Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday that House Democrats are rejecting the Department of Homeland Security’s request to pass legislation authorizing the department to send all unaccompanied children who try to cross the border back to their home countries.

DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen sent a letter to Congress Thursday asking lawmakers to pass legislation providing additional financial resources and legal authority for the department to manage the migrant crisis at the border.

Among the laws Nielsen wants Congress to change is one that prevents DHS from sending unaccompanied migrant children from non-contiguous countries in Central America back to their home countries. Nielsen said DHS would like authority to send those children “to their families and home countries in a safe and orderly manner if they have no legal right to stay,” as the department currently does for unaccompanied minors from Mexico.

Pelosi said in a statement that the House would not approve such a request.

“Democrats reject any effort to let the Administration deport little children, and we reject all anti-immigrant and anti-family attacks from this President,” the California Democrat said.