Nielsen’s Rhetoric on Family Separations

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has resorted to a rhetorical sleight of hand in recent days to defend the Trump administration’s policy of separating families that illegally cross the border.

“We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period,” Nielsen wrote in a tweet on June 17.

A day later, she doubled down on that statement during a press briefing when she said that “this administration did not create a policy of separating families at the border.” At the same time, however, she acknowledged that there has been a change in policy that effectively leads to such separations.

 and on May 7 that DHS “is now referring 100 percent of illegal Southwest Border crossings to the Department of Justice for prosecution.” Sessions may not say that family separation is the intent, but that’s exactly what happens when immigrants are referred for criminal