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Monday, Feb. 11, marks 200 days since a federal judge’s reunification deadline, but children stolen from families at the southern border continue to remain in U.S. custody. The Trump administration marked the anniversary by denying the existence of a policy that resulted in the children’s jailing in the first place. During his appearance before the House Judiciary Committee on Friday, acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker claimed that “there was no family separation policy,” earning a frustrated head-shake from Washington state Rep. Pramila Jayapal. “This has been given four Pinnochios multiple times,” she replied:
While it’s true that there is no DOJ document called “family separation policy,” there was a formal “zero tolerance” policy, which resulted in parents being prosecuted for illegal entry and their kids being taken away.
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) recently released an internal government memo indicating that officials were aware the zero-tolerance policy would result in families being separated.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, another prolific liar in the Trump administration, has also lied to Congress about state-sanctioned kidnapping at the border, claiming that “we’ve never had a policy for family separation.” But the memo obtained by Merkley’s office showed “high-level administration officials” plotting how to deter migrants at the border in 2017. “The second item on the list is a policy to ‘separate family units,’” The Washington Post reported. Whitaker and Nielsen can twist themselves into pretzels about the policy, but it doesn’t change the fact that tearing families apart was the goal. Misery was the goal. Cruelty was the goal.
House Democrats are starting their investigation into family separation as a recent government watchdog report found that officials weren’t tracking the families they were tearing apart at the border. “These parents were in your custody, your attorneys are prosecuting them, and your department was not tracking parents who were separated from their children,” Jayapal told Whitaker. “Do you know what kind of damage has been done to children and families across this country, children who will never get to see their parents again? Do you understand the magnitude of that?” He doesn’t. That would require a conscience.
Merkley has since called on the FBI to open a perjury investigation into Nielsen as this humanitarian disaster continues. According to the most recent court filing, six children are “not eligible” for release, while a much larger group of 87 kids continue in custody because the Trump administration claims that either they weren’t separated from parent, or the parent is a danger to the child or declined reunification. “Our country is still reeling from the horror of family separations that occurred at the border,” Jayapal later tweeted. “Matt Whitaker had the audacity to lie to me under oath and say there was no such thing as a child separation policy.”