On Thursday’s broadcast of “CNN NewsNight,” host Abby Phillip stated that it’s not fair to describe migrant children who cannot be accounted for as lost because they’re “people who are not in touch with the system. They may or may not be ‘lost.’ They may be with their families. They may be intentionally not communicating with immigration officers.”
Phillip said, [relevant exchange begins around 13:50] “There are court cases that say you can only keep children in detention for a certain amount of time. I have yet to hear Tom Homan talk about how he’s going to get around that to expeditiously deport these families or if he’s going to defy the court and hold young children in detention longer than courts require it.”
CNN Senior Political Commentator and former Bush official Scott Jennings responded, “Well, if he can find the ones that Joe Biden lost, that would be a step in the right direction. There are tens of thousands of children that our current administration cannot account for.”
Phillip then stated, “Well, let me clarify what you’re talking about, what you’re talking about are people who are not in touch with the system. They may or may not be ‘lost.’ They may be with their families. They may be intentionally not communicating with immigration officers. So, I don’t think it’s fair to describe them all that way.”
Phillip then turned back to the question of how the Trump administration will deal with court rulings.
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