Cummings Issues Statement on New Report Showing Chaos and Dissembling in Trump Administration Child Separation Policy
Washington, D.C. (Oct. 2, 2018)—Today, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, issued the following statement in response to a new report from the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security detailing how the Trump Administration was woefully unprepared to handle the impact of separating thousands of children from their families: “President Trump, Attorney General Sessions, and Secretary Nielsen never should have implemented their destructive child separation policy. This new independent report shows that the Trump Administration had no plan in place to track the children they separated from their families in the name of the United States. Based on this report, it appears that Trump Administration officials not only kept these children longer than the law allows, but they also falsely told the American people they were tracking these kids when they clearly were not. Our Committee should finally issue subpoenas to DHS and the other agencies that are stonewalling our bipartisan requests for documents. The American people deserve to know what happened to these children in their name.” Cummings and other top Democrats requested the report on June 29, 2018. The IG’s findings justify concerns that Cummings and others raised based on reports that the Trump Administration failed to put in place adequate protocols to reunite families and that top officials were making inaccurate public statements about the child separation policy. Below are highlights from the new report:
Click here to read the full report. |