June 14, 2018

Exasperated Reporter Confronts Sanders Over Trump Administration’s Cruelty to Immigrant Children

“It is very biblical to enforce the law.”

As condemnation grows over the more than 1,300 children separated from their families because of the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy at the border, the White House on Thursday continued to repeat the false assertion that the policy is required by a long-standing, decades-old court order. 

“The laws are the ones that have been on the books for over a decade and the president is enforcing them,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said. “We would like to fix the broken system and fix our immigration problem. However, until Democrats are willing to fix this problem, it’s going to continue.”

Blaming Democrats for the current impasse on immigration, Sanders on Thursday went on to deny that the current separations stemmed from a policy change enacted by the Trump administration. Reporter Brian Karem of Playboy magazine then confronted Sanders, asking if she had any “empathy.”

Sanders accused Karem of trying to gain more time on television. 

Last month Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the federal government would start prosecuting everyone who crosses the US-Mexico border illegally—a move many saw as a new draconian policy aimed at splitting up families in an attempt to deter more people from illegally crossing the border. “If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you and that child will be separated from you as required by law,” Sessions told law enforcement officials as the new policy was announced. 

When CNN’s Jim Acosta asked Sanders about Sessions’ statements claiming there was a biblical justification for the separations, Sanders had this to say: “It is very biblical to enforce the law and that is actually repeated a number of times throughout the Bible.”

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From the desk of Mother Jones CEO, Monika Bauerlein...

Newsrooms can be funded in many ways. One of the most controversial (and volatile) ways is by a for-profit corporation or a billionaire owner. We see it across the headlines on a weekly basis: the claw backs in public media, the gutting of The Washington Post, the bending over backwards to appeal to Trump and his allies.

But not here.

When Mother Jones first started publishing 50 years ago, our founders made a critical decision: to be a reader-supported nonprofit. They knew that no corporate owner would be interested in a muckraking newsroom; they also knew that no muckraking newsroom would be interested in following the agenda of a corporate owner.

And so, we’ve been reader-funded for half a century. We rely on contributions from our readers—readers like you—whether it’s $50, or $15 a month, or whatever fits your budget. People give what they can, and every donation makes a difference for our newsroom, which has grown tremendously—in size and reach and renown—since its inception in 1976.

You may be wondering: What does it take to publish an investigation? And what does my donation actually fund? The answers are one and the same: It takes people, resources, and time. And that’s what your donation funds directly.

Every donation Mother Jones receives from readers fortifies our newsroom, whether we’re covering underreported scandals out of Washington, DC, or the most important news of the day. And right now, each donation will be doubled because of our $50,000 match. So when you make a donation—$5, $50, any amount—it’ll go twice as far.

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