The NPR Politics Podcast - The Trump Administration's Family Separation Border Policy Explained

Episode Date: June 18, 2018

The Trump administration spent the weekend and Monday defending its "zero tolerance" border policy, which has separated children and parents who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally. The NPR Politics team breaks down what that policy is and how it is being implemented. This episode: political reporter Asma Khalid, Congressional correspondent Scott Detrow, national political correspondent Mara Liasson, and KQED's John Sepulvado. Email the show at [e-mail]. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stations.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, my name is Lucy, Stephanie, and Sean, and we're in Reykjavik, Iceland, where the whole country is getting ready to shut down and watch their first ever World Cup match against Argentina. This podcast was recorded at 1.26 p.m. on Monday, June 18th. Things may have changed since then. All right, here's the show. Go Iceland! Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. The Trump administration is arresting people entering the country illegally and separating parents from their children at the U.S.-Mexico border. The United States will not be a migrant camp and it will not be a refugee holding facility. Won't be. I'm Asma Khalid, political reporter.

I'm Scott Detrow, I cover Congress. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. All right. So before we even jump into the politics of what this family separation policy means, Mara, can you actually just walk us through real quick what this policy is? I mean, my understanding is the attorney general set up this zero tolerance policy and therefore we now are prosecuting people who cross the border in a way that perhaps wasn't happening before and that there is just absolutely no exception. If you cross the border, you will be prosecuted. That's right. Every law enforcement agency has prosecutorial discretion. For instance,

why isn't the federal government rounding up every single immigrant who arrived in the U.S. illegally? After all, it's the law. The people are in the U.S. illegally and they could be rounded up. Why? Because the government has a policy to prioritize people with criminal records. So same thing on the border. The government has decided that it's going to have a zero tolerance policy. It's going to prosecute every single person who comes over the border illegally, which means once you do that and you put them in jail, you can't have their kids with them because there are no facilities for that. So the kids are separated. And various members of the administration have been completely open about this. They chose

this policy as a deterrent. They thought it would stop people from coming over the border if they knew they were going to be separated from their kids. Kirstjen Nielsen, John Kelly, Jeff Sessions, Stephen Miller, all sorts of members of the Trump administration have been very open about this, except for Donald Trump. And Mara, to that point, you mentioned Kirstjen Nielsen. She leads the Department of Homeland Security. She did defend that policy today. And she also explained, you know, the question I've been having, which is why you're actually separating families from their parents. We cannot detain children with their parents.

So we must either release both the parents and the children. This is the historic get out of jail free practice of the previous administration. Or the adult and the minor will be separated as a result of prosecuting the adult. Those are the only two options. Surely it is the beginning of the unraveling of democracy when the body who makes the laws rather than changing them asks the body who enforces the laws not to enforce the laws. I mean, Scott, one thing I don't fully understand, and we were just talking about this a bit earlier before we started taping, and that is the idea of why is the administration ultimately separating the children from the parents and actually putting

them in these facilities as opposed to just deporting them? Sure, they broke the law, they shouldn't necessarily be here, but then the administration could theoretically just deport the family together. That's right. Or they could choose not to prosecute it to the level of which they're choosing to prosecute it. It goes back to what Mara was saying before. Earlier this year, the Trump administration made a policy decision that they would aggressively people that this could happen and say they view it as a deterrent. I think one thing that's important to point out is that Homeland Security Secretary Nielsen and other members of the administration are saying this is only if you cross the border illegally. If you go to a legal point of entry and say that you're there for asylum, they will process you in the normal way, and they might not ultimately grant asylum, but that they will consider your application. Now, the problem with that is that NPR and other

outlets are reporting that repeatedly officials are turning people away at these legal points of entry. They're saying there's just no room at the border crossing station to take them. They're turning them away so that they never have the opportunity to ask for that asylum. So Asma, the big picture here is that the Trump administration has decided to take an aggressively hard line approach on this, much harder line than the Obama administration or the Bush administration or other White Houses before them. And President Trump was leaning into that fact for a long time. I mean, we all know that he campaigned aggressively on a zero tolerance policy when it comes to border security.

