WASHINGTON, DC—Today, President Trump, DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions gave separate speeches reaffirming their support for the Trump Administration’s ‘zero-tolerance’ policy that has separated approximately 2,000 children from their parents at the border. In response, Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva issued the following statement:

“As children are ripped from their parents’ arms, and mass trials and gross violations of due process permeate the border region, Trump and his henchmen continue their macabre public relations tour to justify their abhorrent policies that attack asylum seekers and innocent children. In the process, Trump has reached a disgusting new low by using asylum seekers and their children as leverage to get his border wall.

“Current anti-immigrant legislation like the Goodlatte/McSally bill and the Republican ‘compromise’ have nothing to do with the refugee crisis at the southern border. By holding the children seeking asylum hostage, Trump and his baby snatchers are lying to the American people. Passing their draconian far-right immigration bills will not solve this crisis, and this administration can end family separation at any moment. For the party that claims to support ‘family values’, their silence is deafening as their extremist leaders use innocent children as bargaining chips to pass their policies. Speaker Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and other Republican leaders must stop rubber-stamping Trump’s behavior, call out the extremists in their own party, and condemn this cruel policy. 

“Trump, Nielsen, and Sessions may believe their own lies, but I’m hardly fooled. They manufactured this crisis and its inhumane response. I demand that this administration end this horrific practice and immediately initiate the reunification process to reunite the families already separated. They must immediately remedy the trauma that they inflicted on families and keep them together as they pursue their legally-protected right to seek asylum.”

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