Trump set to meet Queen on visit to UK
President forced into U-turn over Mexican kids locked up away from parents
DONALD Trump has signed an order to stop children being taken from “illegal immigrant” parents – opting to lock up families together instead.
Widespread revulsion over his zero tolerance border policy, at home and abroad, has shamed the President into his desperate legal bid to end the crisis.
He said: “We have to be very strong but we want to be very compassionate.”
But his new plan would simply mean that families caught crossing into the US from Mexico will be held together in custody as parents awaited criminal prosecution for illegal entry.
And this could violate a 1997 ruling limiting the duration of child detentions.
Trump’s zero tolerance policy, aimed at all adults entering the US without paperwork, was launched in April.
It has led to more than 2,300 children being locked up separately from parents.
Young babies were put in “tender age” shelters, it emerged after an inspection by lawyers and medics yesterday.
Responding to reports, Theresa May said the detentions were “deeply disturbing” and “wrong”.
She said she was “clearly, wholly and unequivocally” clear that she disagreed.
But she insisted Trump’s visit to the UK must go ahead next month to ensure discussion of “shared interests”.
Trump also came under pressure from daughter Ivanka, who asked him: ■ “Daddy, what are we doing about this?” His U-turn came after he falsely blamed Democrats for his own policy and wrongly said Congress was the only body that could change the law.
Trump’s ex-aide Corey Lewandowski sparked fury by mocking a 10-year-old Down syndrome girl separated from her mum. He rolled his eyes and made a “whuh, whuh” sound on Fox news.
Why has Donald Trump pulled the US out of the UN Human Rights Council?
Officially, the US had grown upset at the council’s “antiIsrael” bias.
The States has always taken Israel’s side in international disputes and, since his election, President Trump has been eager to drive their relationship even closer.
So last month, when the UN’s leading human rights body began an urgent investigation into the killing of Palestinian protesters on the border in Gaza, it was bound to be a flashpoint.
The US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, has since accused the council of hypocrisy by focusing on the alleged human rights abuses of Israel and not abuses found in Venezuela, China and Cuba.
Is that really why he has quit?
The Trump administration’s treatment of immigrants on the US border with Mexico has led some to question whether this is about Israel at all.
In recent days, harrowing photographs and footage of weeping toddlers – apparently being held in cages after being separated from their alleged illegal immigrant parents – have angered world leaders ranging from Theresa May to the Pope.
And, while the crisis has not yet reached the floor of the UN, it is almost inevitable that the body would end up investigating – or even passing a resolution criticising the president.
Also, while Ms Haley fired her parting shots at Venezuela, China and Cuba over their human rights records, the US seems to be just as selective as the UN about the countries it criticises.
Most notably, the president has praised North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, a man who has reputedly put his political opponents to death by setting them on fire with a flamethrower. After their historic summit this month, Trump shrugged off Kim’s record of brutality against his own people by declaring him “tough”.
And one of Trump’s first friends as a world leader was Rodrigo Duterte, the president of the Philippines. Duterte has boasted of personally stabbing someone to death, has joked about raping a woman and has called the Pope the “son of a whore”.
He also presided over a brutal war on drugs in the Philippines which resulted in so many thousands of police executions that funeral directors started complaining that they were overworked.
Is it a big deal that Trump has left?
This isn’t actually the first time the US has refused to take part in the council. When it was formed in 2006, during George W Bush’s presidency, the States voted against it being set up and refused to stand for election to it.
Bush’s objections to the body were officially the same as Trump’s – problems of politicisation, bias and having well-known violators of human rights among its members.
But back in 2006 the US was still using “enhanced interrogation techniques” to extract dubious information from terror suspects.
It was also holding people indefinitely and without charge in Guantanamo Bay.
But Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said the US withdrawal from the UNHRC was “regrettable”.
He added: “It is the best tool the international community has to address impunity in an imperfect world and to advance many of our international goals.”
And the EU said Trump’s decision “risks undermining the role of the US as a champion and supporter of democracy on the world stage”.
While the effectiveness of the UNHRC as a force for change in the world is debatable, it is certainly concerning that Donald Trump is so eager to avoid its scrutiny.