BORDER/IMIGRATION/MEXICO/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “What happens next on the U.S. border? Though Donald Trump’s executive order on Wednesday [6-20-18] released some political pressure by keeping immigrant families together in detention, rather than separating children from their parents, it’s not likely to be the end of the story. U.S. law prohibits detaining children for longer than 20 days, so we could be back in a separation situation in July; and the order does nothing at all for the more than 2,000 children already separated from their parents. The change is unlikely to mollify critics, who still see the existence of immigrant detention centers—and even the building of new ones, as the order envisions—as an internment-camp policy unworthy of American standards. It’s not clear who will be able to fix it: Though Congress has the power to change the underlying law, that process has been gummed up, with even moderate Republicans balking at a bipartisan alliance to provide a humane and lasting solution. But outside Capitol Hill, a new front for accountability opened this week: The Mexican government’s human rights arm, along with its counterparts from Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala and Honduras, launched a formal complaint against the Trump administration at the Organization of American States. Normally a sleepy regional organization with headquarters by Washington’s National Mall, the OAS is now poised to become—by default—the most significant institutional response to Trumpism in what is otherwise a town under one-party control.”
-Todd Tucker, “How Mexico Could Force America’s Hand on Immigrants,” Politico, June 22, 2018