Immigrant family crisis

Trump, GOP search for solution

WASHINGTON — Republican lawmakers and President Donald Trump searched anxiously Tuesday evening for a way to end the administration’s policy of separating families after illegal border crossings, with their focus shifting to a new plan to keep children in detention longer than now permitted — but with their parents.

GOP House leaders, increasingly fearful of voter reaction in November, met with Trump for about an hour at the Capitol to try to work out some resolution.

“We had a great meeting,” he called out as he left, but he gave no other information on possible progress.

Leaders in both the House and Senate are struggling to shield the party’s lawmakers from the public outcry over images of children taken from migrant parents and held in cages at the border. But they are running up against Trump’s shifting views on specifics and his determination, according to advisers, not to look soft on immigration or his signature border wall.

Many lawmakers say he could simply reverse the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy and keep families together. But some worry he could also inject a new dynamic, rejecting emerging GOP proposals and potentially exacerbating an already tough situation as his party heads toward midterm elections.

As Trump entered the Capitol basement for the closeddoor session, he told reporters, “The system has been broken for many years, the immigration system . ... We’re going to try and see if we can fix it.”

At an earlier event Tuesday, Trump said he was asking Congress for “the legal authority to detain and promptly remove families together as a unit.” He said it was “the only solution to the border crisis.”

House GOP leaders are scrambling to revise their broader current immigration bill to include a provision to resolve the situation.

The major change being unveiled Tuesday would loosen rules that now limit the amount of time minors can be held to 20 days, according to a GOP source familiar with the measure. Instead, the children could be detained with their parents for extended periods.