Democratic strategist Wendy Osefo referred to calls for Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s resignation as “far-left thinking” on Wednesday.
“Given that the calls to abolish ICE have gotten loud enough now that they have been repeated by lots of prominent Democratic senators and people across the media spectrum too, is it a good idea to feed into this mentality and say ‘now we’re going to have Kirstjen Nielsen … resign’ when it seems like they’ve gone too far and politicized this issue in a way that is not helpful to the overall problem?” Hill.TV’s Buck Sexton asked Osefo on “Rising,” referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“I think that’s that far-left thinking of ‘let’s abolish ICE, let’s have Kirsten Nielson step down.’ No, we need to make sure that families are together,” Osefo, who is the founder of the 1954 Equity Project, responded.
Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), the chamber’s second-ranking Democrat,
joined a growing list of lawmakers from his party, including Sens.
Kamala Harris (Calif.),
Mazie Hirono (Hawaii),
Jeff Merkley (Ore.),
Tammy Duckworth (Ill.) and
Tina Smith (Minn.) in calling for Nielsen’s resignation on Tuesday. He cited the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy at the U.S. southern border, which led to the separation of thousands of migrant families.
The government reunited 1,442 families with children ages 5 and older by a July 26 deadline, according to a court filing.
However, there are 711 children whose parents are either unavailable or ineligible for reunification in the care of the Department of Health and Human Services’s Office of Refugee Resettlement.
