Trump can end his cruel family separation policy, and so can Congress

Let's be honest, as President Donald Trump likes to say -- even when he's not doing it.

The president is passing the buck when he claims that Democrats are to blame for his administration's policy of ripping children away from parents in migrant families apprehended at the border.

Cue up the motto that President Harry Truman famously displayed on his Oval Office desk: "The buck stops here."

It is almost laughable to assert, with Republicans in charge of Congress, the White House and the judicial selection process, that Democrats are solely responsible for any major policy. Like my laptop when I forget to recharge its battery, the Dems have no power.

Yet Trump, the man who does have power in the Oval Office, insisted that his hands were tied and that he was merely enforcing the law.

"I hate the children being taken away," he told reporters on Friday, the day after his administration said it had taken almost 2,000 children away from their parents in a six-week period that ended in May. "The Democrats have to change their law," he said. "That's their law."

No, it's not and repeating that falsehood does not make it true. There's no law that requires family separation. But there is President Trump's "zero tolerance" immigration policy, as announced by Attorney General Jeff Sessions back in April and implemented by department of Homeland Security director, Kirstjen Nielsen.

Under that policy change, all immigrants are prosecuted who are apprehended crossing the border without authorization, including many who are applying for asylum but crossed the border unlawfully before filing their claim.

Under presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, unlawful immigrants were released intact, often with an electronic ankle bracelet, while they waited for a hearing with an immigration judge. But that policy, nicknamed "catch-and-release," had a problem. A number of defendants don't show up for their hearings. They disappear instead into the nation's interior.

Trump boldly promised on the campaign trail that he would get rid of catch-and-release. But, as often is his practice, he said nothing about such details as what happens to the children of those who are charged and held? That's the question that faces the nation now, as news reports broadcast gut-wrenching news photos, video and recorded sounds of small children in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services crying out for their mothers.

As a result, although Trump denies it, the Washington Post quotes unnamed White House officials as saying the president has calculated that he will gain political leverage in congressional negotiators by continuing to enforce the family separation policy that he claims to hate.

In other words, since we're being candid here, Trump appears to be holding the children and their divided families hostage to his political agenda.

At the end of last week, he suggested that he would not change the policy unless Democrats agreed to his other immigration demands. They include tightened rules for border enforcement, new curbs on legal entry and his signature issue, a border wall -- which Democrats adamantly oppose.

Yet the president indicated he is open to a compromise measure that would achieve his priorities. Among the bills that show promise is an offering by Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican who also happens to fending off a surprisingly robust challenge by Democratic Rep. Beto O'Rourke from El Paso.

Not usually known for compromise, the very conservative Cruz, is introducing the Protect Kids and Parents Act, an "emergency bill" which shows promise as a model for a potential compromise bill.

Mainly he would double the number of federal immigration judges, from roughly 375 to 750. He would authorize new temporary shelters, with accommodations to keep families together. He would provide for expedited processing and review of asylum cases. Within 14 days, those who meet the legal standards will be granted asylum, and those who do not will be immediately returned to their home countries.

And he would mandate that illegal immigrant families must be kept together, absent aggravated criminal conduct or threat of harm to the children.

President Trump could end his cruel family separation policy, but so can Congress. As with all compromises, if I may paraphrase an old Rolling Stones song, you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you just might find you get what the country needs.

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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)