Discussing its immigration policy at a press briefing, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders explained yesterday that the Trump administration will continue to separate children and parents at the border unless it gets legislation that funds a border wall.
Simply put, the Trump administration is holding people in concentration camps — something that the Obama Democratic administration did not do — and will do so unless it gets what it wants from Congress.
Put even more simply, the Trump administration is committing extortion.
“California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said she had the backing of the Democratic caucus for a bill would that prohibit the separation of migrant children from their parents, with exceptions for findings of child abuse or trafficking.
“But the White House signaled it would oppose any narrow fix aimed solely at addressing the plight of children separated from their parents under the immigration crackdown. Press secretary Sarah Sanders said Trump’s priorities, like funding a border wall and tightening immigration laws, must also be fulfilled as part of any legislation.”
Also on Monday, at the same press briefing, before Sanders took the podium, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen tried to defend the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy that results in separating children from their parents who enter the U.S. illegally.
Nielsen falsely blamed Democrats for the situation and insisted that Congress could easily pass a law that would close legal loopholes and end the separation of parents and children at the border.
“What has changed is that we no longer exempt entire classes of people who break the law,” Nielsen said at one point, even while making a contradictory claim that the administration has not changed its policy and is simply enforcing the current law.
However, as many fact-checkers have found, there is no such law requiring children to be separated from their parents if they illegally cross the border. And Republicans control Congress, not Democrats.
Obviously, the Trump administration will not consider alternatives to holding children in concentration camps. Why? Because those concentration camps are the linchpins of its extortion strategy to get border wall funding from Congress.