But the fact is, as this has erupted into a larger political issue, as this has entered into the consciousness and entered into the news cycle and become something that's really taken hold, they're trying to backpedal and saying, no, this is the Democrats' fault. We've said before on this. And Scott, we actually have tape of the president again blaming Democrats today. Let's play a bit of that. If the Democrats would sit down instead of obstructing, we could have something done very quickly. Good for the children. Good for the country. Good for the world. It could take place quickly.

We could have an immigration bill. We could have child separation. We're stuck with these horrible laws. They're horrible laws. That is just bewildering to me. Because at this point, Congress is controlled by Republicans. So it's like he's blaming the party who is out of power, who doesn't even necessarily have the ultimate power to change these laws for a family separation policy, which ultimately is a discretionary policy that was instituted by his own administration. Yeah, and he's doing that. And we've repeatedly fact checked that this this again, to say it one more time, was a policy choice by the Trump administration. Democrats do not seem to be concerned about Trump's efforts to paint them as the people responsible for this. In fact,

you've seen Democrats really aggressively try to talk about this issue and physically go to these detention centers to try to demand tours, to demand to be let inside. You saw that over the weekend in Texas, but also in New Jersey, lawmakers showing up at these facilities. As we talk, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and several other lawmakers are at a facility in California demanding to be let inside. They're happy to talk about this. And actually, 49 Democrats, every single Democrat in the Senate has now signed on to a bill to end this policy to an actual piece of legislation. But what's so interesting is not only have many members of the administration had the courage of their convictions and have been straight and open about this, like Jeff Sessions and John Kelly and others saying this is a deterrent. We want to tell

people, please don't come because you'll be separated from your kids. Also, Stephen Miller has talked about this as leverage. In other words, if Democrats want to stop this policy, maybe they'll come to the negotiating table and give us some of the other things that we want. Yeah. And Mara, Stephen Miller, we know, is one of the president's aides who's been extremely outspoken and involved in crafting immigration policy. Yeah. And as you heard, Donald Trump said today, Democrats, make a deal with us and we can stop this policy if you give me what I want on immigration. And the problem is that they've been trying to get an immigration bill all year. At one point, Democrats agreed to funding for the wall in exchange. At that point, the issue was what to do with the dreamers in exchange for legalizing the dreamers. The president said, no, I want more. I want a decrease in legal immigration.

At various other times, it's the Democrats who've scuttled the deal. But this has been going on for a very long time. And this is just the latest eruption, kids being separated from their parents at the border. And we have someone actually on the line now who's been doing some reporting from the U.S.-Mexico border. That's John Sepulvedo with KQED. John, you're just right in El Paso, is that right? Yeah, and that's about, I would say, 45 minutes by car west of Tornillo, where the site of this tent encampment was about 100 minors, teenage boys. Got it. And you've been to the site where some children are being kept in a sort of detention facility? Well, I've been around the

site. So one of the things is that Department of Homeland Security, which owns the land and Health and Human Services, which actually operates this facility for these migrants, they have not let anyone nearby. And it's like the craziest thing. Okay, so on one side, the American side, you have essentially a dirt levee, not because there's a water needed, but there's this huge mound of dirt to block any view of this tent encampment. Fence that goes around it, barbed wire on the top.

There's a ditch on the bottom on the American side. Then on the Mexican side, you have a full view. So if you're in Mexico, you can actually see this camp really well. You can see these teenage boys come out and play soccer once a day, which is what they do. You can see that this industrial grade tent is very thick. You can see that there's air conditioning units. You can even see that there are construction workers who are actually going to build this encampment up. And I've been told that it was designed that way. So it almost acts as a warning to Mexicans that if you come over, this is what you're going to end up in.

John, who is at this facility? Is it just children or are there adults there too? Officially, there's between 98 and 115. That number is movable with the expectation that there'll be up to another 360 by the end of the week. And these are 16 and 17 year olds. I have not spoken to a single person, not even the lawyers who have actually seen them like face to face. And that includes Congressman Will Hurd. It includes Democratic Representative Mary Gonzalez. It includes the lawyers who represent them.

