Melania Trump makes second visit to border
The first lady met face-to-face with those dealing with hardline immigration policies.
PHOENIX — First lady Melania Trump met face to face Thursday with people directly affected by her husband’s hard-line immigration policies, which have strained the nation’s political divide, and triggered demonstrations again on Thursday.
“I’m here to support you and give my help, whatever I can” on “behalf of children and the families,” the first lady said as she sat down with officials at a U.S. Border Patrol facility in Tucson, Ariz., the first stop of her trip. She later traveled to Phoenix, where she visited a complex that is housing dozens of migrant children separated from their parents.
It was the first lady’s second trip to a border state amid an ongoing outcry over President Donald Trump’s now-suspended policy of separating migrant children from their families when they cross the border illegally. Many were placed hundreds of miles away from one another and have been struggling to be reunited. On June 21, Melania Trump’s first trip to the region had been overshadowed by a furor ignited by a jacket she wore to and from the border town of McAllen, Texas, which had this message on the back: “I really don’t care, do u?”
This time, Trump wore clothes without writing, but the rancor over the administration’s policies continued.
In Washington, police arrested nearly 600 people Thursday after hundreds of women demonstrated inside a Senate office building against the president’s treatment of migrant families. The protests came as demonstrations occurred around the country over the Trump administration’s policy of separating immigrant families. They offered a glimpse of what might happen on Saturday when rallies are planned coast to coast.
Under Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy, the government has begun prosecuting all migrants caught entering the country without authorization. Trump has halted his policy of taking children from their detained parents under public pressure, but around 2,000 of them are still being held, with many families saying they’ve not known how to locate them.
In Portland, Ore., authorities detained nine people Thursday while trying to reopen a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building that had been closed because of a round-theclock demonstration. Officers unblocked the entrance to the facility.
Trump visited what officials described as a short-term holding center for migrant children in Tucson. In Phoenix, she visited Southwest Key Campbell, where 121 children are being held.
Meanwhile, Vice President Mike Pence arrived in Guatemala on Thursday for a meeting with Central American leaders about the growing number of migrants being held in detention after crossing the border into the United States.
Pence’s visit came at the conclusion of a swing through Latin America during which he has warned migrants not to risk their lives by trying to enter the United States illegally.