White House spokesman Hogan Gidley accused Democrats on Monday of staking out a position on immigration that says the only acceptable policy for handling illegal immigrants is to let them in the country.
“Democrats are saying you can’t deport them, you can’t detain them, you can’t prosecute them,” he said on Fox News. “The only thing you can do for a Democrat is to release them into the interior without any ramification for what they’ve done by breaking our laws.”
“It’s absolutely incredible,” he said.
Democrats have been demanding a change to President Trump’s push for a zero tolerance policy at the border, which has led to the separation of some illegal immigrant adults from their children. The White House has said it supports a change to ease this policy, but says current law requires family separation, since minors can only be held in detention for a short period of time.
Gidley said Trump is opposed to the current practice, and said it’s the Democrats’ fault for not cooperating with Trump and the Republicans to compromise on this.
“He doesn’t like this, but he also understands this is the law of the land,” Gidley said. “You have to enforce these laws.”
Gidley added that Democrats continue to side with non-citizens, even as U.S. citizens are paying for the rising costs of illegal immigration, and are the victims of illegal immigrant crime.
“The Democrats decided to stand with people who are here illegally and unlawfully by the hundreds of thousands, as opposed to hundreds of millions of American citizens,” he said.
[Also read: Trump administration could be holding 30,000 border kids by August, officials say]
