Trump Expresses Regret Over Ending Family Separation Policy: ‘It’s Like Disneyland Now’
In an interview with Fox News broadcast Sunday, President Donald Trump expressed regret over ending the controversial family separation policy, Mediaite reports.
Trump repeated the claim that immigrants are “flooding” the United States, blaming what he claims are “the weakest immigration laws anywhere in the world.” One of the biggest weaknesses of the American immigration system, the president suggested, is the fact that children are no longer being separated from their parents.
Trump expressed regret over ending the widely-condemned policy, suggesting that immigrants are now incentivized to travel to the United States with children. According to Trump, the family separation policy was effective, and it stopped immigrant families from entering the United States.
“When they used to separate children, which was done during the Obama administration, with Bush, with us, with everybody, far fewer people would come,” he said.
“We go out and we stop the separation. The problem is you have ten times more people coming up with their families, it’s like Disneyland now, you know, before you’d get separated. So people would say, let’s not go up.”
While not separating families “sounds nice and all,” according to the president, “you have ten times more families coming up because they’re not going to be separated from their children.”
During the interview, Trump not only expressed regret over ending the controversial policy but also complained about immigration courts, blasted asylum seekers, and criticized the Democratic Party for not backing up his immigration policies.
Trump, who campaigned as an immigration hardliner and continues to govern as one, frequently justified the policy by pointing out that previous administrations had done the same. According to Vox, which extensively detailed the controversial practice in a 2018 article, the Obama administration also separated families but Trump made this “standard procedure.”
In June 2018, as NPR reported, the president signed an executive order, officially putting an end to family separation at the border but, clearly, he now regrets the decision, which came following intense public pressure.
President Trump rallied supporters Saturday night in Wisconsin, hitting familiar themes on his political rivals, trade, the economy and immigrationhttps://t.co/0wWhUdAnuV
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) April 28, 2019
With the 2020 presidential elections approaching, Trump appears to be intensifying his anti-immigration efforts. As previously reported by The Inquisitr, the president reportedly even instructed immigration officials to break the law and deny asylum seekers, promising to pardon the officials if necessary.
The White House denied these reports but the president has nevertheless continued to vocally criticize the American immigration system.
Trump has also threatened to release undocumented immigrants into so-called sanctuary cities, in an apparent effort to pressure the Democratic Party. During a rally held yesterday, the president took credit for the idea, describing it as “sick,” according to The Hill.
