Melania pitches in
FIRST LADY ENTERS US BORDER CONTROVERSY
MELANIA Trump made a surprise trip to the US-Mexican border on Thursday as her husband’s administration sought to quell a firestorm over migrant family separations, while Republican politicians were forced to delay a vote on the crisis.
While President Donald Trump’s administration struggled to formulate next steps, the Pentagon signalled officials were bracing for a lengthy ordeal. The military said it would prepare to house up to 20,000 unaccompanied migrant children on bases.
The First Lady’s unannounced visit came a day after the President — in a stunning about-face — moved to end the practice of splitting migrant families, which had prompted outrage at home and abroad.
There was, however, no immediate plan in place to reunite the more than 2300 children already separated from their families — igniting a fresh controversy over the conditions in which the children are living.
In McAllen, Texas, Mrs Trump visited the Upbring New Hope Children’s Shelter, a federally-funded facility that houses about 55 children from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, aged 5-17.
“I’m glad I’m here and I’m looking forward to seeing the children,” she said at a roundtable discussion with social workers and government officials.
“I would also like to ask you how I can help these children to reunite with their families as quickly as possible.”
Images and recordings of wailing youngsters detained in processing centres with chain-link cage-like enclosures have ignited global outrage.
The First Lady herself had called for a political compromise to end the separations — the result of the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy launched in early May, under which illegal border crossers were systematically prosecuted and their children separated from them as a result.
Mrs Trump spent over an hour at the shelter, talking to children who spoke to her in English, or in Spanish through a translator. “Usually when they get here, they’re very distraught,” one official said.
However Mrs Trump was unable to escape controversy on the trip. She boarded and exited her plane wearing a jacket which read “I really don’t care. Do U?” — a cryptic message that sent the internet ablaze.