Julia Cohen on June 21, 2018
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said that detention facilities that house illegal immigrants should not be politicized in June 2014, according to a press conference transcript on her official website.
“Well, I hope that while some may have tried to politicize it, I hope that was not the case,” Pelosi said after being asked about the humanitarian situation at the border in 2014. “[T]his is not about an issue, it’s about a value.”
Pelosi gave the remarks after touring a South Texas Detention Facility and being briefed by Customs and Border Protection on the “influx of unaccompanied children into the United States.”
“We’re here to thank the Border Patrol,” Pelosi said in her opening remarks. “We think they’re doing the best they can under the circumstances … We thank the Department of Defense for what they’re doing, the Department of [Homeland Security].”
Pelosi has since changed her tune, calling for the resignation of DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen on Twitter Monday and tweeting that “Republicans believe that vulnerable immigrant children do not deserve the same basic human rights protections as their own” on Tuesday.
All Americans must ask, why do Republicans believe that vulnerable immigrant children do not deserve the same basic human rights protections as their own? #FamiliesBelongTogether
— Nancy Pelosi (@NancyPelosi) June 19, 2018
Pelosi also retweeted a tweet from California Democratic Rep. Jimmy Gomez saying that President Donald Trump’s executive order mandating that families be kept together at the border “fixes nothing” on Wednesday.
