Immigration accusations get ugly between parties

President Donald Trump and Democratic critics traded outraged, sometimes plainly false accusations about immigration Tuesday as the debate over “lost” children and the practice of separating families caught crossing the border illegally reached a new boiling point.

False charges flew on both sides.

The White House wrongly blamed Democrats for forcing his administration to separate children from parents. Liberal activists tried to highlight the issue by tweeting photos of young people in steel cages that actually were taken during the Obama administration.

Others seized on reports the government had “lost” more than 1,000 children, which officials say isn’t the case.

An official from the Health and

Human Services Department told a congressional hearing last month that his department placed follow-up phone calls from October to December to U.S. households that were sponsoring minors who crossed the border without their parents.

They reached 86 percent of the children or sponsors, but the department could not verify the whereabouts of 1,475. In some cases, sponsors simply didn’t respond to the follow-up phone call.

Officials said Tuesday they are planning more thorough screening of both minor children and their sponsors, including a fingerprint background check of every sponsor.