The Trump administration isn’t going to meet a judge’s deadline for reuniting children and parents it forcibly separated, but Donald Trump isn’t any more worried than he is truthful. Asked about the missed deadline by his press pool, Trump said:
Well, I have a solution. Tell people not to come to our country illegally. That's the solution. Don't come to our country illegally. Come like other people do. Come legally.
Family separation is not and has not been about what’s legal. Here’s how we know that:
1) Trump said this while border agents are violating U.S. law by turning away asylum seekers at ports of entry. Some asylum seekers have responded by crossing the border illegally—a misdemeanor—and immediately turning themselves in to agents to ask for asylum … at which point their children have been taken from them.
2) Other families have been separated after asking for asylum at ports of entry—which is absolutely legal.
3) For that matter, if Trump cared so much about what’s legal, he might just care that he was being asked about his administration’s failure to meet a court-ordered deadline for family reunification.
The Trump administration has taken people’s kids away when they followed the law 100 percent, and it has taken their kids away when the illegal actions of government agents pushed the parents to commit a misdemeanor in the effort to legally request asylum. Donald Trump does not care about the rule of law. He cares about scaring immigrants—the brown ones, anyway—away from coming to the United States, he cares about harming those who dare come, and he cares about dividing and frightening American voters.