that it wasn’t possible for them to have lost access to kids’ records. Yet, all of that information was compiled by Homeland Security, not HHS. Furthermore, DHS left its information up to many chances for human error, meaning that kids could be easily lost in the system after all.

Even now, things are muddled. We still can’t say for sure whether or not current statistics are in fact all that current, given how incomplete the information still is.

Motivations and fears

Why, then, did all of this happen? What motivated people like Azar and Department of Homeland Security head Kirstjen Nielsen to enact a hugely unpopular, divisive, and – for some – traumatic policy?

Many, like Nielsen, argued that they were forced to do so because the immigrants were breaking the law, plain and simple. According to previous acting director of ICE, Thomas Homan, it was not cruelty, but the desire to abide by the law, that led to this.

Yet, it was never that simple. On the migrants’ side, those legally applying for asylum were often delayed for weeks or even months. This happened while many claimed dangerous conditions in their countries of origin.

Were actions such as family separation and delayed legal processes equal to an immigrant’s offense? Crossing the border illegally is generally only a misdemeanor. They are also often given time served, meaning they serve little to no time after they are convicted. And why should they be separated from their children, anyway?

Rhetoric

As it turns out, how people describe the situation has a great deal to do with these actions. It’s easy to lean on family separation policies when immigrants are described as “rough, tough criminals” by people like the president.

Factual inaccuracies sway government employees and citizens alike, as well. For instance, even though Trump argued that people never go to their hearings after being released from custody, that’s far from the case for many. In fact, for many migrant families seeking asylum, the vast majority show up to court. So, that argument doesn’t work, either.

Ultimately, this works according to a system of logic that does not apply equally to every person. Immigrants who make their way into this country illegally receive particular focus in this system. For them, illegally crossing the border is a crime, says this logic. If you cross the border, you’re a criminal. If you’re a criminal, you are also dangerous. Therefore, migrants who cross the border illegally are dangerous, scary criminals – like gang members, “known criminals,” rapists, and so on.

Rhetoric has a lot to do with this. Militaristic terms like “invasion” when referring to the approaching immigrant caravan contribute to this picture. So, too, does the notion of sending thousands of troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to defend American people against…. other humans seeking asylum.

The real focus

In all of this, it is easy to lose sight of what has happened to hundreds of migrant children. These children, taken from their families with no clear way to communicate or even locate each other, they are plunged into a destabilizing and frightening situation. Remember that these are minor children, some so young that they are still nursing or in diapers.

How will sudden and open-ended separation change their ability to make connections with their family? How will they be able to trust others, when, from their perspective, they could be taken again without warning?

“Horrifically,” said Oliver, “We may actually be about to do that again.” Former acting ICE director Thomas Homan is in favor of reinstituting a family separation policy. He maintains that the government should have stuck with this policy for longer. If that had happened, we wouldn’t have had a caravan of big, scary immigrants heading towards the border.

In the logic of Homan and Trump’s world, a large group of people seeking asylum from the United States is akin to a group of monsters beating down the door.

Even now, it is hard to be as surprised as we are outraged. “It was cruel, sloppy, needless, racist,” Oliver said of the initial separation policy. Yet, it was “ultimately exactly what we should have expected.”