Zero-tolerence policy under fire
US lawmakers vow to end Trump’s ‘evil’ migrant family separations
WASHINGTON: Democratic lawmakers vowed Sunday to end the “evil” separation of migrant children from their parents at the US border, as First Lady Melania Trump made a rare political plea to end the deeply controversial practice.
The “zero-tolerance” border security policy implemented by President Donald Trump’s administration has sparked outrage on both sides of the political aisle and took on particular resonance as America celebrated Father’s Day.
“They call it ‘zero tolerance,’ but a better name for it is zero humanity, and there’s zero logic to this policy,” said Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, after leading a group of Democratic lawmakers to the Mexican border.
“It’s completely unacceptable under any moral code or under any religious tradition to injure children, inflict trauma on them in order to send some political message to adults somewhere overseas.”
After touring a converted Walmart supermarket that is now housing about 1,500 immigrant children, Merkley said “hurting kids to get legislative leverage is unacceptable. It is evil.”
The government has said that during one recent six-week period nearly 2,000 minors were separated from their parents or adult guardians – a figure that only stoked the firestorm.
Trump has said he wants the separations to end, but continues to blame opposition Democrats for the crisis, which critics say is one of his own making.
The Republican-led House of Representatives may vote in the coming days on two immigration measures – a hardline bill and a compromise measure that would limit legal immigration while also ending family separations.
Representative Sheila Jackson Lee accused Trump of lying by claiming he was simply following to the letter a previously existing law.
“The president is not telling the truth. There is no law, there is no policy that has allowed him to snatch children away from their families,” she said.
“I can assure you we’ll be fighting to the end to stop this ugly, vile program that is harming children and creating massive child abuse.”
Trump’s wife, who seldom wades into the political arena, opted to call for bipartisan immigration reform to fix the issue, rather than denounce the policy.
“Mrs Trump hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform,” her spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said.
“She believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart.”
The president himself later tweeted: “The Democrats should get together with their Republican counterparts and work something out on Border Security & Safety. Don’t wait until after the election because you are going to lose!” he tweeted.
The number of separations has jumped since early May, when Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that all migrants illegally crossing the US border with Mexico would be arrested, regardless of whether the adults were seeking asylum.
Since children cannot be sent to the facilities where their parents are held, they are separated, which the American Academy of Pediatrics has warned causes “irreparable harm” to the children. — AFP