The Trump administration’s inhumane and traumatic family separation policy was and remains indefensible – and it’s front and center again as convicted felon Donald Trump pursues his mass deportation agenda. But that cruel program’s unpopularity is probably why Donald Trump Jr. couldn’t defend it and instead resorted to lies and petty insults when he was confronted Monday on his father’s forcible separation of thousands of children from their parents.
During a short interview on the first day of the Republican National Convention, MSNBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff questioned Trump Jr. on whether we would “see policies like separating 5,000 children deliberately from their parents” under a potential second Trump administration. Trump Jr. quickly deflected, thinking he’d somehow caught the reporter. “You mean the Obama administration?”
What Trump Jr. didn’t seem to know is that he was face-to-face with one of the leading journalists on this issue, who was reporting on the crisis early on and eventually wrote a book on the policy. And what Soboroff, and many other reporters and advocates know, is that the family separation memo was drafted by former Trump official Gene Hamilton, signed into place by former Trump official Kirstjen Nielsen, and brutally implemented by Trump’s administration. “You know [the Obama administration] didn’t do that sir,” Soboroff responded.
Unable to challenge the truth around his father’s policy, a clearly flustered Trump Jr. referred to Soboroff as a clown and, mimicking his dad’s attack on former Univision journalist Jorge Ramos in August 2015, told him to “just get out of here.” Trump Jr. was surrounded by his brother Eric and girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle, who mostly avoided eye contact with the journalist. An unbothered Soboroff turned back to his camera to sign off. Watch the interaction below:
Reporter: Under Trump will we once again see policies like separating thousands of children deliberately from their parents?
Donald Trump Jr.: You mean the Obama administration
Reporter: You know they didn't do that
Trump Jr.: Just get out of here pic.twitter.com/pcYFh365wS
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) July 15, 2024
Unsurprisingly, top surrogates with the Trump campaign seek to blame someone else for their monstrous policy that continues to inflict immense harm and trauma on children years after its official implementation. In a study published in a medical journal in 2021, experts found that separated children continued to meet the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder even after they were finally reunited with their parents. Experts said the policy rose “to the level of torture.” And while 3,200 children have been reunited with their families, thanks to the Biden administration family reunification task force and the leadership of advocates and legal service providers, over 1,400 have not been.
The effects on children and families were immediate and heart-wrenchingly profound. In one video of a family reunification in summer 2018, a toddler was shown rejecting the embrace of his grief-stricken mother. “I’m your mommy,” she cried to the child. Looking at her husband, she asked, “Ever, what is wrong with my son?” The child pushed his way out of her arms, leaving his mother to weep. “What happened?” she pleaded.
Reminder: The consequences of family separation will far out-last this administration.
Watch one family's reunion after months of separation. #FamiliesBelongTogether pic.twitter.com/ECahAhgOtG
— ACLU (@ACLU) August 24, 2018
The architects of family separation, however, remain intent on returning to the White House to expand their family separation agenda from coast to coast. Hamilton, the drafter of the family separation policy, is among the dozens of former Trump officials to have helped author the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, the dystopian agenda seeking to implement a white nationalist vision, fundamentally alter our government, and roll back constitutionally protected rights. The Trump campaign is also shamelessly trying to exploit immigrants for political expediency just as the Trump family exploited them for profit.
“The president’s sons entrusted their private hunting retreat to a caretaker. He was working in the country illegally,” read one headline from The Washington Post in 2019. Juan Quintero “was so trusted by the Trumps that he had not one but two jobs working for the family.” That is, until reporting exposed the Trump Organization’s hypocrisy and criminal behavior and he was fired. “All of the years you give them, and they just let you go,” he said.
Despite close personal ties to undocumented workers, who cooked, cleaned, and did the hard work for Trump and his offspring, they are unrelenting in their vicious attacks.
RELATED: The Cruelty Was the Point of Trump’s Family Separation Horror Show
