Jerry Brown to keep National Guard deployment amid backlash to family separations at border

Show Caption Hide Caption Doctor: Impact of Separating Families 'Tragic' Dr. Louis Kraus, chief of child psychiatry at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, says the separation of immigrant children and parents along the US-Mexican border could have serious and long-standing medical effects on the children. (June 19)

Across the nation, politicians on both sides of the aisle have called for an immediate reversal of a policy separating children of asylum-seekers and immigrants who enter illegally from their parents.

Some governors have announced they will rescind support for the National Guard deployment to the U.S.-Mexico border because of it — but not California Gov. Jerry Brown.

The national uproar comes after new images of children kept in chainlink cages have been released and after ProPublica released audio recordings of children crying and begging for their parents.

So far, eight states’ governors have announced their intention to withhold or reverse National Guard deployments to the U.S.-Mexico Border, an initiative led by the Trump administration in an attempt to crack down on illegal border crossings.

However, a spokesperson for California Gov. Jerry Brown said in an email that as of Tuesday, there are no plans to change course.

"We'll continue to assess and review this, just as we have since personnel were originally mobilized back in April," the spokesperson said, referring questions about the plan to an April 11 statement from the Governor:

“This will not be a mission to build a new wall. It will not be a mission to round up women and children or detain people escaping violence and seeking a better life. And the California National Guard will not be enforcing federal immigration laws."

In an email, Gov. Brown's spokesperson said the governor still believes, as he said during a January news conference, that breaking up families is "callous" and "very insensitive."

The Trump Administration claims the laws used to justify the policy are nothing new. But the “zero tolerance” policy dictating how immigration law is being enforced and prosecuted is a departure from prior administrations and has created an entirely new reality for the increasing number of children being separated from their families at the border.

More: Nationwide protests decry Trump's 'zero tolerance' immigration policy that's separating families

California Senators Kamala Harris and Dianne Feinstein both chided administration officials for misinforming the public by suggesting the policies had been around before the Trump administration.

“The crisis created by the administration shouldn’t be used to rewrite my 2002 and 2008 laws that protect unaccompanied minors from prolonged detention and guarantee the right to make their case before an immigration judge,” Feinstein wrote in a press release.

In her release, Harris also attempted to correct the record.

“There is no law that says the Administration has to rip children from their families. This administration can and must reverse course now,” she wrote.

Audio of families separated at border: 'Papá! Papá!’: Immigrant children at detention center cry for parents

Harris, who many speculate will run for President in 2020, also called on Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to resign, noting how the secretary has been unresponsive even though Harris has “repeatedly asked” for data on family separation and the specifics of DHS’s “zero tolerance” enforcement policy.

“The Department’s lack of transparency under Sec. Nielsen’s leadership combined with her record of misleading statements including yesterday’s denial that the Administration even had a policy of separating children at the border, are disqualifying,” she wrote.

Senators call family separation inhumane Lawmakers from both parties are calling family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border inhumane, though they are also accusing each other of politicizing the issue. (June 18)

State Senator Kevin DeLeon, the Democrat running to the left of Feinstein in this year’s Senate race, said the administration’s “zero tolerance” approach to enforcement was outrageous, unnecessary and abusive, and cited opposition from religious leaders, the United Nations, and American Academy of Pediatrics.

DeLeon is calling on Brown to rescind his order to send California’s National Guard troops to the border, much like Maryland and Massachusetts’ Republican governors have done.

Members of the House of Representatives who represent districts near the border were divided along party lines.

Rep. Juan Vargas, a Democrat whose southern California District spans across the entire U.S.-Mexico border, called the practice cruel, inhumane and un-American.

“It is shameful that this administration’s anti-immigrant policies have come to this,” he said in a written statement.

The Trump administration has said the legislation that justifies the separation policy was in place during the Bush and Obama administrations, but Vargas put the responsibility on President Trump for changing the manner of enforcement.

