Clinton on migrant kids: ‘Those children needed to be processed appropriately’

Hillary Clinton struggled to defend her position that Central American children who have fled their violent home countries for the United States should be deported back to their home countries during Thursday’s debate.

“I made it very clear that those children needed to be processed appropriately, but we also had to send a message to families and communities in Central America not to send their children on this dangerous journey in the hands of smugglers,” she said, after Sen. Bernie Sanders criticized her position on the issue.

Sanders, who voted against a 2007 bill to legalize millions of immigrants because of his concerns about its guest-worker program, successfully painted Clinton as a hawk on immigration during their brief back-and-forth on the issue. The former secretary of state sounded somewhat detached as she defended the Obama administration’s policy of deporting minors in order to warn their families not to expose their children to such risks.

Sanders got the last word. “These are children who are leaving countries and neighborhoods where their lives are at stake,” he said. “That was the fact. I don’t think we use them to send a message. I think we welcome them into this country and do the best we can to help them get their lives together.”