A top Trump administration official said Thursday the number of family separations at the border has fallen since last summer’s zero tolerance policy, and they are done only for compelling reasons.
Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan said fewer than 1,000 children have been separated from families out of 450,000 family groups that have crossed the border since October. He said they are separated because of health and safety concerns, among other reasons.
“The vast majority” of families are kept together, he said.
That tally does not include children who come with older siblings, or aunts and uncles and grandparents and are separated under longstanding policy meant to guard against human trafficking. McAleenan said Congress would need to amend laws to allow officers more discretion to keep groups together.
McAleenan was speaking Thursday before the House Oversight Committee investigating border problems. His testimony comes amid a growing outcry over the treatment of migrants at the border, an internal investigation into Border Patrol agents who posted crude and mocking posts in a secret Facebook group and the move this week to effectively end asylum on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Lawmakers mostly questioned McAleenan about the policy that led to the separation of more than 2,700 children from parents last year. A watchdog reporter later found thousands more may have been separated. Democrats and Republicans on the committee also traded barbs over emergency border funding and the moment the massive numbers of border crossings became a crisis.