Trump admits he had the power to stop separating families all along

Trump has finally admitted that his policy of ripping children from their parents at the border was completely unnecessary — and exposed the Republican Party’s complicity in enabling the abuse of families.

On Wednesday, Trump announced that he would sign an executive order that, he claimed, “will keep families together.” Whether it actually does that remains to be seen.

But we don’t even have to see the order to know that by making this announcement, Trump is admitting defeat. He’s admitting that nothing he has said so far about why his administration is abusing families is true.

He’s admitting that all along, he had the power to stop this. He has blamed Congress, and Democrats in particular — but he is responsible for it happening in the first place.

As public outrage mounted over his abusive policy, Trump repeatedly lied.

He lied and said that he could not change the abusive policy. He lied and said that Democrats were opposing legislation that could end it. He lied and said that Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush had done the same thing.

None of that was true.

In the past, when families crossed the border illegally, they were usually released to await their case being heard by an immigration judge in the civil court system.

But Trump chose to change that by criminally prosecuting every adult crossing the border in federal court. And because children can’t be held in federal court, that triggered forced family separations.

As a direct result of Trump’s decisions, at least 2,000 children — some only a few months old — were taken away from their parents.

Kirstjen Nielsen, secretary of Homeland Security, also lied in service of Trump. She claimed that Congress was the only entity that could stop child separations.

The abusive policy was put in place as the latest in a line of Trump administration moves to hurt immigrants, especially those from Latin-American countries.

Trump and Republicans also believed abusing immigrants would pay off for them in the midterm elections.

But instead, public criticism quickly followed. Millions of Americans expressed their opposition in person and online to the abusive policies.

Multiple world leaders, including close American allies like Canada, the United Kingdom, and France, spoke out about the abusive treatment, which included keeping children inside cages.

And most of Trump’s fellow Republicans refused to act in defiance of his stance, while the conservative media rushed to his defense.

But now, Trump has finally been dragged kicking and screaming to the truth. He has finally conceded that his abuse of families was unnecessary.

Thousands of children are without their parents thanks to the lies and racism of Trump’s presidency.

And his closest allies backed him to the hilt, rather than join America and the world in demanding decency and the truth.

The Republican Party as a whole rallied together to destroy families, and it is a choice that will stain them for all time.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.