Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Sunday that she “didn’t really know” the separation of undocumented families was a problem under former President Obama.
On CNN’s “State Of The Union,” host Jake Tapper addressed a picture of “undocumented children in a holding cell” from 2014 that was passed around as if it happened under the Trump administration. (RELATED: Shaun King, Linda Sarsour, Others Try To Hammer Trump On Immigration But Hit Obama Instead)
“A lot of Democrats are expressing outrage about how Trump is treating undocumented immigrants,” said Tapper. “We saw this photo making the rounds on social media, Los Angeles former mayor tweeting it out, it is actually from — it is undocumented children in a holding cell, but it is you actually from 2014 when President Obama was president. There were a lot of things done to undocumented immigrants that the immigrant community was very upset about during the Obama years, the Democrats didn’t seem as outspoken about.”
“What do you say to people who are saying where was all this activism during the Obama years?” Tapper asked.
Feinstein responded by asserting her belief that the problem was not “to the extent that it is today,” adding, she “didn’t really know enough about it.”
“I don’t believe that it was nearly to the extent that it is today,” said the California senator. “And candidly, I didn’t really know enough about it at that time to focus on it. I do know enough about it now.”
Feinstein then discussed her bill that would “prohibit the taking of children in this manner and then it would provide a number of criteria to remove a child, what you’d have to have present.”
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