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Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) on Tuesday accused Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) of playing into President Trump’s hands on immigration by calling to decriminalize illegal border crossings. In a heated exchange during Tuesday night's Democratic presidential debate, Warren argued that the law criminalizing border crossings allowed Trump to separate families and jail children. “We need to fix the crisis at the border, and a big part of how we do that is we do not play into Donald Trump’s hands, but he wants to stir up the crisis at the border, because that’s his overall message,” Warren said. (Elis, 7/30)

Pledges to repeal Section 1325 of Title 8 of the U.S. code — which makes "improper entry" into the U.S. a federal misdemeanor crime — have gained traction among some of the more progressive candidates in the large Democratic primary field after Obama-era Housing Secretary Julián Castro pressed fellow Texan Beto O'Rourke on his opposition to repealing the law during the debate last month. Under the widely criticized and now discontinued "zero tolerance" policy, the Trump administration employed Section 1325 to prosecute thousands of migrant parents who crossed the southern border illegally and forcibly separate them from their children.  (7/30)

Sanders agreed and defended his proposals to provide undocumented immigrants health care coverage and free college tuition. “When I talk about health care as a human right, that applies to everyone in this country,” he said. Their comments come after 10 of the Democratic contenders were asked in the first debates if they would decriminalize border crossings, and all present raised their hands. (Pager, Kinery and Egkolfopoulou, 7/31)

Sen. Ted Cruz was confronted at Los Angeles International Airport on Sunday by protesters who decried the detention of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. A video shared on social media showed people in the airport chanting, "Free the children!" as a smiling Cruz stood uncomfortably in the terminal. "Americans will not be silenced!" at least one protester shouted. At one point, the Texas Republican took time to pose for a photograph with a woman even as the chants continued.  (Cummings, 7/30)