CHILDREN/DEMS/DHS/IMMIGRATION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Democrats hammered Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen on Wednesday over President Donald Trump’s attempts to unilaterally expand the southern border wall and the administration’s ‘zero tolerance policy’ that led to thousands of migrant families being separated. Nielsen said the policy was not a ‘family separation’ one but did mandate criminal prosecutions against all migrants, including those crossing the border with children. That forced families to be separated, because children can’t be housed in adult detention centers. Nielsen countered that the administration was simply enforcing U.S. law and the separations were never the intended purpose. ‘The point of it was to increase prosecutions for those breaking the law,’ she told members of the House Homeland Security Committee. As the secretary was being questioned, officials who oversee the administration’s immigration policy were being questioned at three other simultaneous congressional hearings. Democrats in the House Judiciary Committee sharply criticized Trump’s attempts to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. And the DHS acting inspector general told members of the Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Homeland Security, that fulfilling the president’s mandate to hire 7,500 new border officers and agents is highly unlikely.”
–Alan Gomez, Deirdre Shesgreen, Neill Borowski and Daniel González, “Democrats attack Trump immigration policy; Kirstjen Nielsen grilled over family separations,” USA Today, March 6, 2019 5:09 pm