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Department of Homeland Security Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen is a damned liar, part 1,300,221: During an interview with a Fox News personality and favorite of white supremacists on Tuesday, she doubled down on a claim that her department has broken up “child recycling rings,” where smugglers allegedly place kidnapped children with “fake” families to aid in crossing the southern border.
“We’ve broken up so-called ‘child recycling rings,’ if you can believe it, in the last couple months,” Nielsen told Tucker Carlson, “where smugglers kidnap a child, they give it to an adult to cross the border, present themselves as a family. Once they get in—because as you know we can’t hold families for 20 days—they send the child back, and bring the child back with another family, another fake family.” Carlson replied, “Right.”
But Nielsen provided no evidence to back up this claim when she made it before a House Homeland Security Committee hearing last month, and she’s provided no evidence again this time. “DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokespersons did not provide any specific instances where such activity took place,” Buzzfeed reported at the time.
Nielsen is also lying when she says ICE can’t jail vulnerable migrant families for more than 20 days. That time limit was set by a court agreement, but a recent complaint states that the agency has been jailing kids and their families for weeks on end. One boy detained for more than 40 days “used to be a very active and friendly boy,” his dad said, but has become “depressed.” But the lies from Nielsen didn’t stop there.
“When Carlson inquired about the number of people living illegally in the U.S., suggesting it could be as high as 22 million, Nielsen admitted the department did not have a clear picture,” Newsweek reported. “We don’t know, and part of that is because we do not have the wall that the president continues to advocate for,” she said. “We cannot in every circumstance tell you who is crossing the border.”
Lies, lies, and more lies. “Her own agency, which she is in charge of and can get information from, says there are 12.5 million,” tweeted Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council. “Pew says 10.8 million and other sources are within that range. She should know better." But if she did, she wouldn’t be working in this administration.
