Durbin calls on Nielsen to resign

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) demanded on Tuesday that Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resign in the aftermath of thousands of family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Someone in this administration has to accept responsibility,” Durbin said during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the issue.


Durbin quoted U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw, who in June ordered the Trump administration to reunite families split apart at the border. Sabraw called the separations “a chaotic circumstance of the government’s own making.”

Several Democratic lawmakers have urged Nielsen to resign over the crisis, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who tweeted about it in June.

Senate hearing on family separations: Top moments

Nielsen has dodged questions about her role in the “zero-tolerance” border enforcement policy. “We do not have a policy of separating families at the border,” she tweeted on July 17. “Period.”

Durbin had the tweet printed on poster board and displayed it during his remarks.

