GOP lawmaker calls on Sessions to end family separation

GOP Rep. Kevin Yoder (Kan.) on Monday joined a growing chorus of bipartisan voices calling on the Trump administration to end its family separation policy.

Yoder, the chair of a House subcommittee responsible for guiding spending on immigration enforcement, wrote a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions demanding “immediate action” to end the policy.

“As the son of a social worker, I know the human trauma that comes with children being separated from their parents,” Yoder said in a statement. “It takes a lasting, and sometimes even irreversible toll on the child’s well being.”{mosads}

“The remedy of immediately removing children from their parents is too harsh a penalty, especially given the dangerous circumstances some of these families are fleeing,” he wrote to Sessions.

“We can and we should protect our borders, but we must do it in a way that is humane and reasonable,” Yoder added.

Sessions announced the “zero tolerance” policy earlier this year, saying the Justice Department would begin prosecuting more people who cross the border illegally and separating families at the border while parents await prosecution.

Sessions and other Trump administration officials have repeatedly defended the policy as a necessary border security measure.

President Trump has incorrectly referred to the policy as a “law,” blamed Democrats for not acting on immigration and suggested that his hands are tied when it comes to the policy.

Yoder’s comments come as several other GOP lawmakers have begun forcefully speaking out against the policy.

Yoder is up for reelection in a district that former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton won by 1 point.