Steve Bannon said Sunday that the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy doesn’t have to be justified.
“It’s zero tolerance. I don’t think you have to justify it,” the former chief strategist to President Trump said on ABC’s “This Week.” “We have a crisis on the Southern border but the elites in the city … want to manage situations to … bad outcomes. And Donald Trump is not going to do that, he’s just not going to kick the can down the road.”
[Also read: Trump administration could be holding 30,000 border kids by August, officials say]
Bannon said that Trump is simply enforcing he law.
“He went to a zero tolerance policy. Zero tolerance. It is a crime to come across illegally and children get separated. I mean, I hate to say it. That’s the law and he is enforcing the law,” he explained to Jon Karl.
Steve Bannon to @jonkarl on the Trump Administration’s policy of separating children from their parents illegally crossing the southern border: “I don’t think you have to justify it. We have a crisis on the southern border.” pic.twitter.com/wmn49YecgK
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) June 17, 2018
In April, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the new Justice Department policy: Migrants who cross the border illegally will be prosecuted. Sessions said that the process could lead to adults being separated from children, and the parents being prosecuted separately.
Bannon said that morality isn’t a factor.
“The morality is the law. They are criminals when they come across illegally,” he said.
The Trump administration separated 1,995 children from 1,940 adults from April 19 to May 31, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security said Friday — or roughly 46 children per day, over a six-week period.
Sessions defended the policy this week, which has been criticized by Republicans and Democrats alike.
“If you cross the southwest border unlawfully, then the Department of Homeland Security will arrest you and the Department of Justice will prosecute you. That is what the law calls for — and that is what we are going to do,” Sessions said to a law enforcement officers group Thursday.
Trump, meanwhile, has blamed Democrats in Congress for his own administration’s policy.
“I hate children being taken away,” he told reporters on the White House lawn Friday morning. “That’s the Democrats.”
