Top Trump administration officials are testifying today before the Senate Judiciary committee on family separations and reunifications. Watch live here: judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/overs…
Republican committee chair @ChuckGrassley mentions reports that many of the 431 parents were deported without having made an informed choice about leaving their children behind. "We ought to be disturbed and I’m disturbed by these allegations," he said.
In his opening statement @DickDurbin cites @SecNielsen’s June tweet denying a family separation policy existed. He denounces the policy as “government sanctioned child abuse” and calls for Nielsen to step down 
As Border Patrol acting chief Carla Provost begins her testimony, a couple dozen protesters are ejected out of the hearing after standing and holding signs saying "Protect children, abolish ICE" and other slogans protesting family separation
Provost says that under zero tolerance policy, CBP will focus on achieving 100 percent prosecution of single adult aliens who cross the southern border illegally. Here's her written testimony: judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/…
Immigration hawks + Trump officials have in this hearing and in past referenced a dramatic rise in children being smuggled across the US southern border. In particular, officials including @SecNielsen have cited a 314% increase in adults crossing w unrelated children (cont)
...but that number deserves scrutiny/context. The raw figures are: 46 cases of fraud in FY 2017 and 191 cases in first 5 mos of 2018. That is out of thousands and thousands of family units who cross the border each year. This piece has the needed context: washingtonpost.com/news/politics/…
Asked by @ChuckGrassley about reports of abuse and mistreatment at family detention centers housing migrant adults and children, ICE official Matthew Albence says the "family residential centers" are "more like a summer camp."
On the condition of these family detention centers, this September 2016 report by a DHS advisory commission is fairly comprehensive. Their overriding recommendation was that "detention is never in the best interest of children." ice.gov/sites/default/…
Jonathan White of HHS notes that govt "systems were not set up" to have referrals from CBP/ICE to his agency include a child's parent's information. Read @readelev @kristinacooke and me earlier this month on problems facing web portal that tracks children reuters.com/article/us-usa…
James McHenry, who oversees the nation's immigration courts, says the administration is still debating and discussing internally next steps after federal judge Dolly Gee rejected the administration's request this month to alter the Flores settlement
Jonathan White of HHS says there "remain a few" children in government custody where the location of their parents is unknown, particularly those whose parents are no longer in the country
Matthew Albence is asked by @JohnCornyn what were to happen if the U.S. did in fact #AbolishICE. "The public safety impact would be huge," he says. "You cannot have strong border security with a void in the interior."
Pressed by @DickDurbin, Jonathan White says as of his last day at the Office of Refugee Resettlement in mid-March, he and his staff were not advised of the pending zero tolerance policy. When he would ask questions about family separations, he was advised it was not U.S. policy
.@DickDurbin on family separations: "This started with somebody in the White House with a bright idea that turned out to be a disaster."
.@SenWhitehouse asks each witness "what went wrong?" regarding separated families. Jonathan White gives the clearest response: "What went wrong is that children were separated from their parents and referred as unaccompanied children when in fact they were accompanied."
.@SenWhitehouse asks each witness when they found out that the administration had decided to pursue the zero tolerance policy. All respond that it was on or just before April 6, the day Jeff Sessions announced the policy justice.gov/opa/pr/attorne…
2.5 hours into hearing, @amyklobuchar is 1st to ask about Sessions' decision making it more difficult for domestic/gang violence victims to claim asylum. Jennifer Higgins of USCIS: "it's very difficult to predict" impact "because individuals may qualify under other grounds"
Jonathan White says that every child in ORR custody, whether separated child or traditional UAC, is assigned a mental health clinician
.@ChrisCoons says he considers the family separation crisis the third immigration crisis manufactured by the Trump administration, says travel ban and DACA cancellation were the first two
Fascinating moment: @SenBlumenthal asks about objections raised within the administration to family separation. Again, Jonathan White, formerly of ORR, gives most specific answers. Says that ORR raised concerns about any policy that would result in family separations...
White goes on when pressed by @SenBlumenthal: "Separation of children from their parents entails significant risk of harm to children." White says again that when ORR raised concerns prior to April 6, "we were advised that family separation was not the policy."
Jonathan White, formerly of the Office of Refugee Resettlement: "I was advised that there was no policy which would result in separation of children from family units."
.@SenKamalaHarris is the second Democratic senator to call for @SecNielsen's resignation during this hearing (first was @DickDurbin)
