Flytolive

WHAT WAS SAID
“The Obama administration, the Bush administration all separated families at the — They absolutely did.”
— The secretary of homeland security, Kirstjen Nielsen, in a news conference on Monday

This is misleading.

While previous administrations did break up families, it was rare, according to former officials and immigration experts. The Trump administration, by contrast, has knowingly enacted the practice that some officials have characterized as a deterrence against illegal entry.

In 2005, President George W. Bush introduced Operation Streamline, which, like the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy, referred for prosecution immigrants illegally crossing the border. Unlike the Trump administration, the Bush administration made an exception for parents with children.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security could not provide data on how many children were separated from their parents in previous administrations.

Jeh Johnson, Ms. Nielsen’s predecessor under President Barack Obama, said in a recent interview with NPR that it was possible that families were separated, “but not as a matter of policy or practice.”

“I can’t say that it never happened,” Mr. Johnson said. “There may have been some exigent situation, some emergency. There may have been some doubt about whether the adult accompanying the child was in fact the parent of the child.”

Cecilia Muñoz, Mr. Obama’s top domestic policy adviser, told The New York Times that the Obama administration had decided against separating children from their parents because “the morality of it was clear — that’s not who we are.”

A 2016 report from the American Immigration Council details the stories of children detained with one parent, but separated from the other. One woman was detained with her children and separated from her nephew, who was transferred to the care of a foster family.

But neither the Bush nor Obama administration had a policy that had the effect of widespread family separation, said Sarah Pierce of the Migration Policy Institute. “Nothing like what the Trump administration is doing has occurred before,” she said.

dawgdriver

Really? DAL? Might want to check your facts.

"Delta Air Lines issued a statement after the order was signed calling family separations "disheartening," but [I]without detailing the carrier's position on transporting children separated from their parents[/I]." Well thought out statements and decisions like this is why DAL stock increases have lead the Legacy airline transports sector and is widely considered among the best managed, most stable airlines.

Also, "JetBlue did not respond to a request for comment". Apparently PR departments at Alaska, Hawaiian, Spirit, Allegiant, etc, or any of the regionals felt the need to unnecessarily expose their shareholders either.

As for Southwest...

After Trump signed the order, Southwest issued a statement saying the airline did "not wish to have involvement in the process of separating children from their parents. Therefore, we appeal to anyone making those types of travel decisions not to utilize Southwest Airlines,". You 'appeal'? LOL, bold statement considering the fact that none of the airlines have a clue who they've transported (or will), and suddenly are now so transparent, righteous and indignant:

"None of the airlines were able to definitively say whether their planes had been used to transport migrant children away from their families.
One airline official told CNN that they have limited insight on the exact circumstances of the people for whom the government buys tickets. The airlines don't know whether the individual is being deported, is a child separated from its family and headed to a detention center, or if it's an unaccompanied minor being reunited with family.
As one airline official told CNN, "we don't have full visibility beyond who they are transporting."

Question for the airlines: If the parents (or human traffickers), who choose to flagrantly disregard US law and violate its sovereign borders, are detained, BUT the child is to be granted the land of milk and honey, are these airlines refusing to transport these poor innocent children to other family members residing in the US?... thus denying them the dream of US citizenship? How horrible and Un-American! Are they thereby making the claim these children don't belong in the US and must be deported with their parents?

See how easily these situations can get twisted? Some PR departments do.

As for "verdicts being in" as related to Trump's reversal (Chief Justice?), read the part about reporters and politicians in my previous post. I wouldn't place too much stock in that.

Flytolive

You might want to take your own advice.

All big four airlines all made statements about the issue. DAL has taken the lead on other issues. Maybe they take turns.



American Airlines, United Airlines and Frontier Airlines all issued statements in the hours before President Donald Trump backed down and signed an executive order to end the controversial policy. Delta Air Lines (DAL) commended Trump for reversing course.

Delta's statement: “Delta’s mission is to connect people and we are against anything that runs contrary to that mission. Recent reports of families being separated are disheartening and do not align with Delta’s core values. We applaud the administration’s executive order resolving the issue of separating children from their families at the US border.”

American Airlines “We have therefore requested the federal government to immediately refrain from using American for the purpose of transporting children who have been separated from their families due to the current immigration policy. We have no desire to be associated with separating families, or worse, to profit from it. We have every expectation the government will comply with our request and we thank them for doing so.”

United Airlines “United asks U.S. government not to fly separated immigrant children on our aircraft.”

Southwest Airlines “We do not wish to have involvement in the process of separating children from their parents. Therefore, we appeal to anyone making those types of travel decisions not to utilize Southwest Airlines.”

Frontier Airlines Frontier prides itself on being a family airline and we will not knowingly allow our flights to be used to transport migrant children away from their families. At this time, we are not aware if Frontier has been used for this purpose.

Alaskan Airlines “To our knowledge, we haven’t transported any immigrant children who have been separated from their families, and today informed the government we do not want to do so.”

Spirit Airlines “We will not knowingly participate in transporting immigrant children away from their parents and families.”[/I]

dawgdriver

First of all, You left out JetBlue(?) Secondly, thanks for making my point: Statements, without action....bland, politically correct, statements. Gee go figure. When other agencies commit to social agenda driven actions such as American and United, it forces the media spotlight into the face of all others, demanding a response. What else were they going to say?

Again, the REAL question, would you, as an airline refuse to transport children of parents (or others claiming to be), to family members residing in the United States? Would you deny them that American dream? Would you send them back with the adult that turns out to be a human trafficker? Rapist? Social media PR disaster in the waiting. Bucket of worms, do you agree? This is the premise of this thread. The question that PR department's and directors need to contend with is the potential fallout ($$) of taking a stance.

