美国国家公共电台 NPR Homeland Security Secretary Defends Separating Families Who Cross Border Illegally

 

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

The Department of Homeland Security is defending the Trump¹ administration's tough stance on immigration. Kirstjen Nielsen says her agency is simply enforcing laws already on the books, and she is responding to critics who say the administration's actions are harsh and mean-spirited.

KIRSTJEN NIELSEN: The pushback in terms of us enforcing the law is inappropriate and unacceptable. If somebody wants a different law, they should go to Congress and get a different law passed. But we took an oath, and we will uphold the laws of this country.

KELLY: Secretary Nielsen presides over a massive agency with a massive mandate², including preventing terrorism, responding to natural disasters and enforcing immigration laws. Well, NPR's John Burnett, who covers immigration, sat down for an interview today with Secretary Nielsen. And he is now here in our studio in Washington to tell us about it. Hey there, John.

JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE³: Hi, Mary Louise.

KELLY: So this took place at her office at the Department of Homeland Security. Set the scene for us here.

BURNETT: Right. It was in a conference room at a table. There was a couple of press people there, and she sat and took my questions. I only had 15 minutes, and she very forcefully answered all of them.

KELLY: Give us the briefest portrait of who she is because for a cabinet secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen is not so familiar to a lot of Americans.

BURNETT: She has been in the shadow, in some ways, of who she considered her mentor⁴, General John Kelly. Now, she's a 45-year-old lawyer, a national security expert who served in the George W. Bush administration and then was a top aide to Kelly both when he was head of Homeland Security and then when he went to the White House as chief of staff. And so she was confirmed as DHS secretary in her own right late last year.

KELLY: Now, she has been in the news just this week because of this announcement - this controversial announcement that immigration agents will separate families who crossed the border illegally, even families who are crossing the border to try to seek asylum⁵.

BURNETT: Right, but she wanted to clarify - and I think this was important - that families who present themselves at ports of entry can ask for asylum. They'll receive a credible⁶ fair interview, and they will not necessarily be arrested on the spot and separated. It's the families that cross the border illegally - that maybe take a raft across the Rio Grande. They'll be arrested, prosecuted⁷, and they'll separate the parents from the children.

KELLY: And did you ask her, is this meant to be a deterrent⁹ specifically for families leaving Central America?

BURNETT: Well, I even asked her about a quote that I had read in The New Yorker magazine that taking children from their parents is a form of state terror.

NIELSEN: What it's meant to do is do our jobs. I mean, that would be like saying that when people commit crimes in this country and they're put in jail and separated from their family, that somehow that's terror. In the United States, we call that law enforcement. We call that protecting our communities and our children. That's what we're doing.

BURNETT: But separating families isn't - it's an extreme measure.

NIELSEN: Well, it's not. Again, we do it every day in every part of the country. If you have a family and you commit a crime, the police do not not put you in jail because you have a family. They prosecute⁸ you, and they incarcerate¹⁰ you. Illegal aliens should not get just different rights because they happen to be illegal aliens.

BURNETT: So, Mary Louise, I wanted to put a human face on DHS enforcement policies, and there's this one particular case that's got loads of attention. A woman and her 6-year-old daughter fled the Democratic Republic of Congo and showed up at the Tijuana-San Diego Port of Entry asking for asylum last November.

KELLY: Oh, this is the case from last fall, last November.

BURNETT: Right. Federal agents separated them. They took the little girl and sent her to Chicago where she stayed in a government-contracted youth shelter. And they locked the mother up in detention¹¹ for four months in San Diego. They were finally reunited after a lawsuit¹² and a big public outcry. And I asked Secretary Nielsen about that case.

Do you wish that you all had handled that case differently?

NIELSEN: I think we can always do better. We're learning a lot from it. As you know, it's an active lawsuit, so unfortunately I can't get into all the things we're doing to improve the system. But absolutely, it's not our intent to separate people one day longer than is necessary to prove that there is in fact a custodial¹³ relationship.

