‘We Will Not Apologize’ — Homeland Security Secretary Defends Family-Separation Policy National Review, Jun 18, 2018, Jack Crowe
Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen defended the Trump administration’s highly contentious “zero tolerance†immigration-enforcement policy Monday as the inevitable result of congressional inaction on immigration.
“We will not apologize for the job we do or for the job law enforcement does, for doing the job that the American people expect us to do,†Nielsen said during her Monday address to National Sheriffs’ Association in New Orleans. “Illegal actions have and must have consequences. No more free passes, no more get-out-of-jail-free cards.â€
Nielsen went on to decry inaccurate media portrayals of the Trump administration’s enforcement policy, which requires the detention and prosecution of all individuals caught crossing the border illegally. The policy has resulted in the separation of roughly 2,000 children from their parents, who are in detention awaiting trial.
The separations have been attacked as immoral by congressional Democrats and a handful of Republicans, who advocate a return to the previous policy of releasing individuals awaiting trial for trying to immigrate illegally with their children. But Nielsen placed blame for family separations squarely on lawmakers, citing legislative inaction on immigration reform as the central obstacle to changing the system. She also suggested that previous administrations are partly to blame for incentivizing child trafficking by providing “free passes†to adults who try to cross the border with children.
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