Trump administration discussed policy of separating mothers and children as a way of deterring migrants more than a year ago

• e-mail

The Trump administration discussed separating children from their mothers as a way to deter asylum seekers last year, according to a new report. 

At a Citizenship and Immigration Services meeting on February 2, 2017, officers were told by the agency's asylum chief - John Lafferty - that they might have to 'hold mothers longer' and 'hold children'. 

The plan was to separate mothers and children after detention before giving the mothers the choice of returning to their home country with their children or being separated from them while pursuing an asylum claim.

Immigrant children, many of whom have been separated from their parents under a new zero tolerance policy by the Trump administration, are shown walking in single file between tents in their compound next to the Mexican border in Tornillo

The Tornillo facility is seen in this photo provided by the US Department of Health and Human Services, in Tornillo, Texas

Nielsen reminded foreign nationals that asylum seekers can make their claims at regular ports of entry and don't need to come in illegally 

During the meeting, Lafferty laid out a number of other policies intended to lower the number of migrants claiming asylum in the US, NBC reports. 

According to notes obtained by MSNBC, Lafferty also gave officers the latest statistics on asylum claims, which were at their highest point in 20 years in 2016.

He told them the Trump administration was 'in the process of reviewing' policies, including separating children and mothers, to push back against rising numbers. 

Other policies discussed included making the initial asylum interview tougher, which has already been implemented. 

Separately, a CNN interview with then-DHS secretary John Kelly in which he said he was considering doing whatever was necessary to secure the border - including potentially separating children from parents - has resurfaced.

A mobile medical unit parked at the Tornillo facility, a shelter for children of detained migrants, is seen in this photo provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in Tornillo on Thursday 

In the interview from March last year, Wolf Blitzer asks Kelly if his department will separate children and parents.

He replies: 'Yes, I am considering - in order to deter more movement along this terribly dangerous network - I am considering exactly that.'

The reports follow repeated claims from the Trump team that the policy of separating children from parents was a Democrat policy.   

It comes after Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said Democrats bludgeoning the administration for its 'zero tolerance' policy at the border are acting 'cowardly' and could change federal immigration law if they wanted to.

Nielsen stood at the White House podium on Monday and argued that DHS was just doing its job in enforcing a Trump administration policy that has led more than 2,000 children to be separated from their parents or guardians in the last six weeks.

'If an American were to commit a crime,' she told a room full of reporters, that person 'would go to jail and be separated from their family.'

Nielsen said, 'This is not a controversial idea.'

When asked by reporters if the policy amounts to 'child abuse', Nielsen denied the accusation. 

'We have high standards. We give them meals and we give them education and we give them medical care. There are videos, there are TVs. I visited the detention centers myself.'

Kirstjen Nielsen stood at the White House podium on Monday and argued that DHS was just doing its job in enforcing a Trump administration policy that has led more than 2,000 children to be separated from their parents or guardians in the last six weeks

And yet, the administration was under siege was this week by Republicans and Democrats for categorizing every migrant who unlawfully enters the U.S. as a criminal and referring them for prosecution.

That includes family units, which has led to the forced separation of parents and guardians accompanying minors, including those seeking asylum. 

'Parents who enter illegally are by definition criminals,' she told reporters during an early-evening briefing.

Nielsen was in New Orleans delivering a speech on Monday when the White House decided to add a last-minute, on-camera news conference to its schedule to address the burgeoning crisis of family separation.

Democrats had been hammering the administration for days, charging DHS officials with everything from 'using' children as bargaining chips to accusing them of 'child abuse.' 

Tents to house unaccompanied migrant children are seen at the Tornillo-Marcelino Serna Port of Entry in Tornillo, Texas

The Trump Administration's 'Zero Tolerance' immigration policy has led to an increase in the number of migrant children who have been separated from their families at the border

People wait outside the Tornillo-Marcelino Serna Port of Entry, where tents have been built to house unaccompanied migrant children

Sanders, who is the mother of three children herself, was said by CNN to have asked that Nielsen do the briefing, instead.

She slapped down the claim as she took questions after the DHS secretary, saying she only wanted journalists to have the best information.  

But she struggled under questioning from DailyMail.com and other journalists to explain why the president wouldn't just sign legislation dealing with only family separation and not the whole of his immigration agenda if the children are not purposefully being used as 'pawns' to get an immigration deal.

Sanders said Trump 'doesn't just want to see a Band-Aid put on this' and is 'tired of administrations kicking the can down the road' as it pertains to border security. He doesn't just want to 'tinker' with the law - he wants a total overhaul.

She said that Trump wants to resolve other pressing issues, too, like violence at the hands of illegal immigrant gangs. 

Nielsen claimed early on Monday that the crisis of illegal immigrant children being housed separately from the adults who bring them across the border is, in some ways, a false crisis. 

She that children are not being abused in detention centers and that men and women are making fake asylum claims with children who aren't theirs.

Nielsen said from the briefing room that 'we take allegations of mistreatment seriously' and the administration will 'hold those accountable when and if this should occur.' 

