President Donald Trump s administration started and carried out a policy that took more than 4,000 children from their parents, at least 545 of whom are still split apart years later. But at Thursdays debate, the president insisted that he did nothing wrong at all blaming his Democratic predecessors and even insisting the kids are doing fine.

Trumps first term was marked by a full-out assault on immigration, both legal and unauthorized. The most dramatic was his zero tolerance policy on unauthorized border-crossing, used in a 2017 pilot program and expanded more broadly in 2018, that led to criminal prosecution of parents and locking up their kids separately. Splitting up families was intentional and calculated, according to multiple reports.

Thanks to mass public outrage and a court order, Trump was forced to stop his family separation policy. Most families were reunited, but the American Civil Liberties Union, which was part of the lawsuit against the government that stopped the policy, said this week that at least 545 kids are still away from their parents.

Their kids were ripped from their arms and separated, Democratic nominee Joe Biden said during the debate. And now they cannot find over 500 sets of those parents and those kids are alone. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to go. Its criminal.