Opinion| ICYMI: Democratic Washington Representative Pramila Jayapal demanded on Friday that our country’s government provide reparations for those immigrant families who were separated at the border after entering the country, both legally and illegally and had to face immigration proceedings.
Breitbart News reports that the Democratic Representative made an appearance on MSNBC to speak about her “interaction with Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker during a House Judiciary hearing on Friday, where she asked him about family separations.”
“Our country is still reeling from the horror of family separations that occurred at the border,” Jayapal stated before questioning the acting Attorney General.
The Democratic Representative called the separations “a heinous crime that has been committed on thousands of children” when speaking about the matter to MSNBC host Joy Reid.
Jayapal laid into Whitaker, because she claimed that he had a “dismissive” attitude about the issue.
“This is an issue that I know there is a lot of passion about,” Whitaker stated. “I appreciate your passion.”
“It’s something we share together,” Whitaker continued.
“If we all don’t have real passion, real commitment to figuring out what happened and making reparations, the U.S. government should make reparations for what we have done to these families,” Jayapal answered.
Jayapal posted a video of the MSNBC interview on Twitter:
I’m proud of my passion, Mr. Whitaker. We all should show real passion and a real commitment to fixing what was done to these families and these children. This is lasting trauma for thousands of children—we must make reparations. pic.twitter.com/hceesi4xk5
— Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@RepJayapal) February 9, 2019
A Health and Human Services (HHS) press release from June of 2018 stated that the way immigrations are adjudicated is to blame for separation of immigrant families:
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Health and Human Services (HHS) have a process established to ensure that family members know the location of their children and have regular communication after separation to ensure that those adults who are subject to removal are reunited with their children for the purposes of removal. The United States government knows the location of all children in its custody and is working to reunite them with their families.
As part of the apprehension, detention and prosecution process, illegal aliens, adults and children, are initially detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) before the children are sent to HHS’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and parents to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody. Each entity plays a role in reunification. This process is well coordinated.
If the Senate confirms him, William Barr is set to replace Whitaker next week as Attorney General.
