Fact check: Pence blames Obama for family separation policy at the border
During a CNN town hall shortly after he officially announced his presidential candidacy, former Vice President Mike Pence addressed a controversial immigration policy: the separation of families arriving at the southwest border.
Posted — UpdatedYour browser doesn't support HTML5 video.
During a CNN town hall shortly after he officially announced his presidential candidacy, former Vice President Mike Pence addressed a controversial immigration policy: the separation of families arriving at the southwest border.
"Would you bring it back?" Bash asked Pence, who is facing off against Trump in the 2024 GOP presidential primaries.
Pence said "no," adding, "Look, the family separation policy actually began under the Obama administration. And then we continued it until President Trump rightly reversed course."
Generally, a child and an adult who arrive together at the border can be separated when border officials cannot establish the custodial relationship; when they believe the custodian may be a threat to the child; or when the custodian is being detained for prosecution.
Immigration experts have told PolitiFact that family separations did not happen at nearly the scale that they did under the Trump administration.
George W. Bush’s Operation Streamline referred for prosecution immigrants who crossed into the country illegally, but made exceptions for adults who were traveling with children. The Obama administration initially kept families together in detention, but after losing a legal challenge, released families out of detention into the U.S. after holding them for a limited time.
The family separations under Trump’s watch began because of a new policy introduced in April 2018 by Trump’s then-attorney general, Jeff Sessions.
Sessions said an "escalated effort" was needed to address a crisis at the southwest border and directed the implementation of the "zero-tolerance" policy to prosecute all adults illegally entering the United States.
"Obama generally refrained from prosecution in cases involving adults who crossed the border with their kids," Peter Margulies, an immigration law and national security law professor at Roger Williams University School of Law, told PolitiFact in 2018.
In contrast, the Trump administration prosecuted adult border-crossers, even when they had kids, he said. "That's a choice — one fundamentally different from the choice made by both Obama and previous presidents of both parties," Margulies said.
Denise Gilman, a law professor who directs the University of Texas School of Law’s immigration clinic, told PolitiFact in 2018 that immigration attorneys "occasionally" saw separated families under the Obama administration.
"However, these families were usually reunited quite quickly once identified," she said, "even if that meant release of a parent from adult detention."
Pence’s campaign did not provide PolitiFact with information supporting his claim.
PolitiFact ruling
Pence said, "The family separation policy actually began under the Obama administration."
The Obama administration did not have a policy to separate families arriving illegally at the border. Family separations rarely happened under the Obama administration, which sought to keep families together in detention. Based on a court decision, it released families together out of detention.
Separations under Trump occurred systematically as a result of his administration’s policy to prosecute all adults crossing the border illegally. After mounting public pressure and criticism, Trump signed an executive order to stop separating families.
We rate the statement False.
Related Topics
Copyright 2023 Politifact. All rights reserved.