Gillibrand says she would not detain immigrants

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said Sunday that she would end the detention of immigrants if elected to the White House.

“As president of the United States, I wouldn’t use the detention system at all,” Gillibrand told host Margaret Brennan on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

{mosads}”They don’t need to be incarcerated,” the 2020 hopeful continued when pressed by Brennan. “If they are given a lawyer and given a process, they will follow it. They can go into the community in the way we used to handle these cases under the Department of Justice.”

“As president of the United States, I wouldn’t use the detention system at all. In fact what I would actually do is fund the border security measures that are anti-terrorism, anti-human trafficking, anti-drug trafficking and anti-gun trafficking.” 

.@SenGillibrand on how she’d handle the thousands of migrants crossing the border: “As POTUS, I wouldn’t use the detention system…They don’t need to be incarcerated…They can go into the community the way we used to handle these cases under DOJ.” pic.twitter.com/5spWUpFK4K

— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) May 19, 2019

U.S. Customs and Border Protection in a statement Saturday said the agency  has 16,000 migrants in custody and called the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border a “humanitarian and an operational crisis.”

Gillibrand also blasted President Trump’s approach to immigration, especially his “zero tolerance” policy that led to family separations.

“President Trump’s immigration policy is inhumane, ineffective and wrong,” Gillibrand said on Sunday. “I cannot tell you how infuriating it is for our president to still be separating children from their parents at our border in the most inhumane way and then locking them up.”