White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway has defended the Trump administration's policy of separating parents from their children at the U.S. southern border.
In a fiery clash with CNN's Chris Cuomo on Monday evening, Conway said there were occasions when parents were separated from their children because it was safer for the children or because authorities may not see enough evidence to show they are related to the children they are traveling with.
"I'm a mother, I'm a Catholic, I'm a person with a conscience, I agree with everyone including the president, the first lady and everyone who has said they don't want children to be separated from their parents unduly," she said.
"Do you know there are three conditions by which minors and adults are separated in these circumstances, two out of three are to protect the children and somehow all of you are glossing past that so let's review the facts," she added, explaining that authorities could remove children from adults for their safety or because they did not see evidence they were related to the adult.
She also acknowledged that children could be separated from adults if they were found to be crossing into the U.S. illegally—the topic which had been the focus of the conversation and which has prompted a backlash in recent weeks, and which Cuomo pointed out President Donald Trump could changed if he wanted to.
"How dare you!" Conway responded. "If you want to live in a sovereign nation that doesn't have borders, you go for it."
Her comments come following a backlash against the policy announced by Attorney General Jeff Sessions last month that separates children from their parents at the U.S. southern border if families are found to be crossing illegally; something that has resulted in more than 1,995 minors being separated from adults, the Associated Press reported.
But Conway appeared to suggest that too much focus was being placed on the children being separated from their parents by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and not on the children who had been smuggled into the U.S.
"I only wish you would play the audiotape, the videotape, that CNN would do a surround sound program of the hundreds of thousands of Central American minors that have come into the border into this nation in the last several years. I don't know where they are, do you? Does CNN know that those girls haven't been drug trafficked, sex trafficked? Do you know that they're with adult family members, people who love them? Do you know they're alive?" she asked Cuomo, who responded that he had covered the subject extensively.
"Nobody likes it," Conway said of separating children from their parents. "However nobody also likes people coming and smuggling children."
"If all you've done is broken the law by crossing illegally, you will get a very swift adjudication," Conway added, appearing to claim people would not be separated from their children for long.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
To read how Newsweek uses AI as a newsroom tool, Click here.
