Heller bashes Trump administration's migrant family separation policy at the border

U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., on Friday panned the Trump administration’s controversial practice of separating immigrant families who cross the U.S. border, twice calling it “terrible policy” in a brief interview with the Reno Gazette Journal.

White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly last month told NPR that continuing to split up undocumented children and parents would act as a “tough deterrent” to migrants. The remarks 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.

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Heller, the only Republican senator up for re-election in a state carried by Hillary Clinton, has been slow to criticize the administration as he looks to defend one of the most coveted GOP Senate seats in the country.

But he didn’t mince many words when asked about family separations at the border.

“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.”

Heller also signaled concern over divisive Trump tariffs on steel and aluminum imported from Canada, Mexico and the European Union.

The import taxes, finalized on Thursday, immediately prompted threats of retaliatory tariffs from all three major U.S. trading partners, further stoking fears over a trade war with some of the world’s largest economies.

Heller, a former stockbroker, said he thought the tariffs were meant to send a message, but stopped short of endorsing the move.

“I’m not a protectionist,” he said, “but I will tell you that one of the reasons Trump got elected is because manufacturers and people working in the manufacturing industry were losing their jobs, and losing their jobs overseas.

“So this president I think is sending a message to our trade partners that they better get their act together and that these (trade) deficits are no longer acceptable. So he’s throwing up some flares to let them know he’s serious.”

There was no shortage of Heller fans among the hundreds of veterans who attended Friday’s memorial opening, including a handful who hoped he would take up legislative efforts to boost veterans disability payments and tweak existing benefits offered under the GI Bill.

Nevada’s senior senator — who helped clear a massive backlog of claims at Nevada VA hospitals in recent years — pledged to look into both proposals after speaking with several former service members.

U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, Nevada Assemblyman Jim Wheeler, R-Minden, and Carson City Mayor Bob Crowell also counted among the political luminaries on hand for the ceremony to introduce “The Moving Wall,” a half-size replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington D.C.

The wall has been in circulation around the country since 1984. It will stay in Minden’s Eastside Memorial Park, 1600 Buckeye Road, through June 4.