Sec. Kelly Mulls Separating Refugee Moms, Kids to Deter Migration

Dianne Solis, Melissa Repko, Dallas Morning News, Mar. 7, 2017 - "Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said Tuesday in Dallas that his agency may separate Central American parents from their children after they cross the U.S. border in an attempt to curtail migration that, again, is surging past records. "The parents that come with kids are manipulating the system because they know up 'til this point that we will keep the families together," Kelly said in an interview with a small group of reporters at a Dallas DHS office. "As this word gets out that we're considering it and maybe we'll implement it, that will add again to this factor of people not coming." Kelly's strategy appears to be to discourage people from making the perilous 1,000-mile journey north from Central America by frightening them with the prospect of being split from their children once they are detained by U.S. officials. ... Kelly told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that he would do "almost anything" to deter Central Americas from migrating north along the dangerous route to the U.S. "The hypocrisy is stunning," said Dallas immigration attorney Paul Zoltan, co-founder a clinic for Central American asylum seekers. "Separating children from their mothers after all that caused them to leave would retraumatize them. It is unspeakably inhumane." El Salvador's consul general in Dallas, Jose Mario Mejia, said the Foreign Ministry was still analyzing Kelly's statements. "It certainly caught our attention," he said in Spanish. There are about 140,000 Salvadorans in North Texas, he said."