The White House and Department of Homeland Security on Friday blasted MSNBC host Joe Scarborough for comparing U.S. border officials to Nazis.
“It is appalling that Joe Scarborough would compare sworn federal law enforcement officers — who put their lives on the line every day to keep American people safe — to Nazis,” White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said. “This is the type of inflammatory and unacceptable rhetoric that puts a target on the backs of our great law enforcement.”
On Friday’s episode of “Morning Joe,” Scarborough said border agents who are separating illegal immigrant parents from their children are like Nazis separating families during the Holocaust.
“So why is she lying this much?” Scarborough said of White House press secretary Sarah Sanders. “I know children are being ripped from their mother’s arms, even while they’re being breast-fed. I know children are being marched away to showers, marched away to showers.”
“Just like the Nazis said that they were taking people to the showers, and then they never came back. You think they would use another trick like, ‘Hey, got a Slurpee room over there, we’re going to take them to get a Slurpee.’ That would be better than we’re marching them to the showers and we’ll be right back, and they never come back,” Scarborough argued.
A DHS spokesman said those comments are “inappropriate,” but said he didn’t expect an apology.
“They’re being called Nazis for doing their job. That’s obviously — and I think most of you would agree — totally inappropriate, hyperbolic, over-the-line, insensitive, disrespectful, and something that should be apologized for,” the official said about Scarborough’s Thursday remarks.
“We’ll be waiting for that apology. I have a feeling we’ll have to wait a while,” he added.
Trump has been criticized for pushing for a zero tolerance immigration policy that requires the prosecution of all illegal entrants. But officials have said that policy only separates families for the purpose of prosecuting illegal alien adults, just as U.S. citizens who commit crimes are separated from their families.
“When American citizens break the law, they are separated from their children and prosecuted. It’s unclear why Scarborough believes that illegal aliens are entitled to more rights than those afforded to American citizens,” Gidley said.
During a phone call Friday with reporters, DHS officials said press stories about the policy aren’t accurately describing the process.
“Some of these stories are negative. We just act that you’ll be factually negative,” a DHS official told reporters. “Reporting for the most part has lost focus on the actual issues and is now focused on anecdotal, exaggerated, and often fictional [stories].”
The officials listed out a string of unrelated reports of controversial events that were said to have taken place as a result of Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ zero-tolerance policy, which separates minors from accompanying adults when both are apprehended while attempting to illegally enter the U.S. between ports of entry.
“We do not separate breastfeeding children from their parents. That does not exist. That is not a policy,” a DHS official said as one example. But that official could not define at what age a baby would be considered old enough to be separated from his or her mother.
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection official denied reports that parents and children have little to no chance to communicate while housed in different facilities.
“We work to make this happen as much as possible, but you have to remember the context. These parents, these individuals are in jail settings like any other person in a detained prison setting. A parent that is being prosecuted is able to contact outside parties at the discretion of the facility,” the CBP spokesman said. “As any American citizen who is in detention for any type of crime, their ability to contact may be limited.”
Another report officials pushed back on was that facilities do not have clean drinking water available.
“That is just completely false,” a DHS official said. “We have some of the highest-quality detention centers in the world for children and maintain those.”
Officials said false reports are being put out on minors being separated from adults at ports of entry, the only places where a noncitizen can claim asylum and not be arrested for illegal entry. He said only under three conditions will parties be separated: if the child is in danger, if they can confirm the two are not related, or if the parent is prosecuted for illegal entry.
For parents who are arrested and referred for prosecution, they are given a chance to say goodbye to their children. CBP said claims that Border Patrol agents are “whisking” kids away from parents are untrue.
“All of our personnel at Border Patrol are proficient in English and Spanish. It’s part of their training,” he said. “There’s no language barrier. They’re able to communicate what is happening.”
CBP stopped short of confirming that 100 percent of all apprehended adults are being referred for prosecution and said it could not supply those numbers at this time.