And she doubled down on a claim that smugglers were using children as a weapon in greater capacities. 

'From October 2017 to this February, we have seen a staggering 315 per cent increase in illegal aliens fraudulently using children to pose as family units to gain entry into the country,' she said earlier at the annual National Association of Sheriffs meeting in New Orleans.

'This must stop. All this does is put the children at risk.' 

White House spokeswoman Mercedes Schlapp added in a Fox News Channel interview that one example of a fraudster is 'an MS-13 gang member walking in with a one-year-old.'

A Department of Homeland Security official told DailyMail.com on Monday that the 315 per cent increase refers to a comparison between 46 such cases during the government's fiscal year 2017, and 191 cases during just the first five months of fiscal 2018, which ran from September 2017 to February 2018.

Despite the low raw numbers, extrapolating that more recent total to a 12-month period would produce a tenfold increase from 2017 to 2018.

The DHS official said the Obama administration never tracked those numbers, so Trump administration agency workers had to comb through the cases and hand-count those where entering children were determined not to be related to the adults they traveled with. 

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen claimed Monday that asylum-claiming fraudsters are bringing children who aren't theirs across the U.S. Mexico border, often resulting in the minors being held in detention alone

Nielsen said there has been a 315 per cent increase in people falsely claiming to be 'family units' when they arrive and claim asylum after sneaking across the border

White House spokeswoman Mercedes Schlapp (right) said one example of an asylum  fraudster is 'an MS-13 gang member walking in with a one-year-old'

Nielsen said Monday that 'we do not have the luxury of pretending that all individuals coming to this country as a family unit are in fact a family,' Nielsen added. 'We have to do our job. We will not apologize for doing our job.'

And, she said, DHS is asking Congress 'to allow us to keep families together while they are detained.'

Democratic lawmakers and immigration advocates pilloried The Trump administration all weekend with complaints about 'evil' and 'un-American' treatment of children who are brought across the U.S.-Mexico border and then separated from their parents.

In past administrations, entering the country as a family unit was one way to guarantee illegal immigrants a favorable outcome since court decisions have rendered the Department of Health and Human Services unable to hold children in shelters for more than 20 days.

The result was typically the release of children with the adults into the interior of the United States to await court hearings. Large numbers ultimately were no-shows.

'We've seen the release of over 200,000 family units into the United States since 2016,' Schlapp said. 'I mean, that's incredibly problematic.'

'You've had these smugglers who've been able to basically perfect the business model when it comes to bringing these children over,' she added.

Nielsen said Monday that the children have often represented a well-publicized 'get-out-of-jail-free-card' that the Trump administration stopped handing out with the adoption of a zero-tolerance policy two months ago.

She also said America's low bar for establishing asylum-seekers' 'credible fear' of persecution or physical harm in their home countries.

Secretary Nielsen drew fire for insisting on Sunday that the media and members of Congress are 'misreporting' details of the border crisis and how it's impacted by federal law

'As a result, over the last seven years we've seen the number of individuals claiming asylum skyrocket,' she said.

And 'we've asked Congress to adjust the standard of proof to prevent well-coached applicants from uttering the magic words indicating a fear of returning home.'

Justice Department figures show that 80 per cent of asylum claims are ultimately rejected, but initial false claims stretch out the adjudication process.

Speaking to people with legitimate claims, Nielsen said: 'You do not need to break the law of this country by entering illegally to claim asylum. If you are seeking asylum go to a port of entry.'

Adding to the high-profile crisis at the border are other federal laws that treat Mexican nationals differently from people of other nations.

Mexicans can be returned quickly and directly to Mexico. But Guatemalans and Salvadorans, for example, cannot.

A quirk in federal law allows DHS to deport Mexicans quickly and directly back to Mexico, but Hondurans like this woman and child can't be sent back until a long administrative process has been completed

Border agents have reportedly been telling illegal immigrant parents that they are taking their children 'for a bath' before separating them. This heartbreaking photo shows the children at a Border Patrol processing facility in McAllen, Texas 

Anne Chandler, the director of the Houston office of Tahirih Justice Center said she's spoken with several parents who said they were told their children were going to get a bath before they were separated

Children who originate from south of Mexico and travel the length of that country before arriving in the U.S., Nielsen said, must by law be handed over to HHS within 72 hours.

'Why is our system built on treating people from Mexico and Canada different than any other country?' she asked. 

Nielsen attacked reporters and members of Congress on Sunday for 'misreporting' details of the administration's immigration policy.

She said 'advocacy groups' were unfairly blaming the president and her agency for a policy that results in separating nearly 2,000 children from their parents.

'We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period,' she tweeted, drawing howls of protest from journalists and Democratic partisans.

Nielsen called the president's opponents 'irresponsible and unproductive' for turning the border situation into an international story.

'As I have said many times before, if you are seeking asylum for your family, there is no reason to break the law and illegally cross between ports of entry,' she tweeted.

She explained: 'For those seeking asylum at ports of entry, we have continued the policy from previous Administrations and will only separate [families] if the child is in danger, there is no custodial relationship between "family" members, or if the adult has broken a law.'