Even after President Donald Trump's executive order to keep families from being separated at the border, questions remain about when the children, who are being held, will reconnect with their parents, Rep. Jim Jordan, a member of the House Freedom Caucus acknowledged Thursday.
"I think that was everyone's assumption when the president signed the executive order," the Ohio Republican told CNN "New Day" co-host John Berman, who reminded him that the order doesn't address when the families will be reunited.
"This is news to me," Jordan told Berman. "So let's figure this out, reunite the families. But we do have to fix the Flores decision, the asylum law."
The Flores decision comes from a 1997 federal court ruling that limits how the government keeps children detained for immigration reasons.
The ruling requires that the government either place children with a close relative or family friend, and to keep children who are detained in the "least restrictive conditions," according to Vox.
Flores settlement requires the federal government to do two things: to place children with a close relative or family friend "without unnecessary delay," rather than keeping them in custody; and to keep immigrant children who are in custody in the "least restrictive conditions" possible.
"Everyone wants the children to be reunited with their parents," Jordan told Berman. "You have to sort it out and do it in a way consistent with the law. You have to fix the asylum law which is broken...80 percent of the people seeking asylum don't get it because they're not legally entitled to it. Let's do it in a way that is consistent with keeping families together. That makes all the sense in the world."
He also discounted Berman's argument that Trump's order says nothing about reuniting families that are already separated.
"So you really think he signs an executive order saying we're not going to separate kids, we're going to keep them together throughout the adjudication process when we determine whether they legitimately receive asylum or not but the ones that are separated, we're not going to bring back together?" he said. "You think that's the case?"
Jordan said he does think Trump is trying to do what Americans elected him to do and keep families together while remaining consistent with the rule of law.
House members will consider two pieces of law Thursday afternoon, and Jordan said he backs the Goodlatte bill, which calls for building a border wall, stopping chain migration and reforming asylum laws.
"We need to do it in a way consistent with keeping families unified throughout the process, which is what the executive order does," he said.
Jordan said he will not back, however, a compromise bill, as it "just doesn't go far enough" and is not consistent with what voters wanted when they elected Republican candidates.
Meanwhile, he said he wishes House leadership had "whipped this" months ago.
"I wish we would have had the same intensity for the tax bill we got done or the intensity we are having for the second compromise bill," said Jordan. "Where was that intensity 6, 7 months ago when we said this is the kind of legislation we need to pass. This is what we told the American people we are going to do."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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