Document reveals Trump administration planned on separating migrant families soon after inauguration

[Botany]

20. Stephen Miller believes in controversy as political strategy, even if it means jailing children

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/6/19/17474720/trump-immigration-border-stephen-miller


To understand what the Trump administration is thinking about separating families and locking kids up at the border, you have to understand Stephen Miller’s foundational political belief: It’s better to stir controversy, at any price, than it is to engage constructively.

The architect of Donald Trump’s immigration policy and the White House’s resident troll, the 32-year-old White House senior policy adviser believes it’s good to “trigger the libs,” so to speak, with “the purpose of enlightenment.” To Miller, working constructively across the aisle isn’t as useful as “melting snowflakes.”

To Miller, there’s no reason to moderate a view or a policy, especially not when it comes to his deepest passion: immigration restrictionism. It’s a subject he was passionate about even in high school and one over which he bonded with his former boss, then-Sen. Jeff Sessions, a longtime immigration hardliner. It’s no wonder, then, that Miller designed the initial version of Trump’s travel ban, barring people from several majority-Muslim countries from entering the US for 90 days, and refugees for 120 days.

snip

Cruelty as a feature, not a bug
The Trump administration hasn’t really tried to win the public conversation on family separations. As conservative writer Ross Douthat pointed out on Twitter, the policy didn’t begin with a public discussion or explanation for separating young children from their parents, or by making the case to Congress for more family detention facilities. It started by taking kids from their parents first and attempting to assuage demands for legislation later.