Trump tweeted this morning blaming Democrats for the inhumane separation of children from their parents at the border
Is there any truth to this?
No.
Factcheck.org looked into this for us
Since at least the administration of George W. Bush, a Republican president, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has held many parents and children who crossed the border seeking asylum in family detention centers. Those families have been kept together until they go before an immigration judge or are formally removed from the U.S.
So, to what Democratic law is Trump referring?
A White House spokesman referred us to a DHS statement regarding a 1997 legal settlement and 2008 antitrafficking law affecting minors who are apprehended without a parent present:
- Under the 1997 settlement, DHS could detain unaccompanied children captured at the border for only 20 days before releasing them to foster families, shelters or sponsors, pending resolution of their immigration cases. The settlement was later expanded through other court rulings to include both unaccompanied and accompanied children.
- The William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 requires unaccompanied minors from countries other than Mexico and Canada to be placed in the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, or relatives in the U.S., while they go through removal proceedings. The bipartisan bill was approved by unanimous consent and signed by Bush
But neither the court settlement nor the 2008 law require the Trump administration to “break up families.”
So, no surprise, this is simply not true. They aren’t being forced to do this inhumane act by a law Democrats wrote. They are doing it because they don’t mind being cruel in their goal of keeping immigrants out of American. And we know this because they TOLD us they were using this policy as a deterrent. Here is Kelly to NPR:
In an NPR interview earlier this month, White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly was asked if using family separation as a “tough deterrent” to keep families from attempting to illegally immigrate into the United States was “cruel and heartless.”
“I wouldn't put it quite that way. The children will be taken care of — put into foster care or whatever,” he said. “But the big point is they elected to come illegally into the United States, and this is a technique that no one hopes will be used extensively or for very long.”
The truth matters.