Asked how a cage in a federal detention center differs from a dog kennel, Kirstjen Nielsen said, "It's larger."
By Jessica Corbett
March 06, 2019 "Information Clearing House" - After months of outrage over the Trump administration detaining migrant children in "cages," Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen insisted to members of Congress on Wednesday, "We don't use cages for children."
At a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Wednesday, Nielsen took questions from Democratic lawmakers enraged over the administration's policies of forcibly separating families to deter future asylum-seekers and locking up migrant children in facilities described as cages by reporters, lawmakers, and immigrant rights advocates.
Since last summer, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has maintained that the U.S. government does not detain migrants in "inhumane fenced cages," despite an abundance of evidence to the contrary. Faced with intense lines of questioning from Democrats on Wednesday, Nielsen stuck to DHS's party line.
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the committee's chairman, repeatedly asked Nielsen whether U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), an arm of DHS, was "still putting children in cages."
"Sir, we don't use cages for children," Nielsen said. "To my knowledge, CBP never purposely put a child in a cage."
"I've seen the cages. I just want you to admit that the cages exist," declared a visibly frustrated Thompson. The secretary continued to claim, "Sir, they're not cages."
"We're not going to go through the semantics," Thompson told her. "I saw the cyclone fences that were made as cages—and you did too. All you have to do is admit it. If it's a bad policy, then change it. But don't mislead the committee."
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