Senior Republicans on Monday warned President Trump that forcibly separating migrant children from their illegal-immigrant parents was a political loser that could cost the party control of Congress in the midterm elections.
Trump and top administration officials aren’t backing down, defending the zero tolerance splitting of families at the southern border to close a loophole that has allowed thousands of illegal immigrants to manipulate asylum laws to enter the U.S.
But top Republicans are decrying the policy as cruel and immoral, with GOP strategists ringing alarm bells about the steep political risks to the party’s standing in November — especially its precarious 24-seat majority — if it isn’t reversed quickly.
“The issue is terrible for House Republicans, President Trump, and the Republican Party as a whole. For many voters, including crucial swing voters from suburban areas, it reinforces the absolute worst perceptions,” a veteran Republican strategist with clients on the 2018 ballot said, requesting anonymity in order to criticize Trump.
This Republican insider is not a reflexive Trump critic and conceded that this issue could be long forgotten in just a few days, as is typical with controversies surrounding the president. But speaking to the Washington Examiner via email, this strategist said that, if not, the political fallout could be devastating.
“Compounding the problem is the incompetence of the Trump administration to have a clear policy when it comes to these children at the border, let alone an articulate one. The president blaming the Democrats rings hollow because WE ARE IN CHARGE,” the strategist said.
The Trump administration blamed the Republican-controlled Congress for the child separations. “Congress can fix this tomorrow,” Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told reporters at the White House late Monday. “If Congress closes the loopholes … then the families will stay together.”
Trump is not the first president to preside over the separation of families with small children that cross the Mexican border illegally.
But the Trump administration signaled months ago that it would ratchet up the policy as a deterrent against illegal immigration broadly. Rather than splitting migrant children from parents just in cases where they are subject to an outstanding criminal matter in the U.S., as under Trump’s predecessors, the policy is being applied to all illegal crossings, including some cases where parents with small children are requesting asylum.
Some Republicans are applauding the White House, dismissing the moral and political handwringing of their GOP colleagues. Illegal immigrants, they argue, are gaming existing asylum laws meant to protect the vulnerable. Nielsen said it has led to “functionally open borders” although she emphasized that families that seek asylum at legal points of entry are not being separated.
“I think most people will be very surprised at just how many Americans, especially voters in key swing states, agree with administration policy,” a Republican senator said. “Here’s the simple case we all need to make: Children cannot be a ‘get into the United States free’ card.”
Fresh public opinion polls suggest otherwise.
In a Quinnipiac University survey conducted over the weekend, 66 percent of voters opposed policies that lead to the splitting of illegal immigrant families. The numbers were similar in a weekend poll from CNN, with very few demographic blocs other than self-identified Republicans expressing support for Trump’s zero tolerance policy.
Republican consultants focused on the midterm elections worry this could poison the well with female voters in suburban battlegrounds that lean conservative, adding undo burden to the party’s uphill climb to hold the majority in the House and diminishing opportunities to pad the GOP’s 51-49 advantage in the Senate.
This cohort is inclined to vote for the GOP candidate but wavering because of lingering dissatisfaction with Trump. Of concern: Even as Trump’s approval ratings have reached the higher end of his average range, the generic ballot gauging which party voters would prefer be in charge of Congress has ticked back toward the Democrats.
“The GOP is not going to win on this issue and needs to back down and admit it was a mistake,” said a Republican operative based in the Midwest. “Millions of mothers around the country picture their own babies being ripped from them. That’s not a good place to be.”
Republicans acknowledge that Trump has a case to make as he defends a policy that he says is necessary to seal off the border from drugs, gangs, and human trafficking. But, concerned about losing the moral high ground as much as the political high ground, they are stressing the word “compassion” as the missing element in an approach that they say requires more prosecutorial discretion.
“Family separation is wicked,” Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., said in a Facebook post. “It is harmful to kids and absolutely should NOT be the default U.S. policy. Americans are better than this.”
Trump was scheduled to meet with House Republicans with a group Tuesday evening to chart a path forward on immigration.
The meeting was originally set to discuss new proposals to codify the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and protect Dreamers — children illegally brought to the U.S. as children through no fault of their own — from deportation. But Republicans now expect the discussion to be dominated by the administration’s zero tolerance separation policy.
There isn’t much confidence that the problem will be addressed.
Republicans have proven incapable of compromising among themselves on major immigration legislation; Democrats haven’t been that cooperative, either. Meanwhile, Trump has a habit of forging compromise agreements on immigration and other topics, only to abruptly change his mind, making Republicans hesitant to take the lead, as Nielsen claimed they must if they want to put an end to separations.
“It’s something we’re now going to have to address,” a House GOP leadership aide said. “We’re waiting to see what the president says.”
