As images and audio of crying, terrified children torn from their parents fill the news, Ivanka Trump is concerned. Sure, she’s not speaking publicly about it even as she’s been tweeting away about affordable childcare and paid family leave and posting a Father’s Day picture on Instagram, but she has totally talked to Daddy and, uh, “offered the president her support and she said she would talk to any member of Congress to help find a legislative solution to the issue,” according to White House spokesweasel Hogan Gidley.
In other words, Ivanka will try to help Donald put a pretty, polite face on his lie that this isn’t a policy he started on his own that he can end himself—which it is—and instead insisting it’s a legislative issue, which is to say an excuse for congressional Republicans to use these kids as hostages to get other anti-immigrant laws passed while not actually ending family separation. But wait, it gets better!
During a meeting with House Republicans on Tuesday, the president “mentioned that his daughter Ivanka had encouraged him to end this, and he said he does recognize that it needs to end and the images are painful and he’s looking for a legislative solution,” Rep. Carlos Curbelo, (R-Fla) said. “He discussed the optics and the policy itself, and I think he’s not comfortable with either.”
If he’s not comfortable with the policy, he can end it right now. Family separation is a Donald Trump policy that is being justified by another Donald Trump policy, of prosecuting asylum seekers (for a misdemeanor). Any Republican who goes around talking about a legislative fix as if it’s the only possible answer to this evil policy is a Republican who is participating in Trump’s lies about what he’s doing, trying to use these kids as hostages to get funding for Trump’s precious wall rather than just ending this cruelty—be that Republican Ivanka Trump or the very vulnerable Carlos Curbelo.
Let's not wait for Ivanka Trump to (pretend to) fix things. Can you give $3 to the organizations fighting to protect migrant children and their families?