likewise spoke out suggesting that mr trump was using the widely denounced practice to leverage democrats into accepting immigration limits in legislation they would otherwise opposethese children should not be a negotiating tool he wrote on twitter and reuniting them with their families would reaffirm americas belief in support for all parents who love their childrenhillary clinton retweeted that message adding yescontrary to the presidents public statements no law requires families to necessarily be separated at the border attorney general jeff sessionss zero tolerance announcement this spring that the government will prosecute all unlawful immigrants as criminals set up a situation in which children are removed when their parents are taken into federal custodyprevious administrations made exceptions to such prosecutions for adults traveling with minor children but the trump administration has said it will not do so while the president has blamed democrats his senior adviser stephen miller told the new york times last week that it was a simple decision by the administration to have a zero tolerance policy for illegal entry periodbut kirstjen nielsen the secretary of homeland security rejected responsibility for the separations in a series of tweets on sunday we do not have a policy of separating families at the border she wrote periodshe distinguished between asylum seekers who try to enter the country at designated points of entry and those who arrive at other parts of the border for those seeking asylum at ports of entry we have continued the policy from previous administrations and will only separate if the child is in danger there is no custodial relationship between family members or if the adult has broken a law she wrotebut there have been reports of people arriving at the ports of entry asking for asylum and being taken into custody and some of the designated ports are not accepting asylum claims in those cases migrants sometimes cross wherever they can and because it is not an official border station are detained even though they are making a claim of asylum many wouldbe asylum applicants do not know where official ports of entry arethe administration approach has drawn a cascade of criticism in recent days michael v hayden who was cia director for president george w bush posted a picture of a nazi concentration camp on saturday and wrote other governments have separated mothers and children the rev franklin graham the son of billy graham and a defender of mr trump called the family separations disgracefulthe furor over the separation policy seemed to grow even as the president planned to meet with house republicans on tuesday in advance of votes on immigration legislation that has divided his party two competing bills are headed to the floor a hardline immigration measure that is expected to go down and a compromise version crafted by the house republican leadershipmr trump has confused his allies in the house with conflicting signals about his preferences at one point on friday he said he would not sign the moderate