Washington (CNN) Attorney General Jeff Sessions dismissed comparisons of the detention facilities for migrant children to Nazi concentration camps by arguing that Nazis "were keeping the Jews from leaving the country."

"Well, it's a real exaggeration, of course. In Nazi Germany, they were keeping the Jews from leaving the country," Sessions tried to explain during an interview Monday night with Fox News host Laura Ingraham

Sessions later said if parents are deported, their children return to their home country with them. If the parents claim asylum and stay in the US, Sessions said, their children also stay but in Department of Health and Human Services' custody.

The attorney general's remarks were in response to Michael Hayden, the former director of the CIA and NSA, and Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein's comparisons of Nazi Germany's death camps to the shelters housing children separated from their parents and unaccompanied minors who crossed the border.

"We're doing the right thing," Sessions told Fox News Monday . "We're taking care of these children. They are not being abused. Health and Human Services holds them in good condition."

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