White House, Justice dispute claims immigrant kids are in peril
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration yesterday pushed back on what officials called “fake news” reports of immigrant children being separated from their parents at border crossings, and of federal officials losing track of more than 1,000 other kids who have been released from custody.
Officials from the White House, Department of Justice and other agencies blamed Congress — and Democrats specifically — for failing to pass tougher immigration laws and not enforcing those on the books. Those moves, the officials said, would have prevented the current situation involving Central Americans entering the country, being arrested and separated from the minors they brought with them.
“The current immigration border crisis and all attendant consequences that it raises are the exclusive product of loopholes in federal immigration laws Democrats refuse to close,” Stephen Miller, senior adviser to President Trump, told reporters.
Miller did not dispute that children are being separated from their parents at border crossings. Instead, he said the separations are necessary because of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy that calls for each person who crosses over to be prosecuted — prosecutions that require their children to be detained as their parents are processed.
But immigrants’ rights groups shot back at the White House narrative that Democratic policies have tied the Trump administration’s hands, saying no law requires federal officials to arrest every person crossing the border — even asylumseekers fleeing dangerous regions.
“It is this administration’s policy that they are going to criminally prosecute all people apprehended,” said Jennifer Podkul, director of policy at Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), a group that provides legal representation of children in immigration-related proceedings. “This policy has only been done by this administration, and it is this policy that is rendering these children unaccompanied.”
The administration also took issue with news reports that roughly 1,400 children released from custody and placed with sponsors through a Department of Health and Human Services program have been “lost.”
The program, administered by HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement, directs that minors released from immigration custody be placed with guardians who are often relatives — and sometimes themselves in the country illegally. Though the relatives are vetted before the placement, they are often fearful of responding to inquiries by federal officials checking in on the children after they are placed, officials said.
HHS Deputy Secretary Eric Hargan added: “This is a classic example of the adage, ‘No good deed goes unpunished.’ ”