KELLY: Would she get, John, at all into what DHS is going to do under her leadership? Is the plan here to arrest everybody in the country who's unauthorized? That would be - what? - something like 11 million people.

BURNETT: Right. I asked her that, and this is what she said.

NIELSEN: I don't think anyone would pretend that's possible. So what we are doing is we prioritize. We will deport¹⁴ as many as resources allow. We do that in a structured, targeted way. We go after this from a policy position that we feel it's a threat to the United States and our community. So as you know, we focus on the criminal element, for example, but we do not have the current resources today to deport all 11 million, for example, in the next year.

KELLY: John, let me turn you to another item I know is on your list to ask Secretary Nielsen about. This is TPS, temporary protected status. It's been in the news a lot of late. TPS allows immigrants to stay in the U.S. - immigrants from certain countries that maybe have been struck by natural disaster or by war.

BURNETT: Right. And so in recent months, DHS has cancelled temporary protected status for some 400,000 immigrants from Central America, the Caribbean, Asia and Africa. Her answer was pretty simple. She said U.S. law required her to take that action. Let's listen.

NIELSEN: The statute¹⁵ is very clear. If the conditions that originated from the designating event no longer exist, the statute says the secretary shall terminate. To pretend that conditions continue to exist from a hurricane 20 years ago is a fiction. Does that mean there isn't difficulty in that country - no. Does that mean we shouldn't take care of TPS - no. But does that mean that I have any authority to continue to grant them temporary status? It does not.

BURNETT: But there was some discretion¹⁶. I mean, you could - some of these have gone on, you know, for 15-plus years. But you all decided¹⁷ to draw a line in your tenure¹⁸.

NIELSEN: Yeah, we decided to enforce the law. We don't make immigration law. Congress should pass a law to give permanent status to those who've had temporary protective status. I am not going to bow to political pressure, however, to break the law to do Congress's job. They need to do it.

KELLY: It's interesting, John, to hear how the secretary is framing this because she has faced criticism that senior White House officials such as chief of staff John Kelly and senior policy adviser¹⁹ Stephen Miller²⁰ are driving a hard-line agenda at her department. Did you ask her about that pressure on her department? What'd she say?

BURNETT: Yep, I asked her directly, is the Homeland Security Department independent from the Trump White House?

NIELSEN: Well, it is. We have operational control. So we have the men and women who execute the laws each day. What we do, though, is - this takes a partnership²¹. So one of the roles of the White House is to help coordinate²² the interagency, and General Kelly and Stephen Miller help us do that.

KELLY: So, John, what's your takeaway from having sat down with her and asked her about the criticism her department is coming under from a lot of quarters?

BURNETT: Secretary Nielsen is not backing down one inch from this harsh criticism of her agency's enforcement actions. DHS is going to fix what she says is a broken immigration system, and that's exactly what the Trump administration wants her to do.

KELLY: John Burnett, thank you.

BURNETT: It's a pleasure.

KELLY: John Burnett reporting there on his sit-down interview today with the secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen.

1 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

2 mandate   

n.托管地；命令，指示

参考例句：

• The President had a clear mandate to end the war.总统得到明确的授权结束那场战争。
• The General Election gave him no such mandate.大选并未授予他这种权力。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 mentor   

n.指导者，良师益友；v.指导

参考例句：

• He fed on the great ideas of his mentor.他以他导师的伟大思想为支撑。
• He had mentored scores of younger doctors.他指导过许多更年轻的医生。

5 asylum   

n.避难所，庇护所，避难

参考例句：

• The people ask for political asylum.人们请求政治避难。
• Having sought asylum in the West for many years,they were eventually granted it.他们最终获得了在西方寻求多年的避难权。

6 credible   

adj.可信任的，可靠的

参考例句：

• The news report is hardly credible.这则新闻报道令人难以置信。
• Is there a credible alternative to the nuclear deterrent?是否有可以取代核威慑力量的可靠办法？

