Day 889: Trump wants to ax policy protecting undocumented family members of active-duty troops

For years, Donald Trump has claimed that deportations were important because of the danger posed by undocumented migrants. He has continued to espouse that even as statistics say that undocumented migrants are actually less likely to commit violent crimes than citizens.

It seems Trump’s obsession with deportation is zeroing in on a new target, family members of active-duty troops, even though they currently have specific protections.

The Trump administration wants to scale back a program that protects undocumented family members of active-duty troops from being deported, according to attorneys familiar with those plans.

The attorneys are racing to submit applications for what is known as parole in place after hearing from the wives and loved ones of deployed soldiers who have been told that option is “being terminated.”

The protections will only be available under rare circumstances, the lawyers said they’ve been told.

Members of the military could now be worrying about the potential deportation of a spouse, rather than their mission on the ground. This reasoning has been entrenched since the policy began and Trump wants to undo it for no real reason.

Trump, who cloaks himself in the flag and tries to finagle a photo-op with troops whenever possible, couldn’t care less about active-duty or discharged members of the military. He took over 700 days to visit troops in a war zone, and even then, he was there for only a few hours to see a couple dozen special operators in the safest possible place, all in a pretty transparent attempt to say he went.

Now, he’s content to distract some troops by needlessly canceling a policy that allows them to better focus on their dangerous jobs.

889 days in, 573 to go

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