It should come as no surprise to anyone anywhere that the Trump administration lied about its policy of separating immigrant children from their parents and deporting the parents before they could be reunited with their kids. But there's at least a small measure of comfort in knowing that a government watchdog has confirmed the lie, saying it can find no evidence to back the administration's assertions that the separations were voluntary and that parents chose to leave the country without their kids.

A May 18 report by the Homeland Security Department's inspector general directly contradicts testimony before Congress by then-Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen that "every parent" was given a choice of whether to be deported with their children or leave them behind. It seemed an obvious lie at the time, but since the parents were dispersed to the furthest corners of Central America, and hundreds of their children got lost in the system, there was no way of knowing the truth.

"We confirmed that before July 12, 2018, migrant parents did not consistently have the opportunity to reunify with their children before removal. Although DHS and ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] have claimed that parents removed without their children chose to leave them behind, there was no policy or standard process requiring ICE officers to ascertain, document, or honor parents' decisions regarding their children," the inspector general's report states.

The administration's child-separations policy was so shockingly cruel, even the president's most ardent Republican supporters on Capitol Hill called for a halt. But Trump, guided by the twisted notions of senior adviser Stephen Miller, determined that it would be an effective deterrent if parents were dispatched childless back to their home countries to recount their horrors to other families contemplating migration.

Nielsen, testifying before Congress in 2018, stated that the administration "never had a policy for family separation" even while she defended a "zero tolerance" policy that meant children could not remain in detention longer than 20 days even if their parents were kept longer. Thus, the children had to be removed to licensed child care facilities. When parents were subsequently deported, hundreds of separations became permanent.

The inspector general's report stated that despite administration assertions of having complied with parents' wishes to keep their children with them upon deportation, "ICE removed some parents without their children despite having evidence the parents wanted to bring their children back to their home country." The report said at least 348 parents experienced such involuntary separations. More than 390 children have yet to locate their parents in order to be reunited.

Those are hideous statistics all by themselves, representing an egregious breach of the law to serve Trump's political whims. But the fact that the administration felt compelled to lie in order to justify its actions underscores the extent of its depravity.

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