Mcaleenan: Family separations down
Acting homeland chief speaks to House panel
WASHINGTON — A top Trump administration official said Thursday the number of family separations at the border has fallen since last summer’s zero tolerance policy, and they are done only for compelling reasons.
Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin Mcaleenan said fewer than 1,000 children have been separated from families out of 450,000 family groups that have crossed the border since October. He said they are separated because of health and safety concerns, among other reasons.
“The vast majority” of families are kept together, he said.
That tally does not include children who come with older siblings, or aunts and uncles and grandparents and are separated under long-standing policy meant to guard against human trafficking. Mcaleenan said Congress would need to amend laws to allow border officers more discretion to keep those groups together.
Mcaleenan was speaking Thursday before the House Oversight Committee investigating border problems.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat, said Mcaleenan was an architect of the family separations.
“The administration wants to blame Democrats for this crisis, but it is the Trump administration’s own policies that are causing these problems,” Cummings said.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-cortez, a New York Democrat, questioned Mcaleenan about the Border Patrol Facebook posts, some of which included graphic, doctored images of her.
Ocasio-cortez asked whether the agents were still on duty and wondered whether the family separation policy had contributed to a “dehumanizing culture.”
Mcaleenan said some had been placed on administrative duty but didn’t elaborate.
“We do not have a dehumanizing culture,” Mcaleenan responded.
Lawmakers didn’t question Mcaleenan on new asylum rules. Under the new rules, anyone who comes to the U.s.-mexico border through another country would not be eligible for asylum.
Mark Morgan, the acting head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said in an interview with NPR on Thursday that the policy would be rolled out starting with a pilot program in the Rio Grande Valley.
Mcaleenan said facilities are less crowded, especially for children who are only supposed to be held in border holding stations for 72 hours.