More Lies: Trump cronies falsely claim Obama separated migrant children from their families

It is a blatant lie.

(Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)

Even though Donald Trump has now agreed to halt the barbaric policy he implemented of taking migrant kids from their parents at border points, he and his cronies have spent the past week falsely claiming that Barack Obama also snatched kids from their parents during his administration.

That is a blatant lie.

“The Obama administration, the Bush administration all separated families. They absolutely did. They did — their rate was less than ours, but they absolutely did do this. This is not new,” said Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told reporters during a White House briefing on Monday.

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Last week, American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp told a similar lie. “You know what’s ironic? It’s the same way Barack Obama did it.”

Fact Check

NBC News didn’t take that at face value, so they did a little fact-checking and surprise, surprise, the Trump associates are wrong.

“There were occasionally instances where you would find a separated family — maybe like one every six months to a year — and that was usually because there had been some actual individualized concern that there was a trafficking situation or that the parent wasn’t actually the parent,” said Denise Gilman, director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Texas Law School.

She added, “There was pretty immediately reunification. There were not 2,000 kids in two months — it’s not the same universe.

READ MORE: America has been splitting up families throughout its history

NBC even caught up with Jeh Johnson who was the Homeland Security Secretary during part of the Obama administration.

“In three years on my watch, we probably deported or returned or repatriated about a million people to enforce border security. One of the things I could not do is separate a child from his or her mother, or literally pull a mother from his or her arms. I just couldn’t do it,” said Johnson.

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