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Government statistics indicate that, so far, nearly 2,000 children were separated from their families over a six-week period in April and May.

Melania Trump's spokeswoman issued a statement after several days of images of crying children appearing on television and online saying that the first lady \"hates to see children separated from their families,\" and the president said on Friday: \"I hate the children being taken away\" before blaming those actions on Democrats and \"their law.\"

There is no such law.

\"PHOTO:
US Customs and Border Protection
PHOTO: People sit in a cell at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency's Rio Grande Valley Centralized Processing Center in McAllen, Texas, June 17, 2018.
>

\"To a select few in the media, Congress and the advocacy community, I'd like to start with a message for you: This department will no longer stand by and watch you attack law enforcement for enforcing the laws passed by Congress,\" Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said on Monday at the National Sheriffs' Association in New Orleans. \"We will not apologize for the job we do, for the job law enforcement does and for the job the American people expect us to do.\"

Those comments came a day after she said on Twitter: \"We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period.\"

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has justified the fracturing of families by quoting The Bible.

\"I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, 'To obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for His purposes,'\" he said last week.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders didn't directly defend Sessions' quoting of the Bible, but suggested it's religiously prudent to enforce the law.

\"I can say that it is very biblical to enforce the law. That is actually repeated a number of times throughout the Bible,\" Sanders said. \"It's a moral policy to follow and enforce the law.\"

The president on Monday took a hardline on the border crisis during an announcement of a Space Force.

\"The United States,\" he said, \"will not be a migrant camp and it will not be a refugee holding facility.\"

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