Trump caves on border kids
President Donald Trump ordered an end to the separation of migrant children from their parents on the US border on Wednesday, reversing a tough policy under heavy pressure from his fellow Republicans, Democrats and the international community.
The spectacular about-face comes after more than 2 300 children were stripped from their parents and adult relatives after illegally crossing the border since May 5 and placed in tent camps and other facilities, with no way to contact their relatives.
Despite the order, there was no plan in place to reunite the thousands of children already separated from their families, according to multiple US media reports citing officials from the Health and Human Services Department (HHS).
Those youngsters would remain separated while their parents were under federal custody during immigration proceedings, according to The New York Times, before officials backed off those comments late on Wednesday.
“We are awaiting further guidance on the matter,” the senior director of communications at HHS’s Administration of Children and Families, Brian Marriott, said. “Reunification is always the ultimate goal.”
Signing the executive order, Trump said: “What we have done today is we are keeping families together. I didn’t like the sight or the feeling of families being separated.”
At a later campaign-style rally of supporters in the northern state of Minnesota, he reiterated that the change did not mean a softening at the border.
“We will keep families together, but the border is going to be just as tough,” he said.
He accused rival Democrats of putting illegal immigrants before US citizens.