Calls to end ‘evil’ child policy
US First Lady wants deal to stop separating migrant kids from adults
DEMOCRATIC legislators have vowed 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 tears among migrant families and outrage on both sides of the political aisle.
It took on particular resonance as America celebrated Father’s Day on Sunday.
“They call it zero tolerance, but a better name is zero humanity, and there’s zero logic to this policy,” Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon said after leading a group of Democratic legislators to the Mexican border.
They toured a converted Walmart supermarket that is now housing about 1 500 immigrant children, after which Merkley said hurting kids to get legislative leverage is unacceptable. “It is evil,” he said.
The UN human rights chief yesterday also denounced the practice.
“The thought that any state would seek to deter parents by inflicting such abuse on children is unconscionable,” Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein said as he opened a session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
He called for Washington to immediately end the practice of forcible separation of these children.
Bracing for more child arrivals, the government plans to build camps at military bases in Texas.
Authorities 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 of his own making.
Amid deep divisions, congressional Republicans have struggled to craft a viable immigration plan.
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 programme that is harming children and creating massive child abuse.”
Representative David Cicilline said the policy was “undermining the founding values of this country”.
“We saw the fear in the eyes of these children who are wondering when they will see their parent ever again. It’s a disgrace, it’s shameful and it’s un-American,” he said.
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.
Immigration is one of the most divisive issues plaguing the Trump administration.
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 Paediatrics has warned causes irreparable harm to the children.
One Honduran asylum seeker killed himself in detention after US authorities separated him from his wife and three-year-old son last month.
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said: “We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period.
“For those seeking asylum at ports of entry, we have continued the policy from previous administrations and will only separate if the child is in danger, there is no custodial relationship between ‘family’ members, or if the adult has broken a law,” she wrote on Twitter.