US Citizenship and Immigration Services acting director Ken Cuccinelli wouldn’t say on Sunday whether Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will separate undocumented immigrants from their children in the upcoming raids like the Department of Homeland Security did last year.
During CNN’s “State of the Union,” reporter Jake Tapper asked Cuccinelli, “Can you guarantee that no parents will be separated from their children, excluding the violent criminals that we were talking about earlier, can you guarantee no parents will be separated from children in the raids?”
The USCIS acting director was evasive.
“In the same way I wasn’t willing to talk about operational details, that would an operational detail that I’m not gonna comment on,” he responded. “There are a million people, including families, with removal orders. The priority remains for ICE to get at criminals.”
When Tapper asked how pledging not to separate undocumented parents from their kids was revealing an “operation detail,” Cuccinelli began talking about “loopholes.”
“I’m not gonna say yes or no to anything like that because then certain people out there can write themselves off the list or find a way to play a loophole and the loopholes in our legal system are what we’ve been screaming to be fixed,” he said.
He went on to blame Congress for “not dealing with the problems on a legislative level” and holding so-called “show hearings” instead.
President Donald Trump said the mass raids would begin on Sunday.
Watch Cuccinelli below:
Citizenship and Immigration Services acting director Ken Cuccinelli won't say if ICE will separate undocumented immigrants from their children in the upcoming raids pic.twitter.com/5bN2BpCFKY
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) July 14, 2019
