Kirstjen Nielsen was confronted over family separations while out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant: ‘If kids don’t eat in peace, you don’t eat in peace’ 
 
 Kirstjen Nielsen, Trump’s homeland security secretary, faced protesters while dining at a Mexican restaurant amid growing backlash surrounding the US policy of separating children from their parents at the southern border. 
 
 Video posted by the Metro DC Democratic Socialists of America showed protesters shouting at the embattled Trump official as she tried to ignore the chants. 
 
 “How can you enjoy a Mexican dinner as you’re deporting and imprisoning tens of thousands of people that come here seeking asylum in the United States?” one person yelled, before calling for an end to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice). 
 
 Trump backs plan to end family separations but shirks responsibility Read more 
 
 “We call on you to end family separation and abolish Ice,” a protester said, as others shouted, “Shame!”, “If kids don’t eat in peace, you don’t eat in peace” and “Kirstjen Nielsen, you’re a villain!” 
 
 Play Video 2:12 Why were families being separated at the southern US border? – video explainer 
 
 Quick guide Why are families being separated at US border? Show Hide Why are children being separated from their families? In April 2018, the US attorney general, Jeff Sessions, announced a “zero tolerance” policy under which anyone who crossed the border without legal status would be prosecuted by the justice department. This includes some, but not all, asylum seekers. Because children can’t be held in adult detention facilities, they are being separated from their parents. Immigrant advocacy groups, however, say hundreds of families have been separated since at least July 2017. More than 200 child welfare groups, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the United Nations, said they opposed the practice. What happens to the children? They are supposed to enter the system for processing “unaccompanied alien children”, which exists primarily to serve children who voluntarily arrive at the border on their own. Unaccompanied alien children are placed in health department custody within 72 hours of being apprehended by border agents. They then wait in shelters for weeks or months at a time as the government searches for parents, relatives or family friends to place them with in the US. This already overstretched system has been thrown into chaos by the new influx of children. Can these children be reunited with their parents? Immigration advocacy groups and attorneys have warned that there is not a clear system in place to reunite families. In one case, attorneys in Texas said they had been given a phone number to help parents locate their children, but it ended up being the number for an immigration enforcement tip line. Advocates for children have said they do not know how to find parents, who are more likely to have important information about why the family is fleeing its home country. And if, for instance, a parent is deported, there is no clear way for them to ensure their child is deported with them. What happened to families before? When an influx of families and unaccompanied children fleeing Central America arrived at the border in 2014, Barack Obama’s administration detained families. This was harshly criticized and a federal court in 2015 stopped the government from holding families for months without explanation. Instead, they were released while they waited for their immigration cases to be heard in court. Not everyone shows up for those court dates, leading the Trump administration to condemn what it calls a “catch and release” program. By Amanda Holpuch Read more 
 
 
 
 “In a Mexican restaurant, of all places!” another protester shouted on the 10-minute video, which was broadcast live on Facebook and recorded at MXDC, a restaurant near the White House in Washington DC. “The fucking gall!” 
 
 Agents appeared to stand guard Nielsen, who looked down and did not engage the demonstrators. The protesters also played audio of Central American children crying after they were taken from their parents at the border. 
 
 “How does that make you feel?” a demonstrator asked. “Do you hear the babies crying?” 
 
 Osita Nwanevu (@OsitaNwanevu) DHS Secretary Nielsen just got driven out of a Mexican restaurant here on 14th Street by activists. DSA, I believe. pic.twitter.com/lTKutryXBO 
 
 Video captured Nielsen eventually leaving the restaurant and entering a vehicle. 
 
 Nielsen defended the administration’s policy in a Monday speech, saying: “We will not apologize for the job we do, or for the job law enforcement does, for doing the job that the American people expect us to do.” 
 
 
 
 At a press briefing on Monday, she also claimed that she had not heard the audio of the children calling “Mami!” and “Papá”. 
 
 From 5 May to 9 June of this year, more than 2,000 children were separated under the new “zero tolerance” policy, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). 
 
 DHS spokespeople did not immediately respond to request for comment on Tuesday about the protests. 
 
 Some Democratic lawmakers have called on Nielsen to resign. ||||| A tweet by the White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders, about her ejection from a Virginia restaurant on Friday broke federal ethics rules, a leading expert said. 
 
 'All I hear is my daughter, crying': a Salvadoran father's plight after separation at border Read more 
 
 On Saturday, Sanders posted: “Last night I was told by the owner of Red Hen in Lexington [Virginia] to leave because I work for POTUS and I politely left. Her actions say far more about her than about me. I always do my best to treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so.” 
 
 Walter Shaub, federal ethics chief under Barack Obama and briefly Donald Trump and now a fierce critic of the administration, responded: “Sanders used her official govt account to condemn a private business for personal reasons … she can lob attacks on her own time but not using her official position.” 
 
 The controversy came at the end of a week of fierce debate over a Trump policy which mandated the separation of children from their parents when such families entered the US illegally. 
 
