Trump’s shutdown tweet catches GOP by surprise

Cruz characterized past administrations’ policy of releasing immigrant families on parole while they await their immigration or asylum hearings – often with ankle monitors – as “catch and release”, a hunting and fishing term Democrats say is offensive and dehumanizing.

A Department of Health and Human Services official says his agency warned the Trump administration that separating migrant families at the border would be risky for children.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielson, in an interview on Fox News on Tuesday, said federal officials at HHS are working with foreign consulates and others to identify the parents of the 711 children to reunite them. He added that money for the wall was “not a question of if, it’s a question of when”. Recently, he drew flak by separating illegal immigrant children from their parents at the US-Mexico border.

The Trump administration implemented its “zero tolerance” policy this spring.

After an outcry from the public, President Donald Trump and top officials in his administration claimed family separations weren’t their fault.

“The family separation policy is more than a bureaucratic lapse in justice”, he said. “I think it’d be bad politics for the Republican Party to shut the government down”. “That behavior is not normal. Now he cries for fear of being alone”, she wrote. It should be noted that Grassley and the panel’s top Democrat, Dianne Feinstein of California, sent a letter this week asking federal investigators to look into the alleged mistreatment and abusive practices against migrants in US custody. “So we ought to be disturbed, and I’m disturbed by these allegations”. In total, during a partial shutdown about 54,000 of CBP’s 59,000 employees, or 91 percent, would continue to report to work, according to DHS guidelines issued in March. But the policy had “unintended consequences” and immigration services subsequently mishandled family separation cases, he said, pointing to reports that some children have been subject to abuse while in custody.

“What went wrong is the children separated from their parents were referred as unaccompanied alien children when in fact they were accompanied”, he said, describing some of the communication issues that forced members of his team to sort by hand through the more than 12,000 files of migrant children in government custody to determine which ones arrived with parents. He called the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy “cruel”. “Someone in this administration has to accept responsibility”.

“Most times we don’t see them again”, Albence told the committee.

“This is a wall of shame, and we don’t want any part of it”, Democratic Assemblyman Phil Ting said. As Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, put it on Tuesday, immigrants who are released and ordered to appear before an immigration judge simply ignore that order and “escape into the great American landscape never to be heard from again”. Nita Lowey of NY and California’s Lucille Roybal-Allard – called the $5 billion a waste that “only further enables this administration’s obsession with cruel attacks on immigrants”. “They have recreational opportunities both structured and unstructured”, he said. He cited 24/7 food, water, and education, among other services.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that he didn’t think shutting down the government just before the elections would be helpful “so let’s try and avoid it”.

“Jonathan White testified that the highest levels knew about the concerns that he and other career officials raised about this policy”, Blumenthal said. The president’s statements came as a surprise to congressional Republicans who thought they were all on the same page.