DNC Chair Tom Perez released the following statement after reports that Donald Trump’s former Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a 2018 meeting, ‘We need to take away children’:

“‘We need to take away children.’ It is hard to imagine crueler words than those. And yet, that is exactly what the Trump administration said two years ago when they initiated their child separation policy. As a former assistant attorney general at the Justice Department under President Obama, I am appalled by such a gross abuse of power. Not only did the Trump administration willfully separate children from their families, but they lied about it. There are not enough words to fully capture the depravity of this administration and the suffering Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions caused. No matter how many years pass, these horrors will leave an indelible mark on our history. Now we must move forward by electing leaders of empathy and compassion. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris know that families belong together. And they will ensure this country lives up to its place as the world’s beacon of freedom and opportunity for all.”