This comes as the Customs and Border Protection commissioner has announced immigration authorities will temporarily stop prosecuting immigrant adults with children for crossing the border. CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan also said his agency and the Justice Department should reach a policy “where adults who bring their kids across the border—who violate our laws and risk their lives at the border—can be prosecuted without an extended separation from their children.” More than 2,000 children remain separated from their parents, jailed in detention centers across the country.
On Monday, the incident commander of the tent city in Tornillo, Texas, where migrant children are currently being imprisoned, said he is against the separation of children from their parents. He told a group of reporters, “It was an incredibly dumb, stupid decision by our leadership. … All it did was harm children, no question about it.”