National

21 Democratic attorneys general demand end to immigration policy of separating families at border

Democratic attorneys general from 20 states and the District of Columbia on Tuesday demanded that federal officials end the practice of separating adults caught crossing the border from their children, saying the policy is undermining community trust and hurting law enforcement efforts.

The letter was sent to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, and it opposed the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” to immigration enforcement.

Because the new policy requires that all unlawful immigrants be held in criminal custody, any children in their care are taken from them and sent to shelters.

"What’s happening on the border is having a direct impact on what’s happening in New Jersey,” New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said in a statement. “As a career prosecutor, I’ve seen that law enforcement works best when it has the trust of local communities, and the heartlessness of the Administration’s family separation policy is undermining the trust we’ve worked so hard to build. That makes it less likely crime victims and witnesses will come forward to work with law enforcement and that, in turn, makes our communities less safe.”

The practice of separating children from their migrant parents has sparked a backlash among both Democrats and Republicans, but the Trump administration on Monday defended the policy, saying that some who have been stopped at the border are not entering with their own children.

Nielsen, fielding questions during the daily White House briefing on Monday,  said it was up to Congress to fix the immigration system, and that the administration was just enforcing existing law.