 Between April and early June, according to federal statistics, more than 2,300 children were taken. On Wednesday, amid international condemnation and with even Republican supporters in Congress beginning to waver, Trump signed an executive order nominally – but not conclusively – stopping the practice. 
 
 On Saturday, groups of Democrats visited federal facilities, seeking details about how the children will be reunited with their families. The Department of Homeland Security said it knew where all the children were and was working to reunite them. 
 
 On Sunday, Trump returned to the attack on Twitter, advocating the end of due process. “We cannot allow all of these people to invade our ountry,” the president wrote. “When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came. Our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and Law and Order.” 
 
 Amid the controversy over immigration, and mixed messages from the president about congressional efforts at reform, there has been no White House press briefing since Monday. Then, Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary, addressed reporters on the separations policy. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Red Hen restaurant in downtown Lexington, Virginia. Photograph: Daniel Lin/AP 
 
 Nielsen and the policy adviser Stephen Miller both found themselves confronted by protesters in Mexican restaurants in Washington. The Red Hen seats 26 and serves “inspired Shenandoah cuisine” a three-hour drive from DC. Its owner told the Washington Post Sanders was served with a selection of cheeses before she decided, following a consultation with staff members, to ask her to leave the premises. 
 
 From El Salvador to the US: handcuffed at the border, separated for months Read more 
 
 “I was babbling a little,” Stephanie Wilkinson said, “but I got my point across in a polite and direct fashion. I explained that the restaurant has certain standards that I feel it has to uphold, such as honesty and compassion and cooperation. I said, �?I’d like to ask you to leave.’” 
 
 Sanders, Wilkinson said, replied: “That’s fine. I’ll go.” Others at her table followed. Wilkinson said: “They offered to pay. I said, �?No. It’s on the house.’” 
 
 
 
 The owner added: “I would have done the same thing again. We just felt there are moments in time when people need to live their convictions. This appeared to be one.” 
 
 The story set off a Twitter battle between Trump supporters and opponents, many on both sides comparing it to a recent supreme court ruling that said the owner of a Colorado cake shop was right to refuse service to a gay couple, based on his religious beliefs. 
 
 Sanders’ father, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, waded in, writing: “Bigotry. On the menu at Red Hen Restaurant in Lexington VA. Or you can ask for the �?Hate Plate’. And appetizers are �?small plates for small minds’.” 
 
 Newt Gingrich, a former Republican House speaker who many blame for US politics’ descent into vitriol and schism in the 1990s, wrote: “The increasing personal nastiness toward people who work for President Trump reflects the left’s understanding that they are losing. Nastiness reflects desperation, not strength. They can’t win the argument so they use nastiness. Sad and dangerous.” 
 
 Shaub launched a series of tweets of his own. 
 
 
 
 “Sarah,” he began. “I know you don’t care even a tiny little bit about the ethics rules, but using your official account for this is a clear violation … It’s the same as if [a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] agent pulled out his badge when a restaurant tried to throw him/her out. 
 
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 “Sanders used her official gov[ernmen]t account to condemn a private business for personal reasons. Seeks to coerce business by using her office to get public to pressure it. Violates endorsements ban too.” 
 
 The Red Hen found itself at the centre of online efforts to boost or damage its customer reviews, hoax booking calls and differing opinions locally. Amid a media scrum, Tom Lomax, a local business owner, brought flowers as a show of support. 
 
 He called Wilkinson a “force of nature” and “one of the biggest drivers of the downtown” and told the Associated Press: “We support our own here, great little community we have.” 
 
 Stephen Russek, a former restaurant owner, said: “You have your political opinions, you don’t throw somebody out of your restaurant. They ought to be shut down.” 
 
 Shaub added: “There’s no ethics rule against Sarah Sanders fans being cartoonish hypocrites in defending merchants discriminating against gay people but howling when a merchant rejects a human rights violator based on her involvement in harming babies & children. Ridicule will have to suffice.” ||||| OVER THE WEEKEND there was a fair bit of argument about the decision by a small restaurant in Lexington, Va., not to serve dinner to President Trump’s press secretary. It wasn’t the first time recently that strong political feelings have spilled into what used to be considered the private sphere. We understand the strength of the feelings, but we don’t think the spilling is a healthy development. 
 
 Sarah Huckabee Sanders was dining with a few other people at the Red Hen in Lexington Friday night. Several of the restaurant’s staff are gay and objected to Ms. Sanders’s defense of Mr. Trump’s discriminatory policies against transgender people. The staff also objected to the administration’s recent actions leading to the separation of thousands of children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. Respecting her staff’s wishes, the restaurant owner politely asked Ms. Sanders to leave, and Ms. Sanders politely acceded. She then tweeted about the episode, turning it into a public controversy. 
 
 This followed by a few days the very public heckling of two architects of that border policy, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, at Washington restaurants. Last month a Nebraska sociology professor was found guilty of vandalism for spraying false blood at the home of a National Rifle Association lobbyist in Alexandria. 
 
