A Senate Democrat at the confirmation hearing for Chad Wolf, the nominee for the secretary of homeland security, questioned him on his role in the Trump administration’s implementation of the “zero tolerance” policy in 2018, which led to thousands of family separations at the border.
Sen. Jacky Rosen, a Nevada Democrat, revived the issue Wednesday during Wolf’s appearance before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and asked about an email he sent in December 2017, in which he forwarded a memo that outlined family separations as an option that the government could take to respond to increasing numbers of migrant families arriving at the southern border.
“Let’s talk about your memo. Here’s what it says for the No. 2 policy option. Again, I’m going to, quote, ‘Announce that DHS is considering separating family units, placing adults and adult detention, and placing the minors in custody of [Health and Human Services] as an unaccompanied alien as unaccompanied alien children, or UAC,’” Rosen said. “Those children you recommended classifying as UACs [children who arrived at the border without a related adult] were not actually unaccompanied, were they, Mr. Wolf?”
Wolf told Rosen his responsibility as then-Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s chief of staff was to bring options, including family separations, to the DHS leader so that she could select one or more to use in an effort to deter migrants from traveling to the border and illegally cross into the United States from Mexico.
Rosen faulted Wolf for being a part of Nielsen’s staff and said his forwarding memos and ideas between planners and decision-makers dirtied his hands.
“You were part of her team, and as her chief of staff, you have direct relationship and [a] responsibility,” said Rosen. “You were part of the series of memos that went on deciding to separate children and treat them as unaccompanied.”
“I had a responsibility to make sure that the secretary was fully staffed anytime we talked about immigration within the department,” Wolf rebutted.
Rosen asked if he stood by the policy.
Wolf said he supported Trump’s June 2018 decision to walk back the policy after it had been fully implemented nationwide for two months.
The policy mandated that all adults arrested for illegally crossing the border be referred to the Justice Department for prosecution. Because children cannot be held in jail through proceedings for health reasons or legal reasons under the Flores settlement agreement, the children were then transferred to HHS to then be placed with sponsors in the U.S.
