October 25, 2019
Assessing the Legal Landscape of Family Separation in the Immigration Context
Former Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen was interviewed this week as part of FORTUNE’s “Most Powerful Women Summit” in Washington. Nielsen, who seemed nonplussed that her interviewer, PBS NewsHour’s Amna Nawaz, intended to conduct a serious interview and not simply sit back and let the former Trump administration official recite her cybersecurity talking points, doubled down on her role in family separation, stating that she did not regret “enforcing the law.”
While prior presidential administrations have certainly struggled with periodic migration and border security challenges, officials in the Trump administration revived a controversial proposal that had been considered briefly during the Obama administration, but quickly shelved as “too opprobrious and unpalatable.” Once implemented last year, the early effects of the family separation policy and practice were swift, and devastating: Children were separated from their parents or family members at the border as a consequence of a new prosecutive guideline from the Justice Department. Parents were given little or no information about where the children were re-located to, or when, if ever, the families would be reunited. While statistics available as of early fall 2019 indicate that over 4,000 children were separated from their parents at the southern border, the numbers continue to go up, including new information from the ACLU that more “tender age” children were separated than previously disclosed. It took advocacy litigation and a court order to begin the process of reunification, a process that continues even today.
Read the full article in Just Security.
More from CNAS
-
Alexis Collins on Domestic Terrorism Threats
Video
Alexis Collins talked about the heightened domestic terrorism threat in the U.S. with The Washington Journal on C-SPAN....
By Alexis Collins
-
Enacting Reforms for the Department of Homeland Security
Commentary
Given its size and scope of responsibilities, DHS would benefit from additional leadership capacity at its headquarters....
By Katie Galgano
-
Modernizing the Department of Homeland Security
Commentary
There is a fresh opportunity to conceive of a forward-looking Department of Homeland Security....
By Carrie Cordero & Katrina Mulligan
-
Sharper: The Next Four Years
Commentary
America will face a range of national security challenges over the next four years. From sustaining military deterrence to bolstering the nation's economic leadership and more...
By Chris Estep & Cole Stevens
