THIS WEEK -- Democratic senators expressed increased dissatisfaction with the Trump administration. As backlogged courts and immigration debates drag on, thousands of lives are re-thrown into the balance. Many of them seem to believe it is a waste of taxpayer efforts, “to carry out a cold partisan vendetta,” and that it, “goes too far,” as on Twitter, Senior Oregon Senator Ron Wyden claimed, “Trump's ICE now plans to deport 350,000 people whose cases were already CLOSED.”

He tweeted another emotional and heartfelt message, “the Trump administration wants to deport unaccompanied children that judges have found to have been abused, abandoned, or neglected. Deporting them now is cruelty for the sake of cruelty,” followed by him also saying, “My @SenateDems colleagues and I are pushing back.”

A September 13 letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen M. Nielsen and Attorney General Jeff Sessions expressed concerns about reopening of the cases and apparent discontent/disapproval for how they, “stripped immigration judges and the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) of their general authority to close cases.” Also in the letter, were questions that the senators have requested written responses for within two-weeks (by September 27).

Some of the questions asked were requests for official documents/emails/and drafts regarding, “policy guidance, implementation directives, and instructions,” and for statistics about how many immigration cases they planned to reopen. Two specific questions were, “What is the average age of cases that ICE is seeking to recalendar?” and, “What policies is EOIR (Executive Office for Immigration Review) developing to ensure efficiency and fairness in each recalendared case?”

Among the eighteen senators who signed the letter was Tom Udall (NM), who is also head of the New Mexico Border Security Task Force. Some other signers are: Catherine Cortez Masto (NV), Edward Markey (MA), Bernard Sanders (VT), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), Tammy Duckworth (IL), Cory Booker (NJ), Chris Van Hollen (MD), Patty Murray (WA), and Brian Schatz (HI). Visit Catherine Cortez Masto's official Senate.gov website to read the full letter and see everyone who signed it.