Trump: “You have to take the children away”

Washington: US President Donald Trump has defended his policy of splitting up families entering the US illegally, defying a growing chorus of condemnation. Speaking at a business convention, Mr Trump said children have to be taken away if their parents are jailed for illegally crossing the US border.

The president had earlier sparked outrage for tweeting that undocumented immigrants would “infest” the US. Mexico’s foreign minister has called the US policy “cruel and inhuman”.

“I don’t want children taken away from parents,” Mr Trump said on Tuesday during a speech at a National Federation of Independent Businesses event in Washington DC.