individuals in its custody with dignity and respect and complies with all laws and policy this reinforces and reiterates the need to consider the best interest of the children and mandates adherence to established protocols to protect atrisk populations to include standards for the transport and treatment of minors in dhs and hhs custodyadditionally all us border patrol personnel on the southwest border are bilingual every last one of them they are directed to clearly explain the relevance process to apprehended individuals and provide detainees with written documentation in both spanish and english that lays out the process and appropriate phone numbers to contact and finally dhs is not separating families legitimately seeking asylum at ports of entry if an adult enters at a port of entry and claims asylum they will not face prosecution for illegal entry they have not committed a crime by coming to the port of entryas i mentioned dhs does have a responsibility to protect minors and in that case as well we will only separate the family if we cannot determine there is a familial relationship if the child may be at risk with the parent or legal guardian or if the parent or legal guardian is referred for prosecution we have a duty to protect the american people and it is one that i take very seriouslyhere is the bottom line dhs is no longer ignoring the law were enforcing the laws as they exist on the books as long as illegal entry remains a criminal offense dhs will not look the other way dhs will faithfully execute the laws enacted by congress as we are sworn to do as i said earlier today surely it is the beginning of the unraveling of democracy when the body who makes the laws instead of changing them tells the enforcement body not to enforce the lawi ask congress to ask this week so that we could secure our borders and uphold our humanitarian ideas these two missions should not be pitted against each other if we close the loopholes we could accomplish both before i take questions i just want to ask that in your reporting please consider the men and women of dhs who are dedicated law enforcement officers and who often put their lives at risk lets remember their sacrifice and commitment to this country and with that ill take some questions yesreporter secretary nielsen what you talked about there dhs is no longer ignoring the law youre calling on congress to change the law i mean that is the big message herenielsen yesreporter members of congress on the democratic side say that you are using children as a lever to try to get them to take legislative action what do you say to thatnielsen i say that is a very cowardly response it is clearly within their power to make the laws and change the laws they should do soreporter you have seen the photos of children in cages have you heard