She began Wednesday by reading an editorial in the Boston Globe, who was the first to report that one family at a Boston children's hospital doesn't know what they'll do because their child needs a feeding tube to survive.
"Step by malicious step, the Trump administration is turning the American immigration system into an apparatus of appalling, intentional cruelty," the Globe's editorial began.
Maddow explained that the Miami Herald uncovered information about the Trump administration doesn't actually know what is happening with this program. Medical Deferred Action is a very small program in which legal immigrants suffering from serious medical issues are granted a reprieve from deportation so they can continue treatment. Trump stopped the program this month, but when his administration was asked about it they claimed the program was continuing, it was just going to be put under Homeland Security and ICE.
When ICE was questioned about it, however, they had no idea what it was about.
"What did emerge today though is that as this new policy targeting sick kids has started to receive the first little bit of scrutiny," said Maddow. "It’s essentially already blowing up what the Trump Administration is trying to do. Honestly, there has not been a lot of national pressure on the story yet. I think we are the first national outlet to cover this. As the Trump Administration has just tried to answer basic questions about why they are sending these letters and why they have brought about this change in policy that’s going to have such dire and specific humanitarian consequences and potentially fatal consequences for kids in this country."
She said that as local news stations have started reporting the story and asking the administration questions, the administration "has been completely flailing on this," she said. Apparently they didn't fully understand what they were doing when they went after this program that protects sick children.
"And people finally started to ask them to answer for it," Maddow said. "I will show you what I mean. After WBUR, the public radio station in Boston, posted their terrifying initial story about these kids in Boston being targeted, kids being treated at the children’s hospital in Boston, kids with rare genetic disorders, with cystic fibrosis, seizure disorders, after they published their first story. Hours after publication, they received a 'whoa' comment from the U.S. Customs and immigration service that sent out the letters, to these families. These death sentence letters to these families."
Finally, ICE responded to stations saying that the administration might be able to help so they can stay. That wasn't included in the letter sent to these parents and it wasn't until the scrutiny that ICE came up with the statement.
"Did nobody mention that? That was their first explanation," Maddow continued. "Now it turns out, the other agency that is supposedly picking up this program, the other agency inside the Trump Administration that supposedly is going to process these requests for dying children to stay here in order to receive medical care that’s keeping them alive, now we find out that agency is not doing this. They have no intention of handling these kinds of questions for kids in this kind of circumstance. They have no program like this. They say today they have no idea why some other agency in the Trump Administration has been telling reporters now that they do. Great."
The Miami Herald explained that the right-hand doesn't know what the left is doing.
"Three officials with ICE, who asked not to be named due to fears of speaking outside official channels, told the Miami Herald that the agency was blindsided by the move from USCIS," The Herald said.
Just another day in Trump's America. Watch Maddow's commentary below:
