White House chief of staff John Kelly defended the Trump administration’s decision to impose a zero-tolerance border policy that calls for the prosecution of illegal immigrants, even if doing so temporarily splits up their families.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions said this week that the government was adopting a zero tolerance approach to the policy enacted in 2008 that calls for the prosecution of illegal immigrants, which can lead to decisions to hold their children in detention centers in the meantime. But when asked if this policy is “cruel and heartless,” Kelly rejected that and said the children would be taken care of.
How John Kelly responded when NPR asked if it was “cruel and heartless” to take a mother away from her children: “I wouldn’t put it quite that way. The children will be taken care of — put into foster care or whatever.” https://t.co/YKpcqn27sh pic.twitter.com/I3gvEbfaa4
— Christopher Ingraham (@_cingraham) May 11, 2018
“I wouldn’t put it quite that way,” Kelly told NPR in an interview set to air Saturday when asked if the policy was too harsh. “The children will be taken care of — put into foster care or whatever.”
Kelly stressed that the point of the zero-tolerance policy is to warn illegal immigrants not to put their kids at risk of being separated from their parents are guardians while they are being processed in the U.S.
“[T]he big point is they elected to come illegally into the United States and this is a technique that no one hopes will be used extensively or for very long,” he said.
Sessions himself warned potential illegal immigrants not to risk making the trip with minors.
“If you’re smuggling a child, we’re going to prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you, probably, as required by law,” Sessions said. “If you don’t want your child to be separated, then don’t bring them across the border illegally.”
