Trump Defends Family Separation Policy

President Donald Trump defended his administration’s controversial family separation policy today, alleging that the fear of being separated from children deters immigrants from crossing the border into the United States illegally, the Wall Street Journal reports. “If they feel there will be separation, they don’t come,” Trump told reporters at the White House, “You’ve got some really bad people out there.” In June this year, following largely bipartisan push back, President Trump officially put an end to the policy.

Contradicting President Trump’s claims, the Wall Street Journal notes that the family separation policy has been largely ineffective in slowing down illegal immigration. According to President Trump, his economy is to blame for this influx of immigrant families. Families are illegally emigrating to the United States “because of how well our country is doing,” the POTUS said.

President Trump’s comments follow a Washington Post report published yesterday, which alleges – citing administration officials briefed on the matter – that the White House is actively considering a new family separation policy.

Meant to be implemented at the U.S.-Mexico border, the new and revamped family separation policy would include the so called “binary choice” option, which would allow the government to detain asylum seeking families together for up to 20 days. Once detained, the families would be given two options: to stay in family detention with their children, or to allow children to be taken to a government shelter.

Trump absurdly suggests there are way more immigrants trying to cross border now than during Obama years b/c of how great he is: "The thing that's changed since I've been president is… we're the hottest country in the world. A lot of people are trying to come in." pic.twitter.com/Er6ji6WKGr

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 13, 2018

While President Trump suggested today that “a lot of people” are trying to seek asylum in the United States due to his administration’s successful fiscal policies, White House officials who talked to the Washington Post claim that Trump’s insistence on reviving the unpopular family separation policy is not actually his, but Stephen Miller’s. As detailed by a previous Inquisitr report, Stephen Miller has been described as the architect of Trump’s immigration policy, and “the hate behind the immigration crackdown.”

In a statement supplied to CBS News, addressing rumors about the alleged reintroduction of the controversial family separation policy, spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security Katie Waldman said that there is currently a “crisis” at the southern border, suggesting that “catch-and-release loopholes in the law” incentivize illegal immigration. According to the Washington Post, more than 90,000 adults with children were caught at the U.S.-Mexico border in the first 11 months of fiscal 2018.

According to a Quinnipiac University poll conducted when the Trump administration’s family separation policy was still in place, 66 percent of Americans oppose it. Fifty five percent of Republican voters, however, support the policy, according to the same poll.