Amongst the widespread outcry over the Trump administration’s policy of separating nippers from families that illegally cross into the U.S., Attorney Unrestricted Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen are not grant down.
The two Cabinet members defended the policy, which has seen less 2,000 children separated from their families since Sessions copied his “zero tolerance” directive in April, in speeches to the National Sheriffs’ Link Monday morning.
“We do not want to separate children from their procreators. We do not want adults to bring children into this country unlawfully, condition them at risk,” Sessions said, according to prepared remarks.
But, he supplemented, “We cannot and will not encourage people to bring their children by distributing them blanket immunity from our laws.”
Nielsen, who spoke in preference to Sessions, told the crowd, “We have to do our job. We will not apologize for doing our job. We sire sworn to do this job.”
Sessions authored an April 6 memorandum directing U.S. attorneys “to espouse a policy to prosecute all” such violations “to the extent practicable.” In the six weeks dig that order, 1,995 children had been separated from their patresfamilias, a Department of Homeland Security spokesman told news outlets on Friday.
Nielsen had tweeted down the weekend that her department does “not have a policy of separating dynasties at the border. Period.” The statement appeared to contradict not only the policy itself, but other Trump supplying officials who had discussed it.
White House immigration policy advisory Stephen Miller, for instance, recently told The New York Times: “It was a simple decision by the administration to be experiencing a zero tolerance policy for illegal entry, period. The message is that no one is exempt from immigration law.”
And in comment ons on Thursday, Sessions explained that “our policies that can result in short-term dividing line of families is not unusual or unjustified.”
At the National Sheriffs’ Association event on Monday, Nielsen touted the direction’s hard-line approach to prosecute all immigrants who illegally enter the U.S.
“This government has a simple message: If you cross the border illegally, we will prosecute you. If you add up to a false immigration claim, we will prosecute you. If you smuggle illegal foreigners across an extraordinarily dangerous journey, we will prosecute you,” she said.
President Donald Trump reverberated that pugnacious tone in remarks at the White House later on Monday. After again reprimanding Democrats for the policy itself, Trump vowed that “the United States intention not be a migrant camp … not on my watch.”
In her remarks, however, Nielsen assisted immigrants to seek asylum through the proper channels. “If you are seeking asylum, go to a seaport of entry,” she said.