Donald Trump signaled his interest in once again separating parents from their children at the border between the U.S. and Mexico, claiming that the cruel policy helped deter illegal immigration.
Speculation about a new family separation policy has been swirling in recent days, prompting a Washington Post reporter to ask the President, who was on the way to a rally in Kentucky.
Trump said that the administration is, “looking at everything that you could look at when it comes to illegal immigration.”
Trump feels that this sort of hard line policy halts illegal immigration. “If they feel there will be separation, they don’t come,” he said.
The President made several unsubstantiated claims to justify the inhuman process of separating families.
“We have people that are trying to get into our country because of how well our country is doing,” said Trump. “You know, in the old days, when the country wasn’t doing well, it was a lot easier. Now everybody wants to come in, and they come in illegally, and they use children. In many cases, the children aren’t theirs. They grab them, and they want to come in with the children.”
He added, “You have really bad people coming in and using people. They’re not their children. They don’t even know the children. They haven’t known the children for 20 minutes. And they grab children and they use them to come into our country.”
There is no evidence of this being true.
Earlier this year, the administration began separating families who were seeking asylum at our southern border, in many cases permanently. A new report from Amnesty International states that more than 6,000 people, including 3,000 children, were separated from their relatives at the border from late spring until mid-August.
Watch Donald Trump’s comments in full, below.
Image via screen capture from video source.