Bland, non-committal, feel-good statements aside, in real, practical terms, how would you as an airline, go about ensuring you are not transporting children separated from their parents? Real answer? You don't. You never have, and you never well. Say the right thing and everybody goes home happy.

Just take a look at the companies that have led this charge and do a little research as to how their PR depts have handled their disasters (every airline has them) and compare them to Delta. And no, I don't work for Delta

I'm not going to continue trying to convince you of the dilemmas faced by airline PR departments and CEOs as you (and AA) appear predisposed to an emotional perspective on what should be a purely financial decision.

nimslow

It's a shame that previous administrations (both D and R) couldn't be worried about properly securing our borders, then we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Nothing a flaming moat, and some land mines won't fix in short order.

dawgdriver

Did you go back and re-read some of this bigoted, racist drivel you post? "Old white guy"? "Typical white male"?

Why do you feel it's OK to stereotype and prejudge certain groups? Easy targets? Politically correct? Do you know who else was old and white? Bernie Sanders, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Abraham Lincoln. There are many others who do not come from a wealthy, privilege backgrounds, that through great adversity went on to do great things. They come from every spectrum of economic status and their perspectives on culture, politics, and everything in between are as diverse as any other sect of the population. Same can be said for ALL races and genders. I quit trying to prejudge people when I found I was wrong most of the time. That was grade school.

Do you get your opinions from the media? Entertainment industry? If so, I'm beginning to understand. Look no further than sitcoms, advertising, and news to see the token idiot: White male. An "old white male" comes to mind with a guy I just flew it recently. Like many others, higher income bracket. You know what he (and others) does with all that money? In addition to paying 10 times the taxes of the average citizen, a lot of donating, volunteering, and helping his kids raise the grandkids. Rich white jerk.

I happen to be old, and white. I'm sick of being told how I think, how I behave, and what my income bracket was growing up. Please, tell me how privileged I was, tell me about the Silverspoon I was born with. I'm all ears.

Chris99

I don't know why you keep posting this same quote to "prove" family separations never happened under previous administrations when the quote you are posting states in black and white (see bolded parts of your quote) that family separations did happen under previous administrations, just not to the same extent. If you believe family separations are so horrible, it wouldn't matter if it was one or a thousand, right? And the crazy thing is that the separations that happened under previous administrations happened for the exact same reasons they happened under Trump; the only difference is that Trump was more hard-nosed in his enforcement of immigration laws already on the books, which falls under the fourth bullet point below (or the third numbered point):
"Fact

DHS does not have a blanket policy of separating families at the border. However, DHS does have a responsibility to protect all minors in our custody. This means DHS will separate adults and minors under certain circumstances. These circumstances include: 1) when DHS is unable to determine the familial relationship, 2) when DHS determines that a child may be at risk with the parent or legal guardian, or 3) when the parent or legal guardian is referred for criminal prosecution.

Familial Relationship – If there is reason to question the claimed familial relationship between an adult and child, it is not appropriate to detain adults and children together.

Human Trafficking and Smuggling – If there is reason to suspect the purported parent or legal guardian of human trafficking or smuggling, DHS detains the adult in an appropriate, secure detection facility, separate from the minor. DHS continues to see instances and intelligence reports indicating minors are trafficked by unrelated adults, posing as a “family” in an effort to avoid detention.

Safety Risk – If there is reason to suspect the purported parent or legal guardian poses a safety risk to the child (e.g. suspected child abuse), it is not appropriate to maintain the adult and child together.

Criminal Prosecution – If an adult is referred for criminal prosecution, the adult will be transferred to U.S. Marshals Service custody and any children will be classified as an unaccompanied alien child and transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services custody."



Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk

meyers9163

Shhhh he knows it all. He already claimed he does. Problem being he then tried to claim all pilots do the same. See he’s the guy who knows how to do everyone else’s job and is an absolute blast to fly with.

Knows how to do the FAs job and tells them how to. Gate agent? Yes sir he’s trained there too and knows it all. Maintenance? Shoot he don’t need no maintenance he knows it all and can fix it.

Illegal immigration? Shoot he has that too!!! Some how he’s only a stinking pilot and not some other career field where he also knows it all.... Hell he probably even stayed at a Holiday Inn last night

tyler durden

The only door open to most of the old white guys I fly with was the military door. Some of them went straight in through service academies or ROTC, others enlisted, then G.I. Bill. There were others that didn't fit that category (minorities, females) that took advantage of that door and got military flight training as well. It was never gender, race or income based. Mostly just a lot of effort, blood, sweat and tears. It was $1 million education rammed up your a$$ a nickel at a time. Then, the prospect of getting shot at that sort of put things in perspective. I came up through the civilian ranks, but have nothing but respect for those guys/gals. By the way, I did not come from money by any stretch.

The only difference came later when the white guy did not have the same hiring preferences at the airlines driven by the EEOC (through sanctions levied on united), OBAP, WIA, 99's, etc.

A lot of worn out excuses, labeling, and blame.

Time to move on.

Dorn

when boiled down to its ultimate minority (you) we all have certain privileges and disadvantages in our lives. Its sad that we (as rather intelligent) individuals allow ourselves to be swept up into the identity politics and tribalism. I've attached a link ( I hope it works) where this incredibly complicated topic is drilled down into. To be lauding our accomplishments or lack there of due to the color of our skin grossly simplifies the complexities of our social structure.


https://youtu.be/PfH8IG7Awk0