There he goes again.
President Donald Trump, in his usual bombastic way, used the inelegant truth Tuesday to point out one of the reasons there is such hue and cry about children being separated from their parents after illegal crossings at the United States Southern border.
"Democrats are the problem," he tweeted. "They want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our country. They can't win on their terrible policies, so they view them as potential voters."
Trump is right about that. Various Democrats have admitted over time they need an influx of people who need government support as voters. The idea, of course, is that Congress would pass a law that sanctions their illegal entry, makes them citizens and allows them to be voters.
He swerved further into the truth with his tweets, saying that "we must always arrest people coming into our country illegally," that most of the young illegal immigrants have been sent to the border without their parents, that many have tried to enter the country on numerous previous occasions, and that if borders are not secure, "you don't have a country."
Trump's language is direct, not sugar-coated. It's the reason many people voted for him in the 2016 election. They welcome immigrants who do all the right things to become American citizens but are tired of having so many people cross the border illegally.
But Democrats and the national media have attempted to use Attorney General Jeff Sessions' recent "zero tolerance" order that increased the number of children separated from parents who illegally cross the border for political purposes.
"We do not want to separate children from their parents," he told the National Sheriffs' Association Monday. "We do not want adults to bring children into this country unlawfully, placing them at risk."
But, he added, "We cannot and will not encourage people to bring their children by giving them blanket immunity from our laws."
Illegal, after all, is still illegal.
What Trump is up against, though, is an Obama-era law that says when adults are detained and criminally prosecuted, their children cannot be housed with them in jail.
That's not to say former President Obama had the same "zero tolerance" policy Sessions implemented. Obviously, he did not, and that's why the illegal immigration problem grew so much during his tenure.
Indeed, Peter Margulies, an immigration law and national security law professor at Roger Williams University School of Law, said, as quoted by PunditFact, "Obama generally refrained from prosecution in cases involving adults who crossed the border with their kids."
Read that again, and you can see how the problem got out of hand.
In the past, the practice, for all practical purposes, had been that an adult who is part of a family unit would get a free pass. Thus, if there was no prosecution, there would be no separation.
However, both Jeh Johnson, Obama's Homeland Security secretary, and Denise Gilman, a law professor who directs the immigration clinic at the University of Texas School of Law, said children were separated from their parents during the Obama administration but not often and not as a matter of policy.
The current situation can be handled in a variety of ways. If the law is altered that allows criminally prosecuted adults to stay with their children, Congress could appropriate more money for family shelters. That's the expensive way.
The best way - and quickest way for parents and children to be rejoined following prosecution - is for the families to agree to return to their native countries. But illegal immigration advocates don't want that because it eliminates the option of those people ever becoming U.S. citizens and, in turn, voters for candidates whose policies advocate government dependency.
It's not ideal if a parent is separated from a child by a federal prison sentence for a white-collar crime, by abandonment, by criminal conviction for drug running or by prosecution for illegal entry across our Southern border.
The White House, though, apparently hopes the "zero tolerance" policy will be a deterrent for future potential illegal immigrants. It should be, but that's not likely to stop them from coming.
Democrats deserve blame for not wanting immigration laws enforced, but, in their defense, they're only taking advantage of the problem that's there.
Both parties, instead, should work together to make sure the border is more secure, border policies are humane and that legal immigration is welcomed and supported for those who want to play by the rules.