Will GOP immigration bill stop family separations at border? Critics say no

WASHINGTON – Faced with heart-wrenching stories of immigrant children being separated from their parents at the border, House Republicans have crafted what they say is a fix to keep families together even if they enter the U.S. illegally.

But immigrant-rights advocates say it would make a terrible situation even worse.

“It’s going to result in kids sitting in detention for a far longer time and being sent back to countries where their lives are at risk,” said Emily Butera, senior policy adviser for the Women’s Refugee Commission.

At issue is a new "zero tolerance" policy issued by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, under which anyone who crosses the border illegally will be prosecuted.

If a mother and child enter the U.S. illegally, the mother is sent to a federal jail or other detention center to await prosecution; since children cannot be held in an adult facility, they’re put into the custody of the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, a DHS official who declined to be identified said that nearly 2,000 children had been separated from 1,940 adults from April 19 through May 31. The disclosure was the first time the Trump administration has said specifically how many immigrant children have been affected by the "zero tolerance" policy at the border that has come under intense scrutiny in recent weeks.

Sessions has defended the policy and said it will deter illegal border crossings.

"If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you and that child will be separated from you as required by law," Sessions said in May. "If you don't like that, then don't smuggle children over our border."

House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Thursday that he opposes the family separations but he blamed a decades-old court decision – not the Trump administration – for the current situation. He was referring to a 1997 settlement, under which the government must keep immigrant children in the "least restrictive" settings possible and cannot detain children for long periods of time.

Before that settlement, “kids were really being treated like adults,” said Butera. “They were held with adults, and the conditions were wholly inappropriate for the well-being of children."

House Republicans said the immigration bill they released on Thursday would stop the separations. But the way it does that is by relaxing the Flores settlement rules – allowing the government to keep children in detention longer, albeit with their parents.

"It would loosen the minimum standards that the government has for detaining children," said Jennifer Podkul, director of policy at KIND, an advocacy group that represents immigration children.

Because of the current administration's "zero tolerance" policy, families would still be separated while the parents are being prosecuted. They could be reunited after those proceedings, if the families are seeking asylum, and held for longer periods of time than the Flores settlement would have allowed.

"The separations are still going to happen," Podkul said. "There's nothing in this bill that stops the prosecution of asylum-seekers."

On Friday, the president said he had no intention of signing the compromise bill. The GOP measure was the result of weeks of closed-door negotiations between two warring GOP factions divided over immigration.

Conservatives have been demanding beefed up border security and stronger internal enforcement, while moderates are seeking legal protections for the so-called Dreamers, undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children. The release of the draft bill Thursday was GOP leadership's effort to bridge the divide between those two camps.

Contributing: John Fritze

WPXI