Republicans accuse ACLU of hypocrisy for immigration legal fights under Trump, not Biden
Anna Giaritelli
Video Embed
Republicans charged the American Civil Liberties Union with hypocrisy for fighting to upend the Trump administration’s family separations at the border while seemingly doing less to help unaccompanied minor children missing under the Biden administration.
GOP lawmakers on the House Homeland Security Committee slammed ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt for showing greater concern over returning 5,500 children taken from their parents than 85,000 unaccompanied children the New York Times recently revealed were unaccounted for after being released into the country.
BIDEN ACKNOWLEDGES GAS PRICES PUTTING ‘STRAIN ON FAMILY BUDGETS’
Chairman Mark Green (R-TN) asked Gelernt during a hearing Wednesday about the difference in approaches in how the civil rights advocacy group sought to protect immigrant children across two administrations.
“Do you think you might sue the Biden administration? There’s 85,000 kids [missing], and you sued over 5,500 under the Trump administration and were brought here to talk about policies that are going on right now, but you’re talking about policies that happened long ago or in the previous administration,” Green said. “We’re here investigating what’s going on right now. … Are you all going to sue the Biden administration over the 85,000 missing children?”
“Well, sir, I think we always will sue whichever administration is in place, but I think on those children — that we don’t know that they were missing,” Gelernt said. “I suspect that their sponsors often don’t answer calls from the government.”
Republicans repeatedly questioned Gelernt on the same matter, but his response remained the same — that the ACLU believes the 85,000 children are not missing, but “sponsors just didn’t answer calls.”
Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL) criticized the Biden administration’s stopping of rapid DNA testing of immigrants who claim to be families at the border.
“We have an administration … that’s saying it’s inhumane to separate families from each other, and yet they don’t even know if the people being brought over and being brought by their families [are related],” Gimenez said.
Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA), chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement, asked Gelernt if he believed the civil rights of the 85,000 missing children are being violated.
“How does the ACLU feel about 85,000 missing children? Think their civil rights might be being violated?” Higgins asked.
“Our view is that those children are not likely missing, that sponsors don’t simply answer the phone,” Gelernt said.
“The sponsors are not real. You know that, right? It’s a racket. It’s a sponsor racket,” Higgins charged. “Our hope is that the ACLU takes a serious look at exactly what kind of cases the ACLU is taking up.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Green and others implored Gelernt to reconsider taking legal action against Biden.
“We’ll be watching to see because I think if you really do take on both, both parties administrations, this one would be a good one for you guys to look into,” Green said.