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"I'm troubled by it," Collins said.
"It does seem to contradict the President's own policy," Collins added.
Maine Sen. Susan Collins said Wednesday that the deportation of a 23-year-old man alleged to have had protected status in the US contradicts President Donald Trump’s own stated policy on the issue.
Collins made the comments after being asked on the “George Hale Ric Tyler Show” on WVOM Maine radio about the February deportation of Juan Manuel Montes Bojorquez, who was protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, according to his lawyers. The Department of Homeland Security claims that Montes’ status expired in 2015.
After saying that she was troubled by the deportation, Collins went on to add that based on her understanding of Trump’s views, they agreed on the issue of DREAMers.
“I’m troubled by it,” Collins said. “It seems to me that if a child is brought here by his parents that that child really didn’t have any say in the decision to come here. I don’t support illegal immigration. But that isn’t the child’s fault. And as I understand the details of yesterday’s deportation, this individual who’s in his 20s now, was brought here when he was 9 years old. And it is his parents who were at fault, not him.”
She went on to say, “But it does seem to contradict the President’s own policy because he too has expressed sympathy for children who were brought here and have grown up here and in some cases know no other language, know no other country, they really will be lost when they’re deported. And that does trouble me. And it troubles the president. The President made pretty clear that he was sympathetic to that group of individuals.”
Though Trump said he would end the program during the campaign, he has said since taking office that “DACA is a very, very difficult subject for me, I will tell you.”
In the interview, Collins also said she was troubled by the White House’s inaccurate declaration last week that it was sending an aircraft carrier to the Sea of Japan as a deterrent to North Korea. The New York Times reported Tuesday that the Carl Vinson was actually headed in the opposite direction to join military exercises in the Indian Ocean. The administration cited miscommunication between the Pentagon and White House to explain the error.
“It certainly shows a breakdown in communications that is troubling because the president is commander in chief and (Defense) Secretary (James) Mattis apparently, according to press reports — I haven’t an official briefing on it yet — told him that this carrier and the destroyers were headed towards North Korea as a show of force when in fact they were headed in the completely opposite direction to Australia,” Collins said. “And it’s troubling if we don’t know where our assets are. It’s also so surprising. Every time I have seen that map that shows where our naval assets are, believe me, the Pentagon knows exactly where they are. So I suspect there was some sort of just terrible miscommunication but it should not have occurred.”
Collins also addressed an interview last week in which she said she was considering a run for governor. She said that she would make a decision on whether to run “some time this fall.”