The two representatives were not allowed to actually meet the kids, and the attorney hasn't seen them face-to-face. So what condition they're in, how they're doing, all that, it could be very good. It could be not so good. It could be just average. We don't know. And we actually can't verify the ages because we only have what Department of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services told us, again, teenage boys. John, this has been described in increasingly partisan ways as this becomes an emotional political issue. Some people are saying these are basically jails for children. There's pushback that, no, these are nice facilities. They're

watching soccer. They're playing soccer. This is being overblown. The bottom line is these children cannot come in and out of these facilities, right? Oh, no, no. And the fact that they're labeled unaccompanied minors is really important because that means they have to have escorts all the time. Unaccompanied minors, from a legal perspective, require a staff member to be around at all times. And in fact, there's a staff member for 10 people. And the other thing is, is that, you know, for these kids to get out, they have to be able to find their parents. And, you know, as we reported, it's almost impossible to do the way Department of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services have set the systems up. A lot of these children are being held at a bunch of different facilities.

NPR visited a former Walmart near Brownsville, Texas, that's hosting about 1,500 kids, though many of them came to the country by themselves to begin with. Not all the people at that former Walmart have been separated from their parents. Altogether, the Department of Homeland Security says nearly 2,000 children have been separated from their parents who are being charged with entering the country illegally. Well, and Scott, that's totally, absolutely 1,000% correct. Those 2,000 kids, though, should be noted, have been detained in the past month since Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the change in policy. That's not the

total amount of kids. Thank you, John, for joining us from the border. And take care. Thanks a bunch. Thank you. Bye. So, Asma, I think, you know, John is painting the picture of this one facility. We've started to see these controlled media tours of these other facilities. But I think one reason why this really jumped into the public eye over the last few days and became such a more high profile story, you know, it's the case in so many stories where one picture or one set of images really kind of sticks with people's minds. And I think it was this picture of this two year old Honduran girl near McAllen, Texas, who was crying, being separated from her mother, who was being arrested. That was in a lot of

newspapers and all over coverage over the weekend. And I think that really got to the heart of this for a lot of people. And to your point, Scott, too, I think one thing that's been so interesting to see is the degree to which this has sort of ballooned into a bigger issue because of the way the Trump administration has responded and handled this question. I do know that, and I think we even have some tape of this, about a month ago, NPR's John Burnett, who has reported a lot from the border, sat down with Kirstjen Nielsen, who heads the Department of Homeland Security. And he asked her about a quote that he had read in the New Yorker magazine about taking children from their parents as a form of state terror. And we

have a bit of it. And the way that she responded to this at that particular moment, you know, a month ago when this was not as much in the news is so telling. I mean, that would be like saying that when people commit crimes in this country and they're put in jail and separated from their family, that somehow that's terror. In the United States, we call that law enforcement. We call that protecting our communities and our children. That's what we're doing. But separating families, it's an extreme measure. Well, it's not.

Again, we do it every day in every part of the country. If you have a family and you commit a crime, the police do not put you in jail because you have a family. They prosecute you and they incarcerate you. Illegal aliens should not get just different rights because they happen to be illegal aliens. And they were so willing to accept that this is a practice of what they do. And then what was amazing and mind boggling to me was yesterday, she tweeted out the same, you know, Kirsten Nielsen tweeted out saying that this is not policy. And I'm just so confused. Well, they are. She's saying they are doing it. She's saying it's not a policy. It's a law. In other words, I think she's it's a semantic difference. it. She's saying it's not a policy, it's a law. In other words, I think it's a semantic difference.

Yeah. In that same interview, she said she was explaining the new policy and she said operationally, what that means is we will have to separate your family. So she said it right then. But I think, Asma, your point is that it wasn't in the glaring eye that it is now. And you've also seen in the last few days a lot of criticism for this policy from corners of people who are usually allies of the Trump administration or usually just stay out of politics altogether. A lot of attention given to former First Lady Laura Bush writing in the Washington Post the other day that this is a cruel and inhumane policy. No Trump supporter would consider her somebody who's on the side of Donald Trump. I was putting her on the side of somebody who doesn't weigh into politics. Ah, yes.

But people who are on the side of Trump, Franklin Graham, big evangelical leader, who's way on board with President Trump when it comes to culture war issues, he criticized this pretty bluntly too. Look, the problem for the Trump administration is there are members of the administration, prominent members who have the courage of their convictions and say, look, of course, we're doing this. We want to stop people from coming over the border. We're prosecuting.

