The Trump administration’s policy of breaking up illegal immigrant families is either very good or very terrible, depending on who is doing the talking.
If you ask Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the most anti-liberty voice in this cabinet, the new policy of prosecuting everyone suspected of crossing the border illegally is both necessary and common sense. That the policy, which he enthusiastically supports, also calls for the separation children from their parents is just how it goes.
“We don’t want to do this at all. If people don’t want to be separated from their children, they should not bring them with them,” the attorney general said Tuesday during an interview with talk radio host Hugh Hewitt. “We’ve got to get this message out. You’re not given immunity. You have to, you will be prosecuted if you bring, if you come illegally. And if you bring children, you’ll still be prosecuted.”
He added, “It’s not, it’s certainly not our goal to separate children, but I do think it’s clear, it’s legitimate to warn people who come to the country unlawfully bringing children with them that they can’t expect that they’ll always be kept together.”
An estimated 650 children were separated from the parents at the border in May during a single two-week period, NBC News reported, citing U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials.
Pressed further by Hewitt to explain the purpose of the separation policy, Sessions responded, “[T]he United States can’t be a total guarantor that every parent who comes to the country unlawfully with a child is guaranteed that they won’t be, is guaranteed that they will be able to have their hand on that child the entire time. That’s just not the way it works.”
One can’t stress enough that the attorney general supports the new round-them-up-all-up policy. Recall the press conference he gave in early May, when he said said: “If you cross this border unlawfully, then we will prosecute you. It’s that simple. If you smuggle illegal aliens across our border, then we will prosecute you. If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you as required by law.”
But if you ask Sessions’ boss, President Trump, what he thinks about the separation policy, the tone is decidedly less enthusiastic. In fact, from following the president’s Twitter feed, one comes away thinking he believes the policy of separating illegal immigrant parents from their children is a bad one, and that Democrats are to blame for it.
“Separating families at the Border is the fault of bad legislation passed by the Democrats. Border Security laws should be changed but the Dems can’t get their act together! Started the Wall,” the president tweeted on June 5.
Earlier, on May 26, Trump tweeted, “Put pressure on the Democrats to end the horrible law that separates children from there parents once they cross the Border into the U.S. Catch and Release, Lottery and Chain must also go with it and we MUST continue building the WALL!”
The problem here is that there is no law demanding that immigration enforcement agents separate the parents from the children. It’s part of a new, Trump-era policy, which Sessions is very much in support of.
Look, I don’t like telling people how to do their jobs, but it seems like the president and his attorney general ought get on the same page on this one. Is the policy of breaking up families a necessary and lawful enforcement mechanism, or is it a terrible Democratic holdover in desperate need of revision?
