In a letter, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and one of her colleagues pressed for the legal theory on separating families seeking asylum. | AP Photo GOP senators demand details from Trump administration about separated families

Two Republican senators are demanding detailed information from the Trump administration about the separation of immigrant children from their parents when seeking asylum in the United States.

GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Jeff Flake of Arizona sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar this weekend seeking clarification on whether families are separated when they seek asylum and how often that occurs. The letter amounts to some of the strongest pushback the Trump administration has received from congressional Republicans for its policy.


"Secretary Nielsen recently appeared before the U.S. Senate and testified that immigrant parents and children who present themselves at U.S. ports of entry to request asylum will not be separated. Despite Secretary Nielsen’s testimony, a number of media outlets have reported instances where parents and children seeking asylum at a port of entry have been separated," the two senators wrote. "These accounts and others like them concern us."

Flake and Collins cited a Washington Post story about a Honduran woman seeking asylum being separated from her child in Texas and a case in California in which a Congolese woman was separated from her daughter for months.

In the letter, the two senators pressed for the legal theory on separating families seeking asylum. Though the family separations would result from Trump administration policy, President Donald Trump has blamed congressional Democrats for being unwilling to work on immigration reform.

"Democrats can fix their forced family breakup at the Border by working with Republicans on new legislation, for a change!" Trump tweeted on Saturday.

Tyler Houlton, a spokesman for DHS, denied that family separation for asylum seekers is a Trump administration policy and tweeted that "there are many false stories being reported and we encourage anyone with evidence or facts to contact us so that we can investigate." DHS says that, in contrast to people who are apprehended entering the country illegally, those who present themselves at a port of entry asking for asylum are not separated as long as they aren’t in danger or at risk of human trafficking.

"There is no policy to separate those seeking asylum at a port of entry. [DHS] still has a responsibility, however, to ensure the minor is not in danger or being trafficked. We will not look the other way," Houlton said.

The two senators also asked for a breakdown of DHS procedures for asylum seekers, whether parents are kept apprised of their children's "welfare" during any separation and whether DHS employees are trained to make separation less traumatic.

“What the administration has decided to do is to separate children from their parents to try to send a message that if you cross the border with children, your children are going to be ripped away from you,” Collins said Sunday on CBS' “Face the Nation.” “That’s traumatizing to the children who are innocent victims, and it is contrary to our values in this country."

In a statement accompanying the release of the letter, Flake said that "in asylum cases, it is especially important to keep families together when neither the child nor the parent has violated any laws."

"Contrary to what DHS has indicated as proper procedure, we are currently seeing cases where immigrant families seeking asylum are separated after lawfully presenting themselves at a U.S. port of entry. I believe DHS ought to respond to valid questions concerning asylum processing, including any policies pertaining to the separation of families," Flake said.

House Speaker Paul Ryan also expressed concern with the policies last week and said that "we don’t want kids to be separated from their parents."