We're carrying out the law. We have a zero tolerance policy for law enforcement for breaking the law. But then you've got Donald Trump, who is caught between a rock and a hard place, because on the one hand, he wants to be seen as extremely tough on illegal immigration. He believes this is the way to rally his base. Today, he was talking about he doesn't want the country to turn into a migrant camp or a refugee facility. He's trying to elevate this issue at his rallies. He constantly talks about immigrant criminals. But the problem is that as a Quinnipiac poll showed today, this policy of separating kids from their families is disapproved by 66% of Americans, but it's approved by 55%

of Republicans. So it's popular among the Republican base, unpopular with the country at large. 70% of women disapprove of this policy. So he wants to take credit for everything that's tough, but except for the part that's unpopular. And that's what he's blaming on Democrats now. talked a lot about how this is one of those many issues where the people who flocked to Donald Trump during the primaries and general election may just be out of step with the other party leaders who aren't willing to be so hardline. Exactly. I mean, we did see during the 2016 election that immigration was actually a motivating factor for a number of Trump voters. And there's a whole variety of reasons you can explain. I mean, one is you can just purely look at exit polls and people were asked about immigration, right, as a factor. And you would see a far greater number of Trump voters would say that it was a major reason, right, behind their vote anecdotally as well as sort of quantitatively.

What I think is really interesting is that the 2018 midterms pose a kind of different scenario. I was just speaking with a pollster this morning who made the case that there are two things that are really different this time around. One is Donald Trump himself is not on the ballot, so he can sit there and talk and talk and talk about immigration policy. But how does that actually translate down to, you know, Joe Schmoe in your individual House district. But the other thing he says that is very interesting is we've now had a year and a half, almost two years of Donald Trump's immigration policies at hand. And what is interesting is you are beginning to see a majority of the public. To Mara's point, you have about two thirds of American voters saying that they oppose the policy of separating children and their families from each other when they cross the border illegally.

And that is rather remarkable because what you're beginning, I think, to see is you're actually seeing voters of all sorts, you know, say that they don't approve of this policy. That being said, it is still a policy that seems to have a plurality or a majority of support among Republican voters. And this is the hard thing for Republicans, is that they know that this is popular among the base, right? The question is, now that we're getting past the primary season and you've got Republicans in competitive races running where they need to get some of the voters in the middle, are they going to be as enthusiastic in embracing a hard line immigration line as Donald Trump seems to be. In other words, most Republicans would rather talk about the economy and tax cuts. That's why you see Paul Ryan against this policy. Now,

all that being said, I just want to inject one other poll number. Gallup today, 45 percent approval rating for Donald Trump, his highest number ever since his first week in office. But this is all exactly why the House is trying to pass an immigration bill later this week and why it has been impossible for the Republican-controlled House or Senate to pass anything on immigration since we started talking about DACA in September, because you have the group of moderate Republicans who, by and large, are the lawmakers most in trouble of losing their races this fall, saying we've got to find some sort of permanent fix for people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. These are people who are, by and large, very sympathetic to

voters. But at the same time, you have the hardline wing of the party saying we're not going to vote for that and we're not going to vote for any immigration bill that doesn't fund a wall and make big changes to legal immigration. But the people who want those hardline things aren't going to vote for any sort of DACA fix. And the people who want the DACA fix are very unlikely to vote for all the hardline things. Therefore, you don't have a majority of lawmakers, especially Republicans, willing to pass any measure. And Scott, to your point, you know, there is action on the Hill this week around a couple of immigration pieces of legislation. So we'll be watching that to get a sense of whether

or not Republicans can actually get each other on board around the issue of immigration. All right. Well, that is a wrap for today. We'll be back. I guess we'll be back the next time there's news, which is going to be real soon. In 20 minutes. Our email address for your comments, questions, and timestamps, those are the things recorded for the beginning of the show, is nprpolitics at npr.org. You can keep up with our coverage on npr.org, NPR Politics on Facebook, and of course, on your local public radio station. I'm Asma Khalid, political reporter. I'm Scott Tetrow, I cover Congress. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.