Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the Trump administration “never really intended” to separate families as part of the administration’s zero tolerance policy to prosecute all illegal immigrants.
The Christian Broadcasting Network’s White House correspondent David Brody pressed Sessions in an interview published Thursday by saying the “optics” of the policy have not been “good for the administration.”
“It hasn’t been good,” Sessions said in response. “And the American people don’t like the idea that we’re separating families. We never really intended to do that. What we intended to was to make sure that adults who bring children into the country are charged with the crime they’ve committed instead of giving that special group of adults immunity from prosecution.”
Last week, Sessions pointed to a biblical passage to defend the policy.
“Illegal entry into the United States is a crime — as it should be. Persons who violate the law of our nation are subject to prosecution. 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 them for the purpose of order,” Sessions said last Thursday.
The Department of Homeland Security recently confirmed that thousands of minors attempting to enter the country between the ports of entry were separated from accompanying adults after the Trump administration’s zero tolerance immigration policy took effect.
Minors who were split from their families as a result of the zero tolerance policy will be housed by the Department of Health and Human Services.
Although Trump previously claimed a 2016 court decision demanded either families be separated or the government ignore immigration law, he signed an executive order Wednesday to prevent the zero tolerance policy from splitting up families.
“We’re going to have strong — very strong — borders, but we are going to keep the families together,” Trump said Wednesday. “I didn’t like the sight or the feeling of families being separated.”
[Also read: Melania encouraged Trump to stop family separations at the border]
The Department of Homeland Security announced Thursday that it will start keeping verified family units together, but said that those that have already been split will not be reunited until the adult’s legal case has finished.
