Families torn apart: Don reverses ‘zero tolerance’ immigration policy
It’s been two months since the Trump administration announced its new “zero tolerance” policy regarding illegal immigration, which federal officials say has led to about 2,000 undocumented immigrant children in government custody being separated from their parents.
This evoked sharp criticism from his own wife, as well as a former first lady, who described the move to warehouse children in detention centres as “cruel” and “immoral.”
Laura Bush, wife of the former Republican President George W. Bush, launched a rare attack on the policy of the current US President saying, “This zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart,” the 71year-old former first lady wrote in an opinion piece in the Washington Post.
Video footage released shows children sitting in cages and an audiotape of heartbreaking voices of small Spanish-speaking children crying out for their parents at a US immigration facility took centre stage in the growing uproar over the Trump administration’s policy of separating immigrant children from their parents.
On June 21, Mr Trump reversed his decision on immigration by signing an executive order to end separation of immigrant families on the US-Mexico border. “I did not like the sight of families being separated,” Trump said while signing the order at the White House, but added the administration will continue its “zero tolerance policy” of criminally prosecuting anyone who crosses the border illegally.