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The Republican-led Congress has failed to hold any Trump officials’ feet to the fire over the ongoing family separation crisis, but expect this to change within the coming months. “House Democrats are ready to unleash the full force of their oversight powers on the Trump administration,” CNN reports, with soon-to-be Democratic-led committees “prepared to force Cabinet secretaries to testify, request President Donald Trump's tax returns and scrutinize some of the Trump's most controversial policy decisions.”
That includes a probe of the barbaric “zero tolerance” policy that led to the state-sanctioned kidnapping of 2,500 children from the arms of parents at the southern border. For months, Democrats, including Congressman Jerry Nadler of the House Judiciary Committee, have demanded that officials hand over crucial documents regarding this crisis, including an unredacted copy of the internal memo Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen most assuredly signed authorizing this policy.
”On June 17th, you tweeted, ‘We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period,’” Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California and Nadler wrote in their Oct. 11 letter to Nielsen. “However, it has come to our attention that there was an internal memo on April 23rd recommending the implementation of a family separation policy that went to your office.”
So far, DHS has refused to hand over the unredacted memo, making Tuesday night’s electoral victory “the moment Democrats have been waiting for,” according to CNN.
Nadler, the ranking Democrat from the House committee, is expected to become its chair and will have newfound investigative powers that could finally yield answers. "This election was about accountability," he said. “Donald Trump may not like hearing it, but for the first time, his administration is going to be held accountable." This couldn’t come any sooner, because family separation remains a crisis.
There are still dozens of children who remain separated from their parents, according to the most recently available numbers from the administration, including 33 children whose parents have already been deported. Meanwhile, facilities contracted by the Trump administration to detain migrant children have been forced to give up their licenses for failing to properly vet their employees. Sounds familiar.