Attorney General Jeff Sessions made migrant children who have been separated from their families the butt of a joke about liberals who live in gated communities.
Referring to the administration’s opponents as the ‘lunatic fringe,’ the Justice Department chief said, ‘If you try to scale their fence, believe me, they’ll be only too happy to have you arrested and separated from your family.’
The joke, to a criminal justice organization in Los Angeles, was part of a broader rebuttal of the administration’s critics during a speech on immigration.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions made migrant children who have been separated from their families the butt of a joke about liberals who live in gated communities
Sessions noted that Democrats were now calling for DOJ to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
He reminded attendees that former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2013 said that she dreams of ‘open trade and open borders.’
‘There are plenty of other examples of politicians who want to sound like moderates but whose votes and actions evidence a radical open borders agenda – not lawfulness,’ Sessions said.
The former U.S. senator grouped the right-leaning CATO Institute in the category, as well, for pushing policies that are antithetical to the Trump administrations when it comes to migrants.
‘The rhetoric we hear from the other side on this issue—as on so many others—has become radicalized,’ he argued. ‘We hear views on television today that are on the lunatic fringe. And what is perhaps more galling is the hypocrisy.
Sessions said, ‘These same people live in gated communities and are featured at events where you have to have an ID even to hear them speak.
‘And if you try to scale their fence, believe me, they’ll be only too happy to have you arrested and separated from your family.’
The family separation joke drew applause and laughter as Sessions continued to rail against the administration’s critics.
‘They want borders in their lives but not yours and not the American people’s. This is why the American people are sick of the lip service and the hypocrisy,’ he said. ‘They are sick of the politicians who abandon their promises as soon as the mainstream media criticizes them. They’ve seen it for decades.’
The Republican president, by contrast, he said, ‘President Trump has been quite sensible.
‘He made a generous offer to those who oppose this in Congress. He offered to give DACA recipients legal status if we can build a wall, close the maddening loopholes in our legal system, and switch from chain migration and the visa lottery to a merit-based system.’
THE JOKE: ‘And if you try to scale their fence, believe me, they’ll be only too happy to have you arrested and separated from your family’
Democratic members of Congress’ refusal to vote for legislation that GOP leaders have pushed as a compromise solution ‘should be baffling to any objective observer,’ he said, and are useful as a lesson about the left.
‘When they win, they make demands. And when they lose, they make demands,’ Sessions claimed. ‘We know which side of the debate is radical.’
The Cabinet member who has come under intense pressure from the president to enforce his agenda said: ‘The so-called elites will always find an excuse to attack President Trump. They will not be satisfied as long as we are enforcing our borders.’
Sessions’ attempt to rib wealthy liberals riled up the Democratic National Committee, which said in a statement that the Republican’s joke was ‘ absolutely disgusting,’ especially with so many families still separated from their children.
The DNC’s Daniel Wessel said: ‘More than 2,000 children are still separated from their families. Instead of providing answers about where these children are, the Trump administration is making jokes.
‘This is absolutely disgusting, which means it’s right in line with the cruelty this administration has shown to immigrant families. Democrats demand to know: Where are the children?’
Since Trump signed an executive order last week reversing the administration’s family separation policy, fewer than a quarter of the children who were already taken from their families had been reunited with their parents as of the Department of Homeland Security’s last public statement.
More than 2,000 were taken away, and only 522 had been regrouped with their parents as of late Saturday.