FACT CHECK: Trump, again, falsely claims that his own administration's family separation policy started under Obama
The Trump administration’s immigration policy, already in flux after the ousting of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen over the weekend, was thrown into further confusion Tuesday when the president denied he intended to reinstitute large-scale separations of parents and children at the border.
“Now I’ll tell you something, once you don’t have it, that’s why you have many more people coming,” Trump said, referring to family separations. “They are coming like it’s a picnic, like ‘let’s go to Disneyland.’ President Obama separated children. I was the one who that changed it.” Nielsen’s resignation came just days after Trump unexpectedly withdrew his nomination of Ronald Vitiello, the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to become the agency’s permanent head, expressing his desire to go “in a tougher direction.”
For the past several months at least, White House and DHS officials have repeatedly called for Congress to change existing federal laws and seek to reverse court rulings that prohibit actions such as turning away asylum seekers at the border, forcibly separating young children from their parents or detaining immigrant children for more than 20 days in an unlicensed childcare facility.
At the time, Nielsen denied that a family separation policy was in effect, even while overseeing its implementation as a direct and deliberate outcome of zero tolerance, and as a result has been portrayed by immigration advocates as the face of the administration’s inhumane policies. “The disappointing aspect regarding Nielsen was how she completely submitted to every pronouncement Trump made, no matter how remote it might have been from a practical policy reasonably calculated to make a positive difference,” said Bersin. “That is the essence of kowtowing, and it served neither her nor the country well.”
"The more interesting question in mind,” Bersin said, “is to see how far [acting] Secretary McAleenan is willing to go to implement a policy that’s based on a political slogan rather than an operational reality.” On Monday, one day after Nielsen’s resignation, a federal judge in San Francisco blocked implementation of Nielsen’s signature policy. The government has until Friday to appeal his ruling.
Roybal-Allard, who serves as chairwoman of the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, also criticized the White House’s shakeups at DHS, asserting that “Donald Trump and Stephen Miller are creating massive gaps in our Homeland Security leadership.”
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