Yuri Gripas/Reuters
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform voted to issue subpoenas to Attorney General William Barr, Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, and Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar for “records on the Trump Administration’s child separation policy,” according to a release from Chairman Elijah Cummings’ (D-MD) office. The subpoenas are the committee’s first, and require the Justice Department, DHS, and HHS to “produce specific categories of information about each separated child.” “I did not make this decision lightly,” Cummings said in a statement. “When our own government rips vulnerable children, toddlers, and even infants from the arms of their mothers and fathers with no plan to reunite them, that is government-sponsored child abuse. It is our job to step in and protect those children. Further delay is not an option.” This comes after documents obtained by BuzzFeed News suggest that border officials didn’t receive guidance about Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy until after Secretary Nielsen signed a memo enacting it.