Kelly: DHS won’t separate families crossing border

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly told Senate Democrats his department’s policy would not be to separate children from their mothers crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, CNN reported on Wednesday.

Kelly gathered with Senate Democrats Wednesday to talk immigration, and according to people in the room told them that he did not intend to separate families despite earlier comments suggesting otherwise.

“I don’t think I have said that,” Kelly later told CNN. “Wolf Blitzer first asked me about this and I said everything’s on the table, we might under certain circumstances do that, but I don’t think I’ve ever said as a deterrent or something like that.”

{mosads}Kelly’s Wednesday comments appear to be a reversal from remarks he made several weeks ago during an appearance on CNN, in which the department head said he was weighing the separation of families as a deterrent to keep people from attempting the dangerous journey to cross the border.

“Yes, I’m considering, in order to deter more movement along this terribly dangerous network. I am considering exactly that. They will be well cared for as we deal with their parents,” Kelly said at the time.

“It’s more important to me, Wolf, to try to keep people off of this awful network.”