Trump Administration Has No Idea Whether It Backs Family Separation at the Border

President Trump blames it on the Democrats. Stephen Miller says it was a ‘simple decision.’ Kirstjen Nielsen says the policy doesn’t exist—‘period.’ So which is it?

SCOTT BIXBY
06.17.18 9:09 PM ET

The United States has no policy of separating migrant families at the border. There is such a policy, but it’s all the Democrats’ fault. The policy was a “simple decision,” but one “nobody likes.” The policy is good, legal, and Jesus would approve.

The Trump administration, confronted with increasing public criticism over its immensely unpopular policy of separating migrant children from their families when they cross the U.S. border, has responded to the crisis by taking taking wildly different positions on both the policy itself and the motivation behind it.

Ranging from full-throated endorsement of the decision to separate minor children from their asylum-seeking parents to flat insistence that the decision doesn’t exist, “period,” the public-relations pileup is just a facet of the botched rollout of a policy that separated nearly 2,000 children from their families in its first six weeks.

For nearly a week, President Donald Trump has pointed to congressional Democrats as the root behind his administration’s policy. “I hate the children being taken away,” Trump told reporters on the White House lawn on Friday. “The Democrats have to change their law—that’s their law.”

The president reiterated that (incorrect) statement with a Saturday morning tweet: “Democrats can fix their forced family breakup at the Border by working with Republicans on new legislation, for a change!”

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