The secretary of the Department of Homeland Security complained last week in Nogales that there鈥檚 a disinformation campaign going on about the administration鈥檚 immigration policies.
Boy, was she right.
Kirstjen Nielsen was talking about the bad press that the Trump administration has received for separating migrant children from parents after they鈥檝e crossed the border illegally or requested asylum.
Her complaint: 鈥淚t鈥檚 a misinformation campaign being waged by those who either harbor an unfounded distrust of CBP and ICE officers, or who just don鈥檛 want to see us secure our borders. But our border is in crisis. It鈥檚 being exploited by criminals, by smugglers and by thousands of people who have no respect for our laws.鈥
What the administration is really doing is imposing a policy of prosecuting everyone, she explained. Separating children from parents, as she explained it, is just a side effect of that zero-tolerance approach.
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鈥淚f you come here illegally you鈥檝e broken the law,鈥 she said. 鈥淲hether you鈥檙e single, whether you have a family, whether you鈥檙e a smuggler, whether you鈥檙e a trafficker, you鈥檝e broken the law. So, we鈥檙e prosecuting.
鈥淚f as a result of that, if you鈥檝e crossed illegally with your family, we take the parents, and we detain them, and refer them for prosecution. The children are then, under current court cases and law, transferred over to the Department of Health and Human Services.鈥
What you鈥檝e just read is, in fact, a disinformation campaign 鈥 by Nielsen, not by the press 鈥 intended to justify the administration鈥檚 freely chosen policy of family separation.
How do I know? Her predecessor at DHS and her mentor, John Kelly, has spoken about separating children from parents as a policy to discourage further crossings for more than a year. In other words, the separation of children from parents was not an unfortunate side effect of a new prosecution policy, but a policy goal in itself, intended to deter illegal crossers and asylum seekers.
On March 6, 2017, CNN鈥檚 Wolf Blitzer : 鈥淚f you get some young kids who manage to sneak into the United States, are Department of Homeland Security personnel going to separate the children from their moms and dads?鈥
Kelly replied: 鈥淲e have tremendous experience in dealing with unaccompanied minors. We turn them over to HHS (the Department of Health and Human Services), and they do a very, very good job of either putting them in foster care or linking them up with family members in the United States. Yes, I am considering, in order to deter more movement along this terribly dangerous network, I am considering exactly that. They will be well-cared for as we deal with their parents.鈥
It鈥檚 not a bad goal 鈥 deterring people from making the dangerous journey across Central America and Mexico is both self-interested and humane. The chosen method of deterrence is the problem. Deportation sends a signal of deterrence, without the added cruelty of separating kids from parents.
Without being announced, the family separation policy appeared to take some preliminary effect in the last year, separating asylum-seeking parents as well as illegal border-crossers from their children. In February, the ACLU filed suit on behalf of an asylum-seeking mother from Congo who had been separated from her daughter for four months as the government processed her claim. The New York Times in April that since October, more than 700 children had been separated from 鈥渁dults claiming to be their parents鈥 since October, 100 of them under 4 years old.
The policy took full effect with an of a 鈥渮ero tolerance鈥 policy by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Everyone caught crossing the border illegally would be prosecuted, even though that means separating parents from their children, who cannot legally be held in federal criminal detention facilities.
鈥淚f you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you and that child may be separated from you as required by law,鈥 Sessions said.
This was the way the administration had decided, between March 2017 and April 2018, to sell their family-separation policy: As a side-effect, not a policy goal itself.
But it is a policy choice, a cruel and unnecessary one. There are just 2,700 beds for families in the immigration detention system, a Justice Department attorney noted on the ACLU suit. The ACLU attorney said even those beds have not been filled. And if capacity were a problem, the government could have spent the year since Kelly floated the idea of family separation building more capacity to hold families together.
But the administration chose not to pursue other options. And as the policy took effect, news reporting ensued, such as a by my colleagues Curt Prendergast and Perla Trevizo, that revealed inhumane results.
Now, widespread blowback has occurred. It was strong enough that on May 26, President Trump attempted to deflect blame, tweeting: 鈥淧ut pressure on the Democrats to end the horrible law that separates children from there parents once they cross the Border into the U.S.鈥 Yes, he tweeted 鈥渢here鈥 not 鈥渢heir鈥 鈥 misspellings seem to be a deliberate communications strategy of his. And yes, he blamed the Democrats for his own policy.
Nielsen also tried to paint criticism of the family-separation policy as an attack on agents.
鈥淚n the last couple of weeks there has been a massive dishonest information campaign,鈥 she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 being waged against the men and women of DHS.鈥
But that鈥檚 not true. The protest is against the administration鈥檚 cruel policy choice of separating children from parents that was enunciated soon after Trump took office. Nielsen is just using the employees carrying out the policy as human shields for herself and the president.
The energy put toward the policy and the disinformation campaign defending it would be better put toward building a new alternative that keeps kids with their parents while also ensuring they鈥檙e not released into the country.
