WASHINGTON — Facing bipartisan pushback, President Donald Trump said Tuesday he’s not looking to revive the much-criticized practice of separating migrant children from their families at the southern border. At the same time, he suggested the policy had worked to deter migrants from coming into the U.S.
Last summer the administration had separated more than 2,500 children from their families before international outrage forced Trump to halt the practice and a judge ordered them reunited.
“We’re not looking to do that,” Trump told reporters before meeting with Egypt’s president at the White House. But he also noted: “Once you don’t have it, that’s why you see many more people coming. They’re coming like it’s a picnic, because let’s go to Disneyland.”
Immigration experts say Trump’s policies and practices were causing chaos on the border and contributing to the surge of migrant families from Central America.
Trump declared that he was “the one that stopped it” and said his predecessor, President Barack Obama, was the one who had separated children from their families.
At hearings across Capitol Hill, lawmakers grilled administration officials on whether the practice would resurface despite last year’s outrage and evidence that separations were likely to cause lasting psychological effects on the children. People familiar with immigration discussion said it was just a suggestion, one of many that Trump and his aides were eyeing to tackle the problem of an ever-growing number of Central American families crossing into the U.S. The people were not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
President Donald Trump says he’s not looking to reinstate the much-criticized practice of separating migrant families at the border with Mexico.
The administration is allowed to separate children under certain circumstances including the health and welfare of the child and a parent’s criminal history; this is why children were separated under Obama.
The possible reinstatement of large scale family separations was just one aspect of the upheaval evident at the Department of Homeland Security this week following the resignation of Kirstjen Nielsen. More leaders were likely to depart the agency in a shakeup orchestrated by the White House to address Trump’s inability to stem border crossings.
Trump, for his part, insisted he was not “cleaning house” at the agency despite a number of staff changes. He said his choice to be the department’s new acting director, Kevin McAleenan, would do a “fantastic job,” adding: “We’re not doing anything very big as far as what we need: homeland security, that’s exactly what we want.”
Top Republicans in Congress expressed concern over vacancies at Homeland Security and cautioned Trump about more churn after the resignation of Nielsen.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said Tuesday that having participated in creating the department more than a decade ago, she knows “these are vital positions.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, made both a public and private plea to the White House not to dismiss career homeland security officials. He said he spoke to acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney but would only know if Trump heard the message “if they don’t get fired.”
At a Senate Homeland Security Committee meeting on border issues, child welfare and border officials warned there wasn’t room or capability to start separating children on a large scale again.
Children who cross the border alone are cared for by the Department of Health and Human Services, and most of the children are teenagers. But last summer, HHS started receiving babies and toddlers, and there was not enough space to house them, said Jonathan White, the career civil servant tasked by Health and Human Services with helping to reunify children.
“It also bears repeating, separating children from their parents entails significant risk of psychological harm. That is an undisputed scientific fact,” White told senators. “We have made improvements to our tracking, but we do not have the capacity to receive that number of children, nor do we have any system that can manage the mass trauma.”
Both Republican and Democratic leaders deplored the idea of separating families and were concerned about the shakeup at the department.
“I hope members of the administration are actually listening,” said Sen. Ron Johnson, R- Wis., the committee chairman.
While Trump disputed any upheaval at Homeland Security, his outside allies launched a public campaign urging him to nominate former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach to replace Nielsen. Kobach would almost certainly face an uphill battle to be confirmed by the Senate.
In an appearance on Fox News Channel on Monday night that felt like an audition, Kobach called DHS the “biggest impediment” to the president’s policies. He said that since Trump took office, leadership at the agency “has been unwilling to execute many of the president’s plans.”
“There has been deliberate foot-dragging, and I think that’s why you’re seeing the White House take the necessary steps to clean house at DHS and put people in, hopefully, who will quickly execute what the president orders,” he said.
NumbersUSA, a group that seeks to reduce immigration rates, released a statement Tuesday saying there is “no one more qualified” for the job and claiming Kobach had the support of Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.
A second conservative group pushed former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli for the job.
Both men’s names also have been tossed about for a possible immigration czar who would coordinate immigration policy across various federal agencies.
Concerned legislators were also rallying Tuesday to defend Lee Francis Cissna, the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, whose job was said to be in danger.
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