Kamala Harris tells DHS secretary to resign amid border situation

Sen. Kamala Harris, California Democrat, demanded Monday that Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen should resign for overseeing the zero tolerance policy that has led to illegal immigrants being jailed and their children being temporarily separated from them.

Ms. Harris, believed to be eyeing a presidential run in 2020, is no stranger to clashes with Ms. Nielsen, but he demand for the secretary’s resignation is the most concrete shot yet at an administration trying to fight a backlash over the separations.

“The government should be in the business of keeping families together, not tearing them apart. And the government should have a commitment to transparency and accountability. Under Secretary Nielsen’s tenure, the Department of Homeland Security has a track record of neither,” Ms. Harris said. “As a result, she must resign.”

Ms. Harris said Ms. Nielsen’s department has failed to provide data or answer questions, and said the secretary herself was “misleading” the country in denying there’s a policy of separating children.

“There is no law that says the Administration has to rip children from their families. This administration can and must reverse course now and it can and must find new leadership for the Department of Homeland Security,” she said.

The administration doesn’t have a family separation policy, though the zero tolerance policy announced last month, which brings criminal charges against migrants who jump the border, can lead to separations.

While jumping the border has been a crime for decades, past administrations had generally ignored that part of the law, instead treating illegal immigration as a civil matter and trying to deport people. But deportations have become more difficult as migrants have learned how to exploit lax parts of the law, leaving the Trump administration to try new practices, including fulling flexing the criminal penalties.

The illegal immigrants who are jailed for illegal entry usually serve only a couple days’ time and are then released back into the immigration system. They are supposed to be reunited with their children at that point.