‘God ordained the government for his purposes’: attorney general cites Bible to support US splitting immigrant children from parents
Jeff Sessions used scripture to justify separating undocumented immigrant children from their parents, but some Republicans opposes the policy
Congressional Republicans have distanced themselves from the Trump administration’s policy of separating children from their parents at the southern border even as the White House cited the Bible in defending its “zero tolerance” approach to illegal border crossings.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said “it is very biblical to enforce the law”. Attorney General Jeff Sessions had earlier cited the Bible in his defence of the border policy that has resulted in hundreds of children being separated from their parents.
But House Speaker Paul Ryan and other Republicans said they were not comfortable with family separations, which spiked dramatically after the Justice Department adopted a policy in April of referring all illegal border crossers for prosecution.
“We don’t want kids to be separated from their parents,” Ryan said on Thursday.
Republican Senator James Lankford tweeted that he told a constituent that, “I am asking the White House to keep families together as much as we can.”