Hogan Pulls MD National Guard From Border Over Family Separations

ANNAPOLIS, MD — As controversy roils over the Trump administration's controversial zero-tolerance policy on immigrants that has separated hundreds of children from their parents arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, some seeking asylum from gangs and violence, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan has condemned the practice and ordered the state's National Guard crews assisting in the Southwest to return home.

"Until this policy of separating children from their families has been rescinded, Maryland will not deploy any National Guard resources to the border," Hogan said on Twitter Tuesday. "Earlier this morning, I ordered our 4 crewmembers & helicopter to immediately return from where they were stationed in New Mexico."

Hogan, a Republican who has one of the highest approval rankings of all governors in the country, also criticized both the Trump Administration and Congress for failing to adopt immigration reform and urged both to work together on the issue.

"Immigration enforcement efforts should focus on criminals, not separating innocent children from their families," Hogan tweeted Monday.

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Hogan has 71 percent approval from all voters in the mostly Democratic state as he officially begins his campaign for re-election. A Washington Post-University of Maryland poll released June 5 shows the governor with broad popularity as he gets ready to fend off the winner of a crowded Democratic field to be selected in the June 26 primary.

Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen joined a delegation of seven other Congressional Democrats who went to the border region of Texas over the weekend to visit with children he said have been "ripped apart by the Trump Administration's cruel new policy that separates children from their parents. This inhumane policy must stop! Immigration policy can be complicated, but human decency is not."

The delegation visited the McAllen Border Patrol Processing Center, the Border Patrol Station there, the Hidalgo Port of Entry, and at least on Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center. He and the other Democratic lawmakers on the trip are demanding that President Trump end the policy of separating families who arrive at the border seeking asylum.

At the Port Isabel Detention Center Van Hollen said he "heard gut-wrenching testimony from ten women who fled extreme violence in Honduras only to have their children taken away from them. It was definitely one of the most emotional moments of the trip."

One lawmaker in the group estimated that there were 100 children under the age of 6 at the Port Isabel facility. Immigrants are being kept in cells surrounded by tall metal fencing inside a building that looked like a warehouse divided into cage-like structures housing different groups, The Washington Post reports. Those being held are sorted into groups — unaccompanied boys 17 and under; unaccompanied girls 17 and under; male heads of household with their families; and female heads of household with their families.

Some 1,995 children were taken from their migrant parents at the border from April 19-May 31, according to Department of Homeland Security data obtained and reviewed by the Associated Press. That means, on average, that 48 kids are ripped from their families on any given day.

President Trump repeatedly pins the problem on Democrats, saying they passed the law that is tearing families apart. In fact, no such law exists. The reason for the family separations is a zero-tolerance policy that families illegally crossing the border are automatically referred for criminal prosecution — typically meaning detention for adults pending their trials. According to the U.S. protocol, if children's parents are in jail, they're separated because the kids aren't charged with a crime.

Before the policy change this spring, entire families were referred for civil deportation proceedings and separation wasn't required. Administration officials have said the policy change is aimed at deterring families from fleeing to the U.S. border.

Photo courtesy of Gov. Larry Hogan's office