The Trump administration keeps attempting to justify its family separation policy and it’s not going well.
DHS secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was reportedly flown in from New Orleans to handle Monday’s delayed White House press briefing, during which she said forcibly separating kids from their parents isn’t child abuse because the detention facilities contain televisions. Jeff Sessions and acting ICE director Thomas Homan had to go on Fox News to insist the officials behind the policy weren’t Nazis.
President Donald Trump, in his never-ending quest to render all White House messaging meaningless, also decided to weigh in on the matter on Twitter Tuesday, making things even worse for himself.
“Democrats are the problem,” he tweeted. “They don’t care about crime and want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country, like MS-13.”
Democrats are the problem. They don’t care about crime and want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country, like MS-13. They can’t win on their terrible policies, so they view them as potential voters!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 19, 2018
NBC’s Benjy Sarlin was quick to point out the language Trump used contradicted conservatives’ previous defense of the president, who in May called immigrants — both legal and undocumented — “animals.” Trump’s supporters claimed he had only been referring to MS-13.
The president’s tweet Tuesday appears to confirm instead that he was, indeed, referring to all immigrants as “bad” and “infest[ing] our Country,” Sarlin explained.
Remember when a hill to die on was that "animals" was just about a small narrow group of criminals? https://t.co/nzaCuTiuq2
— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) June 19, 2018
It was an incorrect interpretation then, but it's an outright absurd one given these tweets and his Germany one. The language is clear: Immigrants and refugees represent a collective threat and they shouldn't be described as full humans.
— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) June 19, 2018
Previous periods where leaders have started saying a certain minority is "infesting" the country with "animals" and represent a deadly "snake" who plans to "violently change the culture," are not usually remembered fondly in retrospect.
— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) June 19, 2018
“The language is clear,” he tweeted. “Immigrants and refugees represent a collective threat and they shouldn’t be described as full humans.”
Sarlin later responded to a tweet alleging Trump only smears undocumented immigrants.
“The idea this is just about illegal immigrants is 100% false,” he wrote. ” ‘The snake,’ [a story he likes to read to his supporters at rallies about a talking snake who fatally bites a woman who tries to care for it] is about refugees applying through legal channels. ‘Shithole countries’ was not about illegal immigrants. He calls diversity visa recipients ‘the worst of the worst’ — people who are citizens right now.”
The idea this is just about illegal immigrants is 100% false. "The snake" is about refugees applying through legal channels. "Shithole countries" was not about illegal immigrants. He calls diversity visa recipients "the worst of the worst" — people who are citizens right now. https://t.co/AaGXHwbF1J
— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) June 19, 2018
Trump has a long history of smearing all immigrants, including calling them “animals”, repeatedly telling the ‘Snake’ fable that likens them to murderers, ignoring the plight of migrant children escaping gang violence, and attacking the diversity visa lottery program even though he doesn’t know how it works.
2,000 minors, some of whom are infants, have been separated from their parents due to Trump’s new “zero-tolerance” policy that aims to reduce the number of asylum-seekers in the United States. Administration officials have defended the policy by claiming they are only enforcing a law that doesn’t actually exist.