Republicans running for office are distancing themselves from the Trump administration’s controversial immigration policy that is separating children from their parents at the border.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who’s challenging Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, blamed Congress’ inaction for the separations while declaring he opposes breaking up families.
“Let me be clear — I do not favor separating families. Washington is to blame for this by being all talk and no action, and the solution is to secure the border,” Scott said in a statement Monday. “Anyone seeking to enter our country illegally needs to be sent back, with the exception of those who are truly seeking asylum from an oppressive regime.”
Nelson is among a group of senators who have introduced legislation to end the policy.
”It is unprecedented, it is cruel, it is entirely unnecessary and it must stop,” the senators said in a statement.
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican running for re-election this November in the blue state, withdrew his offer to send National Guard troops from the state to the border, as President Trump had requested.
“I’m hopeful that with the voices that are coming out at this point and making that case to them, that they will consider alternatives to deal with border security,” Baker told NBC 10 in Boston. “Border security is important — no one disputes that — but separating kids from their families is not.”
Baker had committed to sending two analysts and a helicopter to the Mexican border.
In Kansas, GOP Rep. Kevin Yoder, who’s running for re-election in a district Hillary Clinton won in 2016, wrote to Attorney General Jeff Sessions to seek an end to the policy separating families until Congress can come up with a fix.
“As the son of a social worker, I know the human trauma that comes with children being separated from their parents. It takes a lasting, and sometimes even irreversible toll on the child’s well being,” Yoder said.
Yoder, chairman of the Homeland Security Appropriations Committee in the House, had come under attack by Democrats for defending the “immoral” policy.
