DPCC Co-Chair Jeffries: The American People Will Not Stand For This Unacceptable, Unconscionable, Un-American Approach to Immigration
WASHINGTON, DC – Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, Co-Chair of the House Democratic Policy & Communications Committee (DPCC) and a member of the Judiciary Committee, appeared on MSNBC's Politics Nation to discuss President Trump's zero-tolerance policy that has separated children from their parents at the border. Below are excerpts from the interview and a link to the video.
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"This was cooked up for political reasons. Donald Trump, Steven Miller, Jeff Sessions and the boys decided they were going to use young, vulnerable children as hostages to try to extort Democrats in the House and in the Senate to give Donald Trump $25 [billion] for his ridiculous border wall and to erode the legal immigration system. But this is an Administration that often operates in a fact-free zone and things that they say, they are never held accountable for.
"But this time, Donald Trump with his immoral policy of ripping children away from their parents, scattering them across the country and then putting no plan in place for reunification has met his match. Because the American people have risen up and said we're not going to stand for this unacceptable, unconscionable, un-American approach to immigration. Hopefully we can use this a building block to begin the process of reuniting these children with their families and treating their acclaims for political asylum with the humanity that they deserve.
"We are going to have to find a pathway for them toward legalization and citizenship to the extent we cannot reunite them with their parents. But every effort has to be made to do so. But, these are the consequences of an administration that is often mired in chaos, crisis and confusion and chooses to do things on political whims without doing things in a very thoughtful fashion. Congress is going to need to intervene. Jerry Nadler has introduced legislation supported by over 190 Democrats to stop something like this from ever happening again, and to make sure that political asylum claims are prioritized.
"One of the things lost in this debate is that Jeff Sessions claims that individuals who are being detained are lawbreakers who are seeking to illegally sneak into this country – nothing could be further from the truth. The overwhelming majority of people that I've spoken to or encountered or talked to their attorneys have been fleeing persecution, violence, gang intimidation, extortion, rape from three very violent countries.
"Hopefully in the Senate there is more a bipartisan pathway in terms of doing something that relates to family reunification and preventing the type of immorality and inhumanity that we recently witnessed at the border. In the House, as you've pointed out Rev, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle weren't even able to get their act together in terms of a Republican-led so-called immigration reform effort. Anything done in this space has to be done in a bipartisan fashion. Hopefully we can get our act together in that regard."