Attorney General Jeff Sessions
Jefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsTrump's policies on refugees are as simple as ABCs Ocasio-Cortez, Velázquez call for convention to decide Puerto Rico status White House officials voted by show of hands on 2018 family separations: report MORE on Tuesday quipped about family separation while speaking to a conservative criminal justice organization in Los Angeles.
Sessions made the comment while criticizing the left for “hypocrisy” on border security.
“The rhetoric we hear from the other side on this issue – as on many others – has become radicalized,” Sessions said. “We hear views on television today that are on the lunatic fringe, frankly.”
Here's Attorney General Jeff Sessions making a joke today about separating families (to laughter and applause) pic.twitter.com/j38Oyhd313
— Robert Maguire (@RobertMaguire_) June 26, 2018
“And what is perhaps more galling is the hypocrisy,” he added. “These same people live in gated communities, many of them, and are featured at events where you have to have an ID to even come in and hear them speak. They like a little security around themselves.”
“And if you try to scale the fence, believe me, they’d be even too happy to have you arrested and separated from your children,” he said, to laughter and applause.
“They want borders in their lives, but not in yours,” he said.
The comment was included in Sessions’ prepared remarks to the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, according to a Justice Department release.
Sessions has been the face of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy since announcing it in April. The policy, which calls for the criminal prosecution of all illegal border crossers, has resulted in more than 2,000 migrant children being separated from their parents.
President Trump
Donald 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 signed an executive order last week to end family separations, but critics have said that the order does not provide a plan for the reunification of families.
Seventeen states and Washington, D.C. on Tuesday filed a lawsuit to force the Trump administration to reunite the families.