Kamala Harris grills Homeland Security secretary on separating parents from kids at border

Sen. Kamala HarrisKamala HarrisCelebrities recording personalized Cameo messages in Biden fundraising effort Sarah Jessica Parker helps launch 'Moms for Biden' in Ohio The Hill's Campaign Report: Biden visits Kenosha | Trump's double-voting suggestion draws fire | Facebook clamps down on election ads MORE (D-Calif.) grilled Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen NielsenKirstjen Michele NielsenGOP anti-Trump group plans multimillion-dollar ad blitz in Florida Trump officials suggested using 'heat ray' to repel migrants from border in 2018: report Trump to nominate acting DHS Secretary Wolf for Senate confirmation MORE on Tuesday for the administration's policy of separating kids from their parents.

Harris asked Nielsen at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on national security needs and authorities if President TrumpDonald John TrumpDHS to label white supremacists as the 'most persistent and lethal threat' to the US: report Buttigieg slams Trump over comments on fallen soldiers: 'He must think we're all suckers' White House tells federal agencies to cancel 'divisive' racial sensitivity training: report MORE directed her “to separate parents from children as a method of deterrence of undocumented immigration.”

Nielsen answered that she had not been directed to do so “for purposes of deterrence.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Asked why she is separating families, Nielsen said her decision “has been that anyone who breaks the law will be prosecuted.”

“If you are a parent or you are a single person or you happen to have a family, if you cross between the ports of entry, we will refer you for prosecution,” Nielsen said. “You have broken U.S. law.”

The recently instituted Department of Homeland Security policy refers all people caught crossing the border illegally to prosecution. Prosecuted parents, as a result, would be separated from their children.

Harris, who is seen as a possible Democratic candidate for president in 2020, kept criticizing the policy of family separation, noting a statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics that said separating families can cause “irreparable harm.”

Nielsen restated that her department does not have a policy to separate families but instead one to prosecute people who break the law.