Scott Jennings successfully fended off three liberal women’s attacks Sunday during a CNN panel regarding unaccompanied minors who crossed the border illegally and the Trump administration’s push to reunite those children with their families.
The panel discussion took place on CNN’s “The Arena with Kasie Hunt,” following a holiday weekend ruling by a federal judge blocking federal immigration officials from transporting 76 Guatemalan minors back to their home country.
ABC News reported that D.C. federal district court Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, a Biden appointee, issued an order Sunday banning the flights until further legal proceedings can be held.
“We’re for child separation now from their families now. We used to be against that — now, I guess we’re for it,” Jennings said in response to the ruling.
During the first Trump administration, Democrats expressed anger that parents, for a brief period of time, were being separated from their children and detained to face prosecution for crossing the border illegally.
New York Times podcast host Lulu Garcia-Navarro responded to Jennings, “These children have family in this country.”
“And their parents are in Guatemala, and the Guatemalan government wants them back,” Jennings fired back.
CNN guest host Pamela Brown interjected, “Well, not all of them. Not all. And so, a 10-year-old little girl who lost her mother, and then she said she was abused in Guatemala, and came over. It’s more complicated than just a clear-cut, ‘They all have parents in Guatemala.’”
Dems are suddenly IN FAVOR OF child separation as soon as the Trump administration attempts to reunite children with their deported parents in Guatemala.
What are we even talking about right now? pic.twitter.com/jTI2fT3uco
— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) September 1, 2025
ABC News reported that a complaint filed by the National Immigration Law Center, which seeks to block the deportations, says that a 10-year-old girl’s “mother is deceased and she suffered abuse and neglect from other caregivers” in Guatemala.
“These children were abandoned here, somehow,” Jennings said. “They’ve been sent here for some period of time. They’re trying to reunite them with their families where they’re from, with a government that has asked for their return and wants to facilitate their return.
“This all happened under the Biden administration. Now, a Biden judge is trying to keep them here and to further this policy of keeping them separated from the families that they have in Guatemala,” he added. “Again, everybody is upset about this, and I don’t know why. They’re trying to reunite them with their families.”
Brown went back to Jennings, asking, “But are you comfortable with how it was done?”
“I understand you’re taking the administration’s line on this, but [to be] woken up in the middle of the night over a holiday weekend, not having a chance to go before a judge to contest this, or explain why they want to go back to Guatemala, or anything like that, and then put aboard these planes. And then, you know, then the lawyers step in, a judge steps in, and here we are,” she said.
“My general view is that their families in Guatemala, and the Guatemalan government, wants them back. We should send them back,” Jennings replied.
Democratic strategist Adrienne Elrod jumped into the fray, arguing, “Seems a little fishy to me. You don’t think it’s a weird time to do this?”
“I think Lulu is exactly right. There is a due process system in place in our government,” she added.
“We’re not saying they’re criminals. We’re just saying they should go home,” Jennings replied.
“And children deserve to be able to go in front of a judge and defend why they’re here,” Elrod asserted.
“Do you think they made the conscious choice to come here on their own, or were they sent here for some other reason?” Jennings asked Elrod.
Garcia-Navarro entered back into the argument, telling Jennings, “None of us know the stories of these children.”
“I know their story. They’ve been separated from their families. They’re trying to be reunited,” Jennings concluded.
Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement director Todd Lyons told Fox News on Tuesday, “These children have parents in another country, and it’s our job to go ahead and reunify them.”
Lyons explained that one of President Donald Trump’s top directives after returning to office was to locate 300,000 unaccompanied children released into the country during the Biden administration.
“We’re still going to keep that mission going,” Lyons said. “We’re still going to attempt to locate these children, many of which we found in slave-labor type situations, sex trafficking. So that’s still our number one priority, protecting these children.”
Jennings successfully parried and dodged the verbal assaults of three liberal CNN panelists while driving home the point that Trump is seeking to reunite families, which leftists used to be for.
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