Trump: Ending Family Separation ‘A Disaster’

What’s the story?

• President Donald Trump said in an interview Sunday that ending the policy of separating children from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border has been “a disaster” that led to a surge in unauthorized immigration.

“Now you don’t get separated, and while that sounds nice and all, what happens is you have literally you have ten times as many families coming up because they’re not going to be separated from their children,” Trump told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, who was at the border. “It’s a disaster.”

• “When they used to separate children, which was done during the Obama administration, with Bush, with us, with everybody, far fewer people would come,” Trump said. “And we’ve been on a humane basis, it was pretty bad — we go out and we stop the separations. The problem is you have ten times as many people coming up with their families. It’s like Disneyland now.”
• The practice was done on a limited scale under previous administrations, mostly when federal agents had concerns about the safety of the children while in their parents’ care. The Trump administration was the first to initiate separations on a mass scale as part of its “zero tolerance” policy, which separated more than 2,700 children from their parents.
• Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said last month that the U.S. immigration enforcement system along the Mexican border is at “the breaking point.” On two separate days in March, federal agents apprehended more than 4,000 unauthorized immigrants crossing the border—the highest daily total recorded in 15 years.
• Trump blamed the surge in immigrants at the border on “the combination of having a great economy and having the weakest immigration laws anywhere in the world by far.”

What do you think?

Was ending the family separation policy a “disaster”? Should the U.S. consider reinstating its “zero tolerance” policy? Take action and tell your reps, then share your thoughts below.

—Josh Herman

(Photo Courtesy Customs and Border Patrol)