Title: The facts about Trump’s policy of separating families at the border - The Washington Post
Headings: The facts about Trump’s policy of separating families at the border
The facts about Trump’s policy of separating families at the border
The Facts
The Pinocchio Test
Four Pinocchios
What lawmakers and other public figures are saying about the border separations

Content: The Facts
Since 2014, hundreds of thousands of children and families have fled to the United States because of rampant violence and gang activity in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. U.S. laws provide asylum or refugee status to qualified applicants, but the Trump administration says smugglers and bad actors are exploiting these same laws to gain entry. Nielsen says the government has detected hundreds of cases of fraud among migrants traveling with children who are not their own. Trump says he wants to close what he describes as “loopholes” in these humanitarian-relief laws. Advertisement
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The Central American refugee crisis developed during President Barack Obama’s administration and continues under Trump. The two administrations have taken different approaches. Obama prioritized the deportation of dangerous people. Once he took office, Trump issued an executive order rolling back much of the Obama-era framework. Obama’s guidelines prioritized the deportation of gang members, those who posed a national security risk and those who had committed felonies. Trump’s January 2017 executive order does not include a priority list for deportations and refers only to “criminal offenses,” which is broad enough to encompass serious felonies as well as misdemeanors.