White House counselor Kellyanne Conway wants an anonymous Trump administration source to come forward after the individual was cited in a report that said the White House is using the issue of illegal immigrant families being separated as leverage for a bill funding President Trump’s immigration priorities.
“I want that person to say it to my face, I really do,” Conway told NBC’s “Meet the Press,” referring to an unnamed White House official cited in the Washington Post report on Friday. “I’ll meet them at the White House today because I think that is a disgrace.”
“I certainly don’t want anybody to use these kids as leverage,” she added.
WATCH: Kellyanne: ‘No’ White House not using migrant children for political leverage #MTP #IfItsSunday pic.twitter.com/tHox54LEDg
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) June 17, 2018
In the Post report, the White House source discussed Trump’s thinking behind his decision to enforce a “zero-tolerance” policy toward illegal border crossings. “The president has told folks that in lieu of the laws being fixed, he wants to use the enforcement mechanisms that we have,” the official said. “The thinking in the building is to force people to the table.”
Conway insisted “as a mother, as a Catholic, as somebody who has a conscience … nobody likes” the policy of taking children away from their guardians as they are being prosecuted over their immigration status because minors cannot be held in detention for long periods of time.
“Nobody likes seeing babies ripped from their mothers’ arms, from their mothers’ wombs frankly, but we have to make sure that [the Department of Homeland Security’s] laws are understood through the sound bite culture that we live in,” Conway said of the process of releasing children to Department of Health and Human Service housing while older members of their families remain detained.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said Thursday one of the Republican immigration bills that could be introduced as early as this week might address the matter of the Border Patrol splitting families.
The bill Ryan is writing himself would provide legal status and a pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million so-called Dreamers who came to the U.S. illegally as minors, would increase border security measures, reduce chain migration, and end the visa lottery system.
A second bill, authored by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., in its original form limits immigration and offers a more difficult path, but it is expected to be modified before being brought to the floor.
President Trump is set to meet with the entire Republican caucus on Capitol Hill Tuesday to push lawmakers toward passing one of the two immigration bills in the coming days.
