Santorum Battles CNN Panel: If You Want to America to Be Open, Have Illegals Stay at Your House

JEFF SESSIONS, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES: I thought I’d take a little bit of my digression here to discuss some concerns raised by our church friends about separation of families. And I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in “Romans 13” to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained the government for his purposes.

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TAPPER: Attorney General Jeff Sessions using scripture to justify the new Trump administration policy of prosecuting all of those who attempt to enter the country illegally and thus prosecuting them all and thus separating hundreds if now thousands more children from their parents.

My panel here is with me. Senator Santorum, I believe that you are supporter of the administration’s policy on this. Do you agree with the invocation of scripture to defend that?

ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR (ph): Careful, Rick, (INAUDIBLE).

RICK SANTORUM, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No. I’m very careful about this. I mean, what — you know, there are many religious leaders who object to this policy. And I certainly understand why.

TAPPER: Leaders of your church, the Catholic Church are very upset about it.

SANTORUM: Yes. It is gut wrenching to see these images and to understand what is going on. At the same time you have to — you know, governmental officials have to look back and look at the consequences of what the law is.

And the reality is as Jeff Sessions said repeatedly, the law is in place to make sure that we treat people fairly under the law and we have a deterrent effect. The reality is that everybody who is going to be disagreeing with me on this panel is sounding very compassionate. Oh, we need to take all these people in. We need to take all these people in.

I just — I just say that there is a consequence to that. I mean, if you say we are going to take these people in, more people will come and more people will come and we will have a bigger and bigger problem at the border.

You will be putting more children at risk. Of a 2,000 mile trek from Mexico which is not an easy thing to do. I mean, there is — there are real consequences of this.

And this is what I would say to all of you. You want America to be open, fine. I would argue give your addresses out and tell the people who come to this country you can come to my house.

You can stay here —

(CROSSTALK)

SANTORUM: And you can come to my house and you can stay here as long as you want. I will pay for your education. I will pay for your —

(CROSSTALK)

JENNIFER GRANHOLM, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Rick, come on —

(CROSSTALK)

SANTORUM: What you’re saying is —

(CROSSTALK)