Trump digs in amid uproar on zero tolerance policy

President Trump on Monday showed no signs of budging from his “zero tolerance” border policy as a growing number of Republicans criticized it for separating children from their families. 

The Trump administration is digging in, defending its stance while many Republicans on Capitol Hill are worried that the White House’s policy will become a huge election year issue. The immigration story has dominated headlines over the last several days and fractured the GOP. 

{mosads}Trump is scheduled to meet House Republicans Tuesday evening to discuss two GOP immigration bills that are expected to hit the floor this week.

At that meeting, Trump will face a conference intent on keeping its majority while grappling with immigration, possibly the most divisive issue among Republicans. But the top issue on the table won’t be citizenship for so-called Dreamers, the core issue that prompted the two bills. Rather, it will be the more than 2,000 children separated from their parents by border agents after entering the country illegally. 

It’s a new complication for two bills — one a conservative measure proposed by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), the other a deal between Republican centrists and GOP leaders — that already faced a tough road to become law.

“Instead of talking about that we’re talking about this issue down at the border,” said Chris Chmielenski, deputy director of NumbersUSA, a grass-roots political organization that advocates for reduced immigration.

In a series of tweets, Trump on Monday claimed criminals are using children in a Trojan horse–style operation to cross the U.S. border.

“Children are being used by some of the worst criminals on earth as a means to enter our country,” he wrote. “Has anyone been looking at the Crime taking place south of the border. It is historic, with some countries the most dangerous places in the world. Not going to happen in the U.S.”

Trump and administration officials argue that it’s separating families because it is enforcing laws that Congress passed. 

However, many GOP lawmakers disagree. Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), a proponent of comprehensive immigration reform who is now an ally of the president, told CNN that Trump could end the separation of family members “with a phone call.” 

Congressional Republicans are clearly nervous that the immigration story will overshadow the nation’s healthy economy this summer and fall. Rep. Steve Stivers (Ohio), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said he will “ask the Administration to stop needlessly separating children from their parents.” 

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) last week said he doesn’t want families separated and Republicans have noted that the pending immigration bills would change the administration’s policy. 

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) on Monday told ABC News that “children shouldn’t be taken from their parents and left frightened and confused about where they are. “

Trump administration officials, including Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, called on Congress to pass immigration legislation. But it is highly unlikely any sweeping bill will be sent to Trump’s desk this year. 

The political problem facing the White House is that pressure will mount on Republican leaders to pass a narrow immigration bill reversing the administration’s policy at the border.

The Justice Department in April announced the zero tolerance policy on illegal border crossings, which means families traveling together have to be separated so the adults can be detained and tried for the misdemeanor.

The thousands of children separated from their families in the weeks since Attorney General Jeff Sessions unveiled the policy caused an uproar among activists, Democrats and many Republicans, including some close to the president.

Former first lady Laura Bush, who rarely weighs in on policies coming out of the nation’s capital, ripped the Trump administration, calling the zero tolerance policy “cruel” and “immoral” in an op-ed for The Washington Post. 

First lady Melania Trump issued a statement Sunday saying she “hates to see children separated from their families.”

But the first lady’s statement, issued through communications director Stephanie Grisham, also said Trump “believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart.” 

Faith leaders have also drawn a distance from the president on the issue, with some evangelicals — key allies to Trump — criticizing the policy.

“It’s disgraceful, and it’s terrible to see families ripped apart and I don’t support that one bit,” said Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham.

Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci tweeted Monday “You can’t simultaneously argue that family separation isn’t happening, that it’s being used as a deterrent, that the Bible justifies it and that it’s @TheDemocrats fault. @POTUS is not being served well by his advisors on this issue.”

Administration officials have at times made versions of all three arguments laid out by Scaramucci.

Family separation as a deterrent was first floated by then-DHS Secretary and now White House chief of staff John Kelly in March 2017, but the idea was scrapped after severe backlash.

With apprehensions at the border at a record low in 2017, the administration could boast that it had created enough of a deterrent to illegal immigration from Mexico and Central America without resorting to family separations.

But this spring, monthly apprehensions — the main indicator of illegal border crossing attempts — rose over 50,000 for three straight months.

While that number is about average for the season, it represents a huge increase over last year’s numbers.

“I think [the administration] were somewhat forced into the issue,” said Chmielenski. “Democrats saw the opportunity to jump on it as a political hot potato.”

Democrats, meanwhile, have launched a fiery public campaign designed to highlight the effects of the policy shift on the children. Over the weekend, groups of Democrats visited detention centers in Texas and New Jersey. And House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) advanced the effort on Monday, joining nearly a dozen members of her caucus on a visit to a similar facility in San Diego. 

The Democrats are accusing Trump of adopting a “barbaric” practice, in Pelosi’s description, as leverage to force Democrats to support the president’s tough enforcement agenda, including full funding for his border wall.

“There’s just something fundamentally wrong with their reasoning — except when you understand that they’re doing this … to get other bad immigration policies,” Pelosi said afterward. “[But] this is not an immigration issue, it’s a humanitarian issue.”

Democrats have no power to overturn the policy on their own, hoping instead that the public outcry will force the hand of either administration officials or Republican leaders in Congress.

“We can urge the president to take that pen and reverse his order,” said Rep. Juan Vargas (D-Calif.). “That’s ultimately what has to happen.”

Still, administration officials stuck to their guns, blaming Democrats, advocates and the press for creating a perception of mistreatment of minors.

“It is important to note that these minors are very well taken care of — don’t believe the press,” Nielsen told the National Sheriffs’ Association Monday.

Nielsen, Sessions and House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) attended the sheriffs’ event. Nielsen subsequently briefed reporters at a tense White House briefing Monday evening.

“The children are not being used as a pawn. We are trying to protect the children, which is why I’m asking Congress to act,” said Nielsen.

Both the Goodlatte bill and the compromise GOP bill address family separations, but critics say the solutions proposed in them would create a situation where entire families are detained, in some cases without the proper safeguards for detained minors.