Here's where Heller, Masto and Amodei stand on Trump's family separation policy at border

Outcry over the Trump administration’s controversial immigrant family separation policy boiled over again on Monday, this time in a combative White House press briefing with the head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen — who has repeatedly defended the White House’s "zero tolerance" approach to splitting up children and parents who cross the border illegally — blamed the separations on federal immigration laws riddled with "loopholes,” calling on Congress to fix statutes that she said don’t allow the government to hold immigrant families together.

Nielsen’s defiant press appearance is just the latest example of the administration digging in its heels amid a growing backlash over its border separation practices.

White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly last month told NPR those policies would act as a “tough deterrent” to undocumented migrants, remarks that only added to a social media-driven outpouring of criticism over reports that federal authorities last year lost track of nearly 1,500 migrant children entering the U.S.

All four Democratic members of Nevada’s congressional delegation have since issued forceful statements opposing Trump’s divisive border separation practices.

U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., added to that chorus early this month, twice calling the practice “terrible policy” in a brief interview with the Reno Gazette Journal.

“I do not like the policy,” Heller said after the opening of a Vietnam veterans memorial in Minden. “There will be legislation they’re working on, I haven’t seen it yet, but there’s some bipartisan legislation they’re working on and I’ll take a look at it when I get back on Monday.”

U.S. Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev., signaled his opposition to the practice in a Monday statement to the Reno Gazette Journal.

Amodei, considered a pro-immigration Republican, also highlighted his past efforts to force a vote on Obama-era childhood immigration reforms.

“It’s because of issues just like this that I signed the discharge petition months ago," Amodei said. "The fact that 216 members of the House forced leadership to deal with immigration reform means that we have a head start on the issue and we’re in a position, after 35 years of inaction, to start voting on immigration reform this week.”

U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., the first Latina elected to serve in the U.S. Senate, has co-sponsored a bill to keep families together by preventing Homeland Security from intercepting kids at the border.

She has also participated in an anti-separation rallies aimed at derailing the policy.

“Separating families is not only inhumane, it is against everything we stand for as a country. President Trump should immediately reverse his administration’s new ‘zero tolerance policy’ for migrants at the border,” Masto said in a statement last week.

“I’ve co-sponsored legislation to stop tearing families apart and protect children’s rights. But let me be clear: this crisis was not caused by Congress. It was caused by President Trump. He only has to say the word in order to stop the internment of thousands of innocent children and release them back to their parents.”

Here’s where the rest of Nevada’s six-member congressional delegation stands, in their own words:

U.S. Rep. Ruben Kihuen, D-Nev.:

Kihuen, an immigrant and longtime immigration reform advocate, this week joined more than a dozen House Democrats for Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s trip to meet Central American migrant children in San Ysidro, Calif.

He has blasted the administration’s “inhumane” treatment of immigrants, most recently at a Monday press conference along the San Diego border, where he called on Trump to rescind the border separation policy.

“This is not a Republican or Democratic issue,” Kihuen added in a tweet. “This is a humanitarian issue. We must do everything to #KeepFamiliesTogether.”

U.S. Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev.:

Titus, a longtime Las Vegas congresswoman, sounded off on the topic in a Wednesday statement that condemned House Republicans’ efforts to push through an immigration reform package.

“Now (House Speaker Paul Ryan) is promising a vote on two pieces of legislation that will hold DREAMer and DACA recipients’ lives hostage in exchange for funding Trump’s border wall priorities,” Titus said. “All the while, Republicans have turned a blind eye to the children and families being ripped apart at the southern border thanks to the Trump Administration’s 'zero-tolerance' policy.

"As Republicans turn their backs on immigrant families, DREAMers, and DACA recipients, I will continue to fight for a path to citizenship for these young people and an end to Trump’s inhumane policy of separating families."

U.S. Rep. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev.:

Rosen, Democrats’ pick to unseat Heller in November, has been even more forceful than her campaign foe in opposing family separations at the border.

The first-term congresswoman has also co-sponsored a House resolution condemning the policy.

“The images we’re seeing of children crying alone while being held in detention centers are heart-wrenching and demand action from Congress,” Rosen said in a statement. “Parents are being separated from their kids every day, even though there is no mandate in the law requiring border agents to do so.

“This brutal behavior tearing families apart needs to stop. The administration’s cruel decision to implement this callous family separation policy is making an already dire humanitarian crisis along the southern border even worse.”