President Trump reversed course Wednesday after a week of growing backlash to his zero tolerance policy that prompted family separations along the border, but Democrats weren’t appeased, vowing to continue their blitz.
“It sounds like they’re planning a handcuffs-for-all strategy, where children will be locked up along with their parents,” Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., said on a call with reporters shortly before the White House released the executive order. “If that is the case, that has already been thrown out of the legally permitted activities before under the Flores consent agreement because that is harmful to children.”
“So the question is: Is the administration going to continue a strategy that’s harmful to children going from a strategy of family separation to a strategy of ‘handcuffs for all.’ I’m very concerned about that,” Merkley added.
Democrats have held six press conferences, counting ones along the border, visited roughly five detention facilities, and held one demonstration outside a House GOP meeting with Trump. Another press conference on the health effects of child separations is set for Thursday morning, followed by a House shadow hearing on the impact of the family separation crisis.
“First, he came for the Dreamers, and then on May 1st with the zero tolerance policy he came for the children,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. “Is throwing kids in indefinite detention what we want to do as a nation?”
As Trump held a political rally in Duluth, Minnesota, more than a dozen Senate Democrats went to the floor to protest the president’s zero tolerance policy and the new executive order.
“Now we’re going to go from babies in cages to babies with their mommies in cages,” said Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif. “Let’s be clear about the effect of this executive order: millions more taxpayer dollars will be used to expand detention camps.”
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., told the story of Marco Antonio Munoz, 39, who committed suicide in his detention cell after being separated from his wife and 3-year-old son, unsure when or if he’d be reunited with them.
“So as we try to reassemble 2,300 families that this administration has spread to the winds, there will be at least one 3-year old boy who will not be able to reunite with his father,” said Kaine. “I ask this president, I ask the attorney general, I ask the secretary of Homeland Security, was it worth it? Was it worth it?”
Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., expressed concerned about the impact of the trauma on the detained children and American children watching the saga unfold across the country.
“‘Why are they doing this, Tata?’” Grijalva’s 11-year-old granddaughter recently asked him.
“We’re making the move from family separation — which the administration had to take back and admit it was their policy and they had to take control over it — to family incarceration which doesn’t solve the problem,” Grijalva said.
Trump signed an executive order Wednesday, directing the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Patrol to stop separating children from their families when the parents are prosecuted for illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. The action came after Trump and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said the president could not stop the separations and that Congress would have to act.
Democrats still don’t think the move goes far enough because Trump’s new zero tolerance policy directed U.S. border officials to prosecute all adults crossing illegally into the country. When an adult is charged, their children are separated from them. The new executive order will simply stop the separation and instead detain children with their parents.
The family separation may also only be delayed due to a 20-day deadline for holding children mandated by the 1997 court settlement known as the Flores agreement and a subsequent 2015 court order. The Trump administration is seeking a modification of the settlement.
Health and Human Services has said no special action will be taken to immediately reunite separated children with their parents. “There will not be a grandfathering of existing cases,” said Kenneth Wolfe, spokesman for the Administration for Children and Families, according to the New York Times.
Merkley, who organized the Senate speeches Wednesday night and led a delegation to the border earlier this week, promised that Democrats will not relent. “The fight must continue, the pressure must continue,” Merkley said.
Democrats have succeeded in presenting a united front from progressives to centrists, and they’re confident the momentum remains on their side.
“Make no mistake — Trump is intentionally sowing this chaos to exacerbate his own base, and this is a moment for all of us to lean into active protests, service, calls, and, of course, voting in the midterm elections,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. “We need to make sure that the good guys win on this, and that’s what a lot of action in the next couple days will be aimed at.”
