The Senate Judiciary Committee is aiming to take action this week on a bill to stop separation of families at the border, the panel’s chairman said Tuesday.
“I think we’re going to have something put together that we can consider this week,” Sen. Charles E. Grassley said at the beginning of a hearing on another immigration policy.
Both Republicans and Democrats are rushing to try to plug the holes caused by the Trump administration’s new zero tolerance policy at the border, which is jailing new illegal immigrant adults — and in the process separating them from their children, who cannot follow them to jail.
Democrats are all backing a bill that would ban separations in most cases, effectively punching a hole in the zero tolerance policy.
Republicans have said they’re working on legislation that would instead promote family detention in the immigration system. That would keep parents and children together, rather than shuttling the parents off into the criminal jail system and their parents get sent to Health Department dorms.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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