Thursday, June 28, 2018

Day 19: Talk one way, vote another.

This is Part X of a series of calls to the DC office of my Congressional representative, John Faso (NY-19). The nine previous calls (sorry, the IX previous calls) are linked below.

I'm still interested in my long-term questions about doing diddly with regards to tariffs, and whether Faso would vote for impeachment in the case that Trump were to literally murder someone. I last brought those up on June 18, so maybe I'll check in with them again next Monday, which will be two weeks since the last time I asked.

In the meantime, I've turned my attention to the humanitarian disaster Trump created on the southern border.
Good afternoon. I’m calling in regards to HR 6136, the immigration bill the House voted on yesterday.
Yes.
I see that Congressman Faso voted in favor of the bill.
I haven’t looked that up.
I checked on the website of the House clerk, and he’s in the “Ayes” column.
OK.

When I called this office on Monday, I was told that the congressman opposes the detention of children and supports reunification.
Yes, that’s right, he does.
Yet it seems that Sec. 3102 provides explicitly for detention of children. It reads, in part, “There exists no presumption that an alien child who is not an unaccompanied alien child should not be detained, and all such determinations shall be in the discretion of the Secretary of Homeland Security.”
If the congressman opposes the detention of children, why did he vote in favor of a bill that explicitly opens the door to that?
I’ll let him know about the discrepancy.
It’s a rather glaring one.
Another passage in the same section preempts states from imposing licensing requirements on facilities that are designated for detention of minors.
Now, I can understand why the administration might want that provision. They’re probably worried about states using their powers under federalism to interfere with cruel policies that the state governments don’t like.
But if states are preempted from imposing licensing requirements, then approval of these facilities falls exclusively to some combination of ICE, HHS, and DHS.
This is the same constellation of entities that separated the children from their parents and did a worse job on record-keeping than if they were dealing with physical inventory.
Yet Mr. Faso voted to make them the final arbiters of what is a fit place to detain children.
I will be sure he hears about your concerns.
The usual exchange of pleasantries, and we’re done.

Remember, Faso’s DC office number is (202 225-5614). His staff are polite, and they enjoy talking with Mr. Faso’s constituents!

My next call was Friday, July 6th.

Earlier calls:

1 comment:

  1. Yay, Karl! Keep it up. (And the rest of us need to follow your lead on this too.) -- Kathy S.

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