I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Thursday, February 4th.

With the first action today, we're going to work to undo the moral and national shame of the previous administration

that literally, not figuratively, ripped children from the arms of their families, their mothers

and fathers at the border, and with no plan, none whatsoever to reunify the children who

are still in custody and their parents.

President Joe Biden, as he signed an executive order reversing the Trump administration's

family separation policy for migrants seeking asylum or otherwise coming across the southern

border. Later today, the president is expected to sign another order expanding the number of

refugees the U.S. takes in after Trump had reduced that to historic lows. All of this is not getting

much news coverage, as much as it should, because everyone's focusing on what to do about the Q&on

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green. and not that that's not important,

but we want to make sure these immigration developments also happening now that affect so many

individuals and so many families, so personally, also get a spotlight today. The Washington Post

reports that more than 5,000 children were separated there at the southern border in 2017 and 2018

in an attempt to deter other families from coming, the ACLU estimates at least a thousand of those

kids remain separated, though one of the problems is that the number and which children

these are remain unclear to the public,

in part because of obstacles that the Trump administration left. Here is Biden's newly confirmed

Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas. I am a father. I am a husband. I am a son. I am a brother. I have not heard before a pain as acute and heartbreaking as that. And it is our commitment to make sure that pain is

not felt again. Now, Majorcas, if you haven't focused on himself, on him yet, he himself comes from a refugee family,

but his confirmation drew more Republican opposition than any other Biden nominee so far,

with more than 40 Republicans voting against confirming him.

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