We will not be a migrant camp like Europe, insists Trump, as US stands accused of torturing children
President refuses to back down over zero-tolerance policy that has seen families split up at Mexican border
DONALD TRUMP dug in his heels over a controversial “zero-tolerance” immigration policy that has seen thousands of children forcibly separated from their parents at the Mexican border.
Mr Trump pointed to Europe, which he said had become a “migrant camp,” and said that would not happen to the United States under his leadership.
Speaking at the White House, the US president said: “The United States will not be a migrant camp, and it will not be a refugee holding facility. You look at what’s happening in Europe, and in other places, we cannot allow that to happen. Not on my watch.”
Mr Trump spoke amid an uproar among Democrats and Republicans as images of children being held in wire mesh cages, and toddlers crying as they were separated from their mothers, emerged from the border.
He said criminals were using children like a “Trojan horse” to get into America, that “a country without borders is not a country at all,” and that people coming in were bringing “death and destruction”. He added: “They are thieves and murderers and so much else.”
Criticising the more open immigration policies of his European Nato allies Mr Trump wrote on Twitter: “Big mistake made all over Europe in allowing millions of people in who have so strongly and violently changed their culture!” He specifically mentioned Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, claiming “crime in Germany is way up” and immigration was why “the people of Germany are turning against their leadership”.
Mr Trump went on to attack Democrats in Congress, blaming them for the separation of families at the border because they had created “horrible laws” and had been “weak and ineffective”.
The “zero-tolerance” policy was introduced by Jeff Sessions, Mr Trump’s attorney general, in April. It means all adults caught crossing the border illegally are detained and prosecuted, rather than being released while they await proceedings. Their children are removed and held in separate facilities.
Over a six-week period at least 2,000 children have been separated from their parents. Hundreds of children are being held at a converted former Walmart store in Texas.
Another detention centre in Texas has been nicknamed “La Perrera” – “the dog kennel” in Spanish. Democrat poli- ticians who were allowed to tour it saw one cage with 20 children inside. Children were sleeping on the floor on thin mattresses with foil sheets as blankets.
Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat senator, said: “I witnessed loads of kids massed together in large pens of chainlinked fence separated from their moms and dads. Shameful.”
Michelle Brane, of the Women’s Refugee Commission, said she found an unaccompanied four-year-old in a detention centre. She said: “The girl was so traumatised that she wasn’t talking. She was just curled up in a little ball.” Another young boy was silent in his cage, clutching a photocopy of his mother’s identity card.
Last night an audio recording emerged of young children sobbing and asking for their parents inside a detention centre at the border.
In the seven-minute tape, published by Propublica, children reportedly aged four to 10 were crying for “Mami” and “Papi”. A guard could be heard joking: “We have an orchestra here.”
The tape was secretly recorded and given to a civil rights lawyer in Texas.
Amnesty International said the treatment “meets the definitions of torture under US and international law”.
Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary, said in New Orleans that releasing parents with their children would be a “get out of jail free card”.
Mr Sessions, speaking at the same meeting, said if a border wall was built
then “we won’t face these terrible choices”.
But Laura Bush, the former first lady, said the separation of families was “cruel, immoral and breaks my heart”.
A senior official at the Department of Health and Human Services said up to 30,000 illegal immigrant children could be held by the end of August, and it was “running out of space”.
Mr Trump said yesterday that he was clearing the way for the US to exercise extraterrestrial dominance by establishing a sixth branch of the military he dubbed a “space force”.
“It is not enough to merely have an American presence in space. We must have American dominance in space,” Mr Trump said at a White House event.
‘I witnessed loads of kids massed together in large pens of chain-linked fence separated from their moms and dads. Shameful’