A new report from the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General reveals the extent to which then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions pushed for the Trump administration’s "zero-tolerance" family separation policy in 2018, The Washington Post’s Nick Miroff and Matt Zapotosky report.

The report reveals that Sessions and other officials understood the policy would separate families and their children at the border — traumatizing families and overwhelming immigration courts — but proceeded anyway. The findings "provide new details about Sessions’s lead role in pushing for the crackdown, despite numerous red flags," they write.

"Once the policy was underway, Sessions at one point told U.S. attorneys along the border that ‘we need to take children away,’ according to the report, even as the Trump administration publicly claimed that it did not have a policy that called for separating families."

The ACLU estimates that more than 5,000 children have been separated from their families under the Trump administration. To date, attorneys representing the families separated under "zero-tolerance" have been unable to contact more than 500 parents to reunite them with their children, Miroff and Zapotosky add.

TGITLF (Thank goodness it’s Trump’s last Friday).

See a local story we should include? Send it my way at [email protected]. 

VACCINATIONS – Earlier this year, I read Laura Spinney’s book, "Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World." So I was thrilled to see her op-ed in The Guardian raising the flag that the Trump administration’s "public charge" rule was creating "fear and confusion" among immigrant communities, meaning they are "seeking out [testing and vaccination] services later than those from communities whose resident status is more likely to be assured – if they are seeking them out at all." In contrast to the situation in the U.S., Jordan offers an example of how to do this differently. UNHCR reports: "As part of Jordan’s national COVID-19 vaccination plan, which commenced this week, anyone living in the country, including refugees and asylum seekers, is entitled to receive the vaccine free of charge."

BACKYARD WALL — For some Texans, the debate around Trump’s signature border wall has literally shown up in their backyards, Ted Oberg of ABC13 in Houston reports. The federal government filed 14 lawsuits in November to seize land for the wall and another 26 in December. Nayda Alvarez, who belongs to one of 208 Texas families fighting an attempted federal land seizure in court, said the proposed construction through her backyard would leave her "with nothing." Speaking of the wall: In an op-ed for USA Today, Laura Carlsen of the Americas Policy Program think tank in Mexico City reflects on President Trump’s border visit last week, concluding that the wall has "already cost the nation far too much — in resources, division and human lives. The country faces a health security threat that requires prioritizing resources to save lives. An immediate halt to the corruption, waste and deception of the border wall is a welcome and necessary step to a safer nation." 

10-POINT PLAN — A coalition of more than 30 public defender organizations from 14 states is proposing a 10-point immigration policy plan to reverse the Trump administration’s "unjust, harmful, and destructive tactics," reports Chris Van Buskirk of WWLP 22 News. Among the proposals: redirecting funding from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), ending immigration detention, a one-year moratorium on deportations, and establishing a federally funded legal representation program for immigrants facing removal. "It will take time to ensure basic fairness in our laws, and to undo [the Trump administration’s] devastatingly strict legal changes. Families should not be torn apart while the Biden Administration works to pick up the pieces from these scorched earth policies." Van Buskirk notes that the coalition has met with President-elect Biden’s transition advisors and received "very positive feedback."

100 YEARS AGO — A feature piece in Smithsonian Magazine by Ross Benes covers the story of Robert Meyer, a teacher who fought for the rights to teach and speak German for his students in Nebraska amid nativist attacks on immigration in the wake of World War I. In 1920, Benes notes, Nebraska had the largest population of German immigrants — but a new state law prohibited the instruction of any foreign language to students who had not passed the eighth grade. Meyer, who was convicted and fined a month’s salary for continuing to teach German, ultimately brought his case before the Supreme Court. The resulting ruling in Meyer v. State of Nebraska set a precedent for the legal right to privacy and reaffirmed the rights of immigrant communities amid a period of xenophobia.

Thanks for reading,

Ali