7 prosecuted   

a.被起诉的

参考例句：

• The editors are being prosecuted for obscenity. 编辑因刊载污秽文字而被起诉。
• The company was prosecuted for breaching the Health and Safety Act. 这家公司被控违反《卫生安全条例》。

8 prosecute   

vt.告发；进行；vi.告发，起诉，作检察官

参考例句：

• I am trying my best to prosecute my duties.我正在尽力履行我的职责。
• Is there enough evidence to prosecute?有没有起诉的足够证据？

9 deterrent   

n.阻碍物，制止物；adj.威慑的，遏制的

参考例句：

• Large fines act as a deterrent to motorists.高额罚款是对开车的人的制约。
• I put a net over my strawberries as a deterrent to the birds.我在草莓上罩了网，免得鸟歇上去。

10 incarcerate   

v.监禁，禁闭

参考例句：

• Why do you incarcerate yourself in the room every afternoon?你为何每天下午将自己关在房间里？
• Many people think that it is wrong to incarcerate criminals in confined quarters for as long as thirty years.很多人认为把罪犯监禁在禁闭营里达30年之久是不对的。

11 detention   

n.滞留，停留；拘留，扣留；(教育)留下

参考例句：

• He was kept in detention by the police.他被警察扣留了。
• He was in detention in connection with the bribery affair.他因与贿赂事件有牵连而被拘留了。

12 lawsuit   

n.诉讼，控诉

参考例句：

• They threatened him with a lawsuit.他们以诉讼威逼他。
• He was perpetually involving himself in this long lawsuit.他使自己无休止地卷入这场长时间的诉讼。

13 custodial   

adj.监护的，照管的

参考例句：

• The teenagers were convicted of manslaughter and given a two-year custodial sentence. 这些青少年被判过失杀人罪，及二年的监禁（拘留）刑罚。
• This article interrogates the cultural experience of being a non custodial mother. 本文审视一位无监护权的母亲所感受到的文化体验。

14 deport   

vt.驱逐出境

参考例句：

• We deport aliens who slip across our borders.我们把偷渡入境的外国人驱逐出境。
• More than 240 England football fans are being deported from Italy following riots last night.昨晚的骚乱发生后有240多名英格兰球迷被驱逐出意大利。

15 statute   

n.成文法，法令，法规；章程，规则，条例

参考例句：

• Protection for the consumer is laid down by statute.保障消费者利益已在法令里作了规定。
• The next section will consider this environmental statute in detail.下一部分将详细论述环境法令的问题。

16 discretion   

n.谨慎；随意处理

参考例句：

• You must show discretion in choosing your friend.你择友时必须慎重。
• Please use your best discretion to handle the matter.请慎重处理此事。

17 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

18 tenure   

n.终身职位；任期；(土地)保有权，保有期

参考例句：

• He remained popular throughout his tenure of the office of mayor.他在担任市长的整个任期内都深得民心。
• Land tenure is a leading political issue in many parts of the world.土地的保有权在世界很多地区是主要的政治问题。

19 adviser   

n.劝告者，顾问

参考例句：

• They employed me as an adviser.他们聘请我当顾问。
• Our department has engaged a foreign teacher as phonetic adviser.我们系已经聘请了一位外籍老师作为语音顾问。

20 miller   

n.磨坊主

参考例句：

• Every miller draws water to his own mill.磨坊主都往自己磨里注水。
• The skilful miller killed millions of lions with his ski.技术娴熟的磨坊主用雪橇杀死了上百万头狮子。

21 partnership   

n.合作关系，伙伴关系

参考例句：

• The company has gone into partnership with Swiss Bank Corporation.这家公司已经和瑞士银行公司建立合作关系。
• Martin has taken him into general partnership in his company.马丁已让他成为公司的普通合伙人。

22 coordinate   

adj.同等的，协调的；n.同等者；vt.协作，协调

参考例句：

• You must coordinate what you said with what you did.你必须使你的言行一致。
• Maybe we can coordinate the relation of them.或许我们可以调和他们之间的关系。