“President Trump put this immoral policy in place, he has the power to end this policy--and he should,” Vargas wrote.

More: California’s fight against Trump on immigration is far from over. These cities are a perfect example.

Is family separation child abuse? DHS responds Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told reporters family separation is not a policy of the current administration and responded to claims that separation is a form of child abuse.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, a Republican whose district includes parts of Riverside County and extends down to less than five miles from the border, said in a statement that he was “willing to work with any of [his] colleagues, including Democrats, to resolve the ongoing situation as soon as possible.”

But his willingness came with a disclaimer. Echoing the administration’s message, Hunter said movement on the family separation issue would come “when policies are presented that start with building a border wall.”

House Democrats as well as many Republicans, have condemned this approach, saying that it uses the lives of children as bargaining chips.

Like many Republicans who say the backlash has been cherry-picked and disingenuous, Hunter highlighted in his press release how former presidents relied on similar laws.

“The policies in place now are the same policies that were in existence with prior administrations,” he wrote.

U.S. Rep. Raul Ruiz, who represents California's 36th Congressional District, said he was “outraged and appalled” and called the separation of families “cruel and inhumane.”

“As a doctor who devotes my life to protecting children and patients, this is unconscionable,” he said.

“Children are undergoing toxic stress and psychological trauma that will forever change and scar them, and have short-term and long-term mental and physical health consequences.”

Ruiz was an original co-sponsor in the House of Representatives of the Keeping Families Together Act and said he intended to sign onto HR 927, the Democrat-led resolution introduced by Rep. Rosa DeLauro that condemns the current policy.

Ruiz stressed that protecting children was not a partisan matter, but also acknowledged that it could become a campaign issue.

“I think that, right now, what’s on everyone’s mind is the well-being of these children and I’m sure that it will be addressed,” he said. "If that’s what the people want to discuss, it’ll be discussed."

In an emailed statement, Kimberlin Brown Pelzer, Ruiz's Republican opponent, said she "did not believe that separating young children from their parents is in the best interest of anyone," but put the onus on Congress, not the administration, to solve the issue.

"Congress must come together to fix our broken immigration system once and for all," she said. "A clear set of standards needs to be established."

More: In Calexico, arrests of unaccompanied minors double since 2017 as Mexican youth flee poverty, violence

Republican gubernatorial candidate John Cox said he opposed family separation and found the situation “horrendous.”

At a Monday press conference on his party’s gas tax repeal effort, Cox told reporters that Congress, not the president, was responsible and should work to alleviate the situation.

“The President of the United States has tried to solve this problem,” The Sacramento Bee reported him saying. “What those politicians in Washington ought to be doing right now is sitting around a table right now and trying to solve this problem.”

In a tweet, Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom, Cox’s Democratic opponent, called Trump “sick” for using the children being separated from their families as “bargaining chips” for his campaign’s signature border wall.

Trump tried to use DREAMers as bargaining chips. That didn't work. Now he's threatening a shutdown and using children — toddlers, 8 month old babies — as bargaining chips to get funding for a useless wall he claimed Mexico would pay for. It’s sick. https://t.co/ZKhe8uw0kj — Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) June 19, 2018

Local Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia, whose 56th District spans from Joshua Tree to the border, said he was “absolutely disturbed” by the administration’s zero tolerance policy, and called it “one of the most humiliating, embarrassing and quite frankly divisive actions that this government has taken.”

“It doesn’t seem like we’ve learned from the past,” he said. “This is totally the wrong side of history and I think every public official should be taking a stand against this horrific practice.”

As far as Sacramento is concerned, Garcia said he was unsure whether California withdrawing its National Guard troops from the border would solve problems.

“We already know the presence of the National Guard at the border is a very limited function,” he said.

“I’m OK with the role that the State of California has put forward to have the National Guard there. They have absolutely no involvement in what’s happening with the separation of families.”