He did not, but the most memorable quote of the Trump administration, for me, came out of that call:
NBC News’ Julia Ainsley noted that the move [of sharing adults’ fingerprints/background checks with DHS] could discourage undocumented parents from applying to take custody of their children, given their reasonable fear of potentially handing information over to the agency that also houses Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Parents who balk at giving their fingerprints to the government could be forced to leave their children in long-term foster care.
“If somebody is unwilling to claim their child from custody because they’re concerned about their own immigration status, I think that, de facto, calls into question whether they’re an adequate sponsor and whether we should be releasing a child to that person,” said Steven Wagner, the acting assistant secretary for the Administration for Children and Families at HHS.
In other words, if you’re too afraid to be deported yourself (and leave your child without a parent in the U.S.), you don’t deserve custody of your child. I quote that whenever I can, because I think it points to how even career bureaucrats had to look at these policies in order to justify them.