President Donald Trump ordered an end to the separation of migrant children from their parents on the US border 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.
Those kids would remain separated while their parents were under federal custody during immigration proceedings, according to The New York Times.
Pictures and accounts of the separations sparked outrage and a rebellion among Republicans in Trump’s own party, as well as international accusation that the US was committing human rights violations.
“What we have done today is we are keeping families together,” Trump said as he signed the executive order. “I didn’t like the sight or the feeling of families being separated.”
Trump said that even with the change, border enforcement will be “equally tough, if not tougher.”
He reiterated that sentiment at a campaign-style rally of supporters in the northern state of Minnesota later Wednesday, saying “we will keep families together, but the border is going to be just as tough.”
He then accused rival Democrats of putting “illegal immigrants before they put American citizens.”
For weeks, Trump had insisted he was bound by law to split the children from their parents and that only Congress could resolve the problem- before he radically shifted gears.
“We want security for our country,” Trump said. “And we will have that-at the same time, we have compassion, we want to keep families together.”
The order says the Department of Homeland Security- and not the Justice and Health and Human Services Departments, as under previous policy- would have continuing responsibility for the families.
It also suggests the government intends to hold the families indefinitely by challenging an existing statute, the 1997 Flores Settlement, that places a 20-day limit on how long children, alone or with their parents, can be detained.
That move could lead to new legal battles for the administration.
Source: AFP