Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen speaks during a roundtable on immigration policy with President Donald Trump at Morrelly Homeland Security Center, Wednesday, May 23, 2018, in Bethpage, N.Y. (Evan Vucci / AP)
The nation’s homeland security chief insisted Sunday that immigrant children are not being separated from their parents at the border — despite the Trump administration defending its policy and eyewitness accounts of government-snatched boys and girls being held in cages at a private detention center in Texas.
"We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period," Homeland Security Director Kirstjen Nielsen tweeted, despite countless tales of the Trump administration doing just that.
Compounding Nielsen's false statement were reports that children separated at the border were being held in an old warehouse in south Texas, behind metal fencing that resembled cages. Reporters who were allowed inside said one cage held 20 children, and boys and girls used foil sheets as blankets.
The U.S. Border Patrol on Sunday allowed reporters to briefly visit the facility where it holds unseparated families who were arrested at the southern U.S. border.
More than 1,100 people were inside the large, dark facility. Detainees were divided into separate wings, unaccompanied children, adults on their own and mothers and fathers with children.
The cages in each wing open into common areas, where portable restrooms are located. Overhead lighting in the warehouse stays on around the clock.
The Border Patrol said close to 200 people inside the facility were minors unaccompanied by a parent.
Meanwhile, a top White House adviser admitted “nobody likes” the policy of separating immigrant children from their parents — even as she and other allies of President Trump went on the defensive Sunday over the administration’s cruel tactic.
"As a mother, as a Catholic, as somebody who has a conscience ... I will tell you that nobody likes this policy," White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Children have been separated from their parents in large numbers since the administration instituted a “zero tolerance” policy in April, declaring that anyone caught crossing the United States border illegally will be criminally prosecuted for it. As a result, adults are put in jail while their kids are taken to shelters or detention centers.
White House aide Kellyanne Conway took two-faced approach on policy of separating immigrant kids from their parents (NICHOLAS KAMM /Getty Images)
Conway denied that the White House was using the heart-wrenching stories of parents torn from their kids as leverage to force Democrats to pass immigration legislation to Trump’s liking — after an unnamed White House official told The Washington Post that was the game plan.
“I certainly don’t want anybody to use these kids as leverage,” she said. “I object to that. Very forcefully.”
Former White House strategist Stephen Bannon took a harder line on the separations, saying there’s no need for Trump to justify the heavily criticized policy.
“It's zero tolerance. I don't think you have to justify it. We have a crisis on the southern border,” Bannon said on ABC’s “This Week.”
“We ran on a policy, very simply, stop mass illegal immigration and limit legal immigration, get our sovereignty back, and to help our workers, OK? And so he went to a zero tolerance policy. Zero tolerance, it's a crime to come across illegally, and children get separated. I mean, I hate to say it, that's the law and he's enforcing the law.”
Immigration law does not require separating children from their parents.
Bannon said Trump should go even further and force a government shutdown if Democrats don’t agree to provide money to build a wall along the southern border.
“He has a zero tolerance situation. He has drawn a line in the sand. I don't think he's going to back off from it,” he said.
But the torrent of criticism of Trump’s policy continued Sunday.
Former First Lady Laura Bush said it goes too far, and compared it to Japanese-American internment camps of World War II.
"I live in a border state," Bush said in a Washington Post op-ed. "I appreciate the need to enforce and protect our international boundaries, but this zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart."
Gov. Cuomo issued a Father’s Day statement saying the tactic “weighs heavily on our nation's conscience” and calling on the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general to investigate the treatment of families at the border.
“As the father of three daughters, I cannot imagine the dread and suffering these parents face when their children are taken from them at the border,” Cuomo said.
"Now Trump is using these families as a negotiating tool to advance his own political agenda. The President is playing politics with the moral soul of this nation, and it must end. Earlier this month, I asked the Acting Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security to investigate the disgraceful and in some cases illegal tactics used by ICE. Now I call on the Acting Inspector General to tell us what his office is doing about this assault on immigrant families within our borders.”
Even Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani said the administration is making a mistake — blaming bad advice to Trump from Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
A better course, he said, would be to agree to compromise immigration reform legislation including a path to citizenship for people currently in the country illegally.
“I know President Trump doesn't like the children taken away from their parents,” said said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “Jeff is not giving the President the best advice.”
Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, also condemned the policy, sending a letter with Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) to the Department of Homeland Security requesting details on how often families have been separated while seeking asylum. Collins said evidence from previous administrations has shown separation will not deter migrants from crossing the border illegally.
“It is inconsistent with our American values to separate these children from their parents unless there's evidence of abuse or another very good reason,” she said on “Face the Nation.”
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) charged the White House was using the separations to “extort” Congress into passing legislation preferred by Trump.
“What the administration is doing is they’re using the grief, the tears, the pain of these kids as mortar to build their wall,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “It’s an effort to extort a bill to their liking in the Congress. It’s, I think, deeply unethical.”
First Lady Melania Trump also weighed in on the immigration controversy Sunday.
"Mrs. Trump hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform," her communications director, Stephanie Grisham, told CNN. "She believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart."
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