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Nancy Pelosi tours San Diego immigration detention centers, visits border

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SAN DIEGO (KGTV/CNS) - House Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi visited San Diego County Monday morning to tour several of the area’s immigration detention facilities.

Pelosi’s visit comes after a weekend of protests across the country over the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy of separating migrant children from their parents.

The policy aims to prosecute all suspected border-crossers, including adults traveling with children. Federal authorities said Friday that government officials had separated 1,995 children from parents facing criminal prosecution for unlawfully crossing the border over a six-week period that ended last month.

President Trump has repeatedly falsely claimed that Democrats are to blame for separating immigrant children from their families, though it is his own administration's policy to separate families.

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Former First Lady Laura Bush wrote an opinion piece published in the Washington Post in which she criticized the policy and referred to it as "immoral."

"Our government should not be in the business of warehousing children in converted box stores or making plans to place them in tent cities in the desert outside of El Paso," Bush wrote.

Rep. Scott Peters, D-San Diego, spoke on the House floor last week to demand an end to the policy.

"In our country, family is an institution," Peters said last Thursday. "Today, family -- that concept -- is being torn apart and challenged at our own borders."

In afternoon press conference, Pelosi was joined by Rep. Juan Vargas, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and 13 other members of Congress.