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Acting Homeland Security chief Kevin McAleenan said separating migrant families at the U.S. southern border is "not on the table," and the policy was "not worth it" from an enforcement perspective.
In his first network interview as acting DHS secretary to broadcast, McAleenan told NBC News' Lester Holt on Tuesday, "We're not pursuing that approach."
McAleenan's predecessor, Kirstjen Nielsen, was forced out of the job earlier this month, in part because she'd refused to reinstate the policy of separating children from their families at the border, U.S. officials have told NBC News. Nielsen had implemented the policy last year, but it was blocked by the courts.
For more on this story, read NBCNews.com and watch "Nightly News with Lester Holt" at 6:30 p.m. ET/5:30 p.m. CT.
Asked if he thought the policy had been effective, McAleenan hedged.
"So prosecuting violations of the law does have a consequence and it does deter behavior but it did not work if you lose the public trust," he said, adding that from "an enforcement perspective, it’s not worth it."
Of the children separated from their families at the border, "they were always intended to be reunited," McAleenan said.
"Really a better system, as I've said many times, would allow us to detain families together during fair and expeditious immigration proceedings and getting actual immigration results from courts, so that’s what’s missing from the current situation," he added in an interview from DHS's offices in the World Trade Center.
McAleenan insisted the family separation policy wasn't coming back.
"I think the president has been clear that family separation is not on the table and again this was a zero tolerance prosecution initiative that was targeted at adults violating the law," he said.