Snopes Can Trump Change Law About Seperating Children From Their Families

Fact-Checking the Trump Administration's Case for Child Separation at the Border

The president, the attorney general and the secretary of homeland security have used lots of figures and interpretations of recent history to explain recent policy changes. Non all of information technology has been accurate.

Credit... Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images

June xix, 2018

President Trump and top assistants officials have continued to defend their practice of breaking up families who get in at the edge in the face of bipartisan outcry, criticism from the United Nations and a lawsuit.

They've denied the existence of a policy and that they were the showtime to enforce it, pointed to surges in illegal clearing and fraud, trotted out decades-quondam court cases and man trafficking laws, blamed Democrats and fifty-fifty cited the Bible.

Here are their defenses, fact-checked.

what was said

"We accept to get the Democrats to become alee and piece of work with united states of america. Because as a outcome of Democrat-supported loopholes in our federal laws, most illegal immigrant families and minors from Primal America who arrive unlawfully at the border cannot be detained together or removed together, only released. These are crippling loopholes that cause family separation, which we don't want."

— Mr. Trump, in remarks on Tuesday to the National Federation of Independent Business

False.

Mr. Trump is again wrongly challenge that Democrats are responsible for "loopholes" that necessitate breaking apart families at the edge.

The White House cites a 1997 court settlement and a 2008 law as these loopholes. Neither mandates detaining parents and separating children from their families.

Under the court settlement, the regime agreed to quickly release children nether an established preference that ranks for custody. In 2016, an appeals court held that the regime must exercise the same for children who arrive with families.

The 2008 police, the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, requires the government to transfer children from countries other than Mexico and Canada to the care and custody of the Department of Health and Human Services and then place them in formal removal proceedings. It does not apply to children who travel with family.

Mr. Trump is also incorrect that Central American families who enter the United states illegally cannot exist removed together. Similar individual adults, families with children can be placed under a process known as expedited removal — unless they seek asylum.

Through expedited removal, immigration officials can apace remove an unauthorized immigrant from the land without having to become through an clearing court. If the families exercise make a merits of credible fear and are denied, they are then placed into removal proceedings.

As Mr. Trump said, his assistants could release i or both parents with their children. But information technology has instead called to prosecute people who cross the border illegally under a new "zero tolerance" policy, leading to the separation of children from their parents.

what was said

"Nosotros now have thousands of judges — border judges — thousands and thousands. And, by the way, when we release the people, they never come up back to the approximate anyway."

— Mr. Trump

This is exaggerated.

Mr. Trump rejected a proposal from Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, to end family separation by hiring more immigration judges past suggesting that doing so would be useless.

There are near 350 immigration judges in the The states, co-ordinate to the Justice Department, not "thousands" of "border judges." (There are just 1,300 sitting federal judges in all.)

Mr. Trump is also wrong that immigrants "never" appear for a hearing before an immigration court. Around 20 to forty percent of immigrants have failed to testify up at a hearing over the past five years, information from the Justice Department shows.

what was said

"The Obama administration, the Bush assistants all separated families at the — They absolutely did."

— The secretary of homeland security, Kirstjen Nielsen, in a news conference on Monday

This is misleading.

While previous administrations did suspension up families, it was rare, co-ordinate to former officials and immigration experts. The Trump administration, by contrast, has knowingly enacted the exercise that some officials accept characterized equally a deterrence against illegal entry.

In 2005, President George W. Bush introduced Functioning Streamline, which, like the Trump administration's zippo-tolerance policy, referred for prosecution immigrants illegally crossing the border. Unlike the Trump assistants, the Bush-league administration made an exception for parents with children.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security could not provide data on how many children were separated from their parents in previous administrations.

Jeh Johnson, Ms. Nielsen's predecessor under President Barack Obama, said in a recent interview with NPR that it was possible that families were separated, "but non as a matter of policy or exercise."

"I can't say that it never happened," Mr. Johnson said. "There may take been some exigent situation, some emergency. There may have been some doubt about whether the adult accompanying the child was in fact the parent of the child."

Cecilia Muñoz, Mr. Obama'due south elevation domestic policy adviser, told The New York Times that the Obama assistants had decided against separating children from their parents because "the morality of it was articulate — that'due south not who we are."

A 2016 written report from the American Immigration Council details the stories of children detained with 1 parent, but separated from the other. I woman was detained with her children and separated from her nephew, who was transferred to the intendance of a foster family.

But neither the Bush nor Obama administration had a policy that had the upshot of widespread family separation, said Sarah Pierce of the Migration Policy Establish. "Zippo like what the Trump assistants is doing has occurred before," she said.

what was said

"In the last five months, we take a 314 percent increase in adults and children arriving at the border, fraudulently claiming to be a family unit."

— Ms. Nielsen

This requires context.

As The Times has previously reported, Ms. Nielsen'south statistical merits is correct, according to figures released from the Section of Homeland Security. Simply it is not evidence of rampant fraud.

At that place were 46 cases of fraudulent family claims in the 2017 fiscal year. In but the first 5 months of the 2018 fiscal twelvemonth, in that location were 191 cases. That is a 315 percent increase, simply the comparison is not yr to year. And those instances make upwards less than 1 percent of the families apprehended at the border.

WHAT WAS SAID

"D.H.Southward. is not separating families legitimately seeking asylum at ports of entry."

— Ms. Nielsen

"If they enter the country at a port of entry and in that location are many of those along the border, they are not violating the law. The female parent or father in that circumstance would not exist prosecuted and the families are staying together. They're — presumably, they are claiming an asylum and that's — they would not be prosecuted and not be separated."

— Attorney General Jeff Sessions, in an interview on Monday with Play tricks News

This requires context.

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit on behalf of a Congolese woman who says her daughter was taken from her when she applied for asylum at a port of entry.

As The Times and others have reported, asylum seekers are besides being turned away when they practise present themselves at ports of entry. Even when immigrants improperly cross the border, they tin still legally seek asylum.

But the administration'southward null-tolerance policy subjects all who cross the border illegally, including asylum seekers, to prosecution.

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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/us/fact-check-trump-child-separation.html