BORDER/CHILDREN/DHS/IMMIGRATION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump on Tuesday [4-9-19] claimed that he’s not looking to revive his controversial family separation policy and pushed back against the idea that he’s purging the Department of Homeland Security’s leadership…Even while he denied that he was interested in reinstating the practice, which he brought to a halt last year after a bipartisan outcry, staffing shuffles at the Department of Homeland Security indicate Trump is moving toward a harsher approach to immigration. And on Tuesday, he appeared to make the case for it once again, asserting that the policy had been successful in deterring families from arriving at the southern border. After first denying that family separation was taking place last year, the Trump administration argued that it was simply enforcing the law by charging every adult who was caught entering the country illegally, therefore necessitating the separation. The so-called zero tolerance policy was aimed at deterring migrants from attempting to enter the U.S. illegally. So-called unaccompanied minors separated from their parents were housed in shelters along the border, and images of migrant children behind chain link fences in shelters ill-equipped to handle the sudden influx became symbols of the policy.”
–Caitlin Oprysko, “Trump denies there’s any plan to restart family separations,” Politico, April 9, 2019 2:24 pm