Separating families isn’t Democrats’ fault
Trump can’t decide why he is taking kids away
Don’t blame us. In response to growing public outrage over family separations at the border, the president said Friday that he wasn’t responsible for the policy. “I hate the children being taken away,” Donald Trump said. “The Democrats have to change their law.” His sentiments have been echoed by top officials and leading Republicans.
The problem is that such statements are at best misleading and at worst flat out lies. The family separations at the border are a byproduct of decisions by the Trump administration. It speaks volumes that the president and some of his allies are unwilling to own the policy of separating children from their parents — let alone offer a sound legal basis for it.
The president has repeatedly claimed that Democrats are responsible for the family separations that have become a national scandal. But as news outlets such as The Associated Press have pointed out, this is not true. It is Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ “zero tolerance” policy, which requires that nearly all unauthorized border crossers be criminally prosecuted, that has led to families being split apart. It has nothing to do with the Democrats, whom Trump blamed again in tweets on Monday.
Yet Sunday night, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen tweeted, “We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period.”
This statement defies reality. Indeed, Nielsen seemed to change her position again in a speech on Monday in which she said, “We have to do our job. We will not apologize for doing our job.”
Sadly, prominent Republicans have followed the president’s lead in assigning blame for this inhumane policy. “What is happening at the border in the separation of parents and their children is because of a court ruling,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said Thursday. That same day, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, tweeted, “I want 2 stop the separation of families at the border by repealing the Flores 1997 court decision requiring separation of families + give DOJ the tools it needs 2 quickly resolve cases.”
Either these lawmakers are uninformed about immigration policy, or they are being deceptive. The Flores settlement is a 1997 agreement arising out of a class action suit over the care of children in immigration detention. It stipulates that migrant children cannot be held in immigration detention indefinitely. While Flores requires the government to place children in the “least restrictive setting,” it does not say anything about breaking up families.
Some White House officials have also pointed to a 2008 anti-trafficking law as justifying family separations. Pressed on the issue of the separations, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said last week, “It’s the law, and that’s what the law states.”
Yet the law, passed in Congress by unanimous consent and signed by President George W. Bush, does not mandate family separations, either.
Sessions has even cited the Bible as a rationale for the immigration policy that he helped craft. “I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained the government for his purposes,” Sessions said last week.
Of course, we are a country of laws and we need to defend our borders. We can do so without trampling on the human rights of migrant women and children. The president could stop family separations today, with a phone call to the Department of Homeland Security. If they chose, Republicans in Congress could stand up to Trump and pass a measure banning the practice. What Democrats cannot do is allow the president to use migrant children as bargaining chips. These kids are not pawns to be traded in exchange for Trump’s border wall.
It is irresponsible and cynical for Republicans to deflect accountability for Trump’s extreme immigration policies. There is no political victory worth more than the welfare of vulnerable children. The forced separations must stop — because families belong together.