 It’s not a new tactic for protesters of one sort or another to target a public official’s home or private life. But never-at-rest social media have blurred the line between work hours and private time. Cellphone cameras make it ever easier to intrude and broadcast. 
 
 Most obviously, passions are running high. Those who defend the Red Hen staff, or Ms. Nielsen’s hecklers, say this is no ordinary policy dispute. Mr. Trump has ordered terrible violations of human rights at the border, he is demonizing immigrants by his actions and his rhetoric, and people need to speak up however they can. 
 
 They will get no argument from us regarding Mr. Trump’s border policy, and when it comes to coarsening the debate, he is the prime offender. The poisonous fruits could be seen, as it happens, Saturday morning in a vile tweet from Ms. Sanders’s father, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, that associated House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, with the vicious MS-13 gang. 
 
 We nonetheless would argue that Ms. Huckabee, and Ms. Nielsen and Mr. Miller, too, should be allowed to eat dinner in peace. Those who are insisting that we are in a special moment justifying incivility should think for a moment how many Americans might find their own special moment. How hard is it to imagine, for example, people who strongly believe that abortion is murder deciding that judges or other officials who protect abortion rights should not be able to live peaceably with their families? 
 
 Down that road lies a world in which only the most zealous sign up for public service. That benefits no one. ||||| President Trump Donald John TrumpAvenatti ‘still considering’ presidential run despite domestic violence arrest Mulvaney positioning himself to be Commerce Secretary: report Kasich: Wouldn’t want presidential run to ‘diminish my voice’ MORE is planning to oust Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen Kirstjen Michele NielsenMulvaney positioning himself to be Commerce Secretary: report Dem senator expresses concerns over potential Nielsen ouster Trump pushes back on reports of chaos in White House MORE as early as this week, The Washington Post reported on Monday. 
 
 Five current and former White House officials told the Post that Trump is planning to remove Nielsen as soon as possible. 
 
 White House chief of staff John Kelly John Francis KellyMORE is reportedly fighting the president on the matter, hoping to keep Nielsen in place. Kelly hired Nielsen as his chief of staff while he was Homeland Security secretary and has reportedly defended her for months. 
 
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 Trump has berated Nielsen in public and in private since she was hired, aggressively going after her during Cabinet meetings and mocking her in conversations with other White House officials, the Post reported. 
 
 Nielsen has reportedly told confidants that she is unhappy in the position. Aides told the Post that Trump does not seem to understand the nuances of immigration policy, creating a rift between himself and his Homeland Security secretary when Nielsen tries to explain the challenges posed by some of his proposals. 
 
 Trump has grown frustrated with Nielsen when she reportedly tells him that some of his hard-line proposals, including completely shutting down the border with Mexico, would not be feasible. 
 
 Nielsen's departure would be the latest in a string of high-profile Trump administration exits, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions Jefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsMulvaney positioning himself to be Commerce Secretary: report Graham: Trump’s new AG has ‘concerns’ about criminal justice bill Kentucky shooting suspect charged with federal hate crimes MORE. Sessions resigned last week at Trump's request. 
 
 Nielsen came under widespread scrutiny over the summer when reports emerged that the administration's so-called zero tolerance policy had resulted in the separation of thousands of migrant children from their parents at the southern border. Nielsen vigorously defended the policy in public, drawing the targeted ire of immigration activists and top Democratic lawmakers. Some critics called for her immediate resignation. 
 
 Trump later signed an executive order ending the practice amid heavy bipartisan pressure. 
 
 The Democratic Socialists of America’s Washington, D.C., chapter confronted Nielsen while she dined at a Mexican restaurant over the summer, chanting the words "shame" and “end Texas concentration camps." 
 
 The Department of Homeland Security in response said Nielsen shared "concern" over border immigration laws with the demonstrators. 
 
 Updated at 11:07 p.m.
– Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, one of the main defenders of the administration's harsh border policies, decided to dine at a Mexican restaurant Tuesday night. It did not go well. Protesters entered the MXDC restaurant in Washington and confronted Nielsen and her dinner companion about the family separation policy, the New York Daily News reports. "How can you enjoy a Mexican dinner as you're deporting, imprisoning ... thousands of people who come here seeking asylum?" one demonstrator asked. Video of the encounter shows Nielsen looking at her cutlery and not engaging with the protesters, who were kept at a distance by Secret Service agents. Protesters shouted "Shame" and "If kids don't eat in peace, you don't eat in peace." They also played audio of distressed children calling for their parents in a border detention center. Witness Erica Olmstead tells the Daily News that some restaurant patrons joined in the clapping and chanting, while others seemed "ambivalent." After about 10 minutes, Nielsen left the restaurant and entered a vehicle, the Guardian reports. Trump praised Nielsen in a tweet Tuesday, saying she had done a great job at a Monday press conference "explaining security at the border and for our country, while at the same time recommending changes to obsolete & nasty laws, which force family separation."