"For the past two weeks, President Trump has said over and over again that his hands were tied and that only Congress could end the separation of families seeking asylum at our borders. Today’s executive order is an admission both that he purposefully lied to the American people and that his brazen attempt to hold innocent children hostage has failed because of the American people’s outrage. Moreover, the order he signed does not address this crisis of his own making. It essentially switches from a system of separate detention camps for parents and children to one where families are inhumanely and immorally detained together indefinitely, in conditions unsuitable for the physical health and mental well-being of children. The order effectively mirrors provisions dealing with family separation in Speaker Ryan’s bill that he is pushing his conference to vote for tomorrow. Both the order and the Speaker’s legislation are recipes for the long-term jailing of families with children.
“America is a nation that values families, not a country where we detain families with children behind bars and wire fences or in stifling tent cities, and we must not abide these practices within our borders or in our name. We must reject this latest effort by the President to use migrant children as bargaining chips. I continue to urge House Republican leaders to take real action to end this crisis. They can do so by bringing Ranking Member Nadler’s Keep Families Together Act to the Floor now.”