Department of Homeland Security Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen is still lying about the administration’s manufactured crisis of non-existent terrorists at the southern border, but wouldn’t give details on some of her claims, tweeting that “the exact number is sensitive and details about these cases are extremely sensitive.” Bullshit, considering her boss is perfectly willing to tweet away information that’s usually classified.
Nielsen is a serial liar, and, perhaps out of fear that she was pretty close to losing her job, has only made her claims more disgusting. For all her lies, there is a faint truth in one of her statements, and that’s that we’re in the midst of an immigration crisis—but it’s not the kind she’s talking about. It’s an immigration crisis she helped create by stealing children from families at the border—and it’s a crisis that continues.
Nielsen and the administration have been under court order to reunite these children with their families, but 166 days past that federal judge’s deadline, children are still in U.S. custody. Nielsen and the administration are also under court order to stop family separation at the border, but agents on the ground have been abusing a loophole in that order and have separated dozens more families since the order through false claims of gang affiliations.
One dad, Julio, was separated from his four-year-old son Brayan after officials falsely claimed the asylum seeker, who was fleeing gang violence, was himself a gang member. Officials refused to provided any evidence of Julio’s supposed gang affiliation to the New York agency that held the child for weeks, and, astoundingly, to a judge. Father and son were finally reunited late last year. “I still don’t understand why they did this to us,” Julio said. “I guess they can do whatever they want.”
Nielsen is and has always been square in the middle of the barbaric “zero tolerance” policy that resulted in the state-sanctioned kidnapping of thousands of other vulnerable children, many from asylum seekers like Julio. Sure, it was the brainchild of follicly challenged White House aide Stephen Miller, but it was her signature that authorized it. Then she lied about it, repeatedly. She’s still lying.
The loyal foot soldier that she is, Nielsen is now drumming up a fake crisis for her boss while ignoring the real one she lets continue. Now that she’s been compelled by the House Homeland Security Committee to testify, we’re closer to accountability, though true accountability would be the same punishment she’s subjected innocent children to for months now. No matter if she’s still in her job for one more day or six more months, this stain should stay with her wherever she goes.