{"id":142602,"date":"2018-06-18T06:49:08","date_gmt":"2018-06-18T06:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/us-child-migrants-first-ladies-speak-out-on-trump-separation-policy\/"},"modified":"2018-06-18T06:49:08","modified_gmt":"2018-06-18T06:49:08","slug":"us-child-migrants-first-ladies-speak-out-on-trump-separation-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/us-child-migrants-first-ladies-speak-out-on-trump-separation-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"US child migrants: First ladies speak out on Trump separation policy"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure>                                  <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Central American asylum seekers are taken into custody by US Border Patrol agents on 12 June 2018 near McAllen, Texas.\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/124F6\/production\/_102089947_047459872-1.jpg\"\/>Image copyright                  Getty Images<figcaption>Image caption                                      Adults who try to cross the US-Mexico border are automatically taken into custody                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"caps\">The former US First Lady Laura Bush has condemned a controversial policy that splits up families who illegally enter the country.<\/p>\n<p>Writing in the Washington Post, she describes the separation of children from their parents as cruel, immoral and heart-breaking.<\/p>\n<p>Her comments follow growing controversy over President Donald Trump&#039;s &quot;zero-tolerance&quot; immigration policy.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier Melania Trump made a rare statement expressing concern.<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Trump &quot;hates to see children separated from their families&quot;, her spokeswoman said.<\/p>\n<p>She repeated her husband&#039;s call for &quot;both sides&quot; to work on immigration reform as a solution. However, fact-checkers point out that the policy was introduced by Mr Trump&#039;s attorney general and does not require congressional action to be stopped.<\/p>\n<p>In a recent six-week period there were nearly 2,000 family separations following a crackdown on illegal border crossings.<\/p>\n<p>Adults who try to cross the border outside of official entry points - many planning to seek asylum - are placed in custody and face criminal prosecution for illegal entry. <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Why the US is separating migrant children from their parents<\/li>\n<li>US attorney general quotes Bible to defend separating families<\/li>\n<li>Ivanka&#039;s mother and child photo sparks backlash<\/li>\n<li>How Melania compares to other first ladies<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As a result, hundreds of children and babies are now being housed in detention centres, including warehouses and converted supermarkets, and kept away from their parents. Critics have condemned the action as unprecedented. <\/p>\n<h2>What&#039;s been said?<\/h2>\n<p>Laura Bush, wife of the former Republican President George W Bush, launched an outspoken attack on the policy.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;This zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart,&quot; she wrote in the Washington Post.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Our government should not be in the business of warehousing children in converted box stores or making plans to place them in tent cities in the desert.&quot;<\/p>\n<figure>                                                                                                       Image copyright                  Reuters\/Getty Images<figcaption>Image caption                                      Laura Bush, left, and Melania Trump have both spoken out about the treatment of child migrants                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&quot;These images are eerily reminiscent of the Japanese American internment camps of World War Two, now considered to have been one of the most shameful episodes in US history,&quot; she added.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier Mrs Trump said she &quot;hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle [Republicans and Democrats in Congress] can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;We need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart,&quot; her statement added.<\/p>\n<h2>Who is to blame?<\/h2>\n<p>Mr Trump has said a law &quot;Democrats gave us&quot; is responsible for the policy, but it is unclear which law he is referring to.<\/p>\n<p>In a tweet on Saturday he urged Democrats to work with Republicans to create new legislation.<\/p>\n<p>                           Skip Twitter post  by @realDonaldTrump                              <\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Democrats can fix their forced family breakup at the Border by working with Republicans on new legislation, for a change! This is why we need more Republicans elected in November. Democrats are good at only three things, High Taxes, High Crime and Obstruction. Sad!<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 16, 2018<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>              Report                          <\/p>\n<p>End of Twitter post  by @realDonaldTrump<\/p>\n<p>However, critics have pointed out that detaining children separately from their parents was a policy announced by US Attorney General Jeff Sessions last month.<\/p>\n<p>The significant change, analysts say, is the justice department&#039;s decision to criminally prosecute parents for a first-time border crossing offence. The children, however, are not charged with a crime, which means they cannot be jailed together.<\/p>\n<h2>&#039;Super detention centre&#039;<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Mat Morrison, BBC News, Brownsville, Texas<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If not for the security stations, boarded up windows, and barricades with &#039;KEEP OUT&#039; painted clearly in black, this would look like any other Walmart on any given Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>But this is the Casa Padre detention centre in Brownsville, Texas, and the visitors today are not afternoon shoppers, but a handful of US lawmakers who came to see for themselves the impact of the &quot;zero-tolerance&quot; immigration policy. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;They call it zero-tolerance, but a better name for it is zero-humanity. And there is zero logic to this,&quot; says Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, who organized the visit.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;What we saw is this huge warehouse, it was a super centre for Walmart before, now it&#039;s a super detention centre. It&#039;s holding almost 1,500 kids inside there.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>&quot;There are walls that have been constructed that go up near the ceiling, long corridors, because you need a lot of bedrooms, and they have some common space as well,&quot; he said.<\/p>\n<h2>What&#039;s happening now?<\/h2>\n<p>The recent child detentions have resulted in some shelters and foster homes reporting that they are running out of space.<\/p>\n<figure>             <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/images\/ic\/720x405\/p06b3pw5.jpg\"\/>Media playback is unsupported on your device<figcaption>Media captionMigrant boys detained in a former Walmart in Texas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>On Sunday, Democratic members of Congress paid a &quot;surprise Father&#039;s Day visit&quot; to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centre in New Jersey, demanding to see detainees separated from their children.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, officials announced plans to erect tent cities that will hold hundreds more children in the Texas desert where temperatures regularly reach 40C (105F).<\/p>\n<p>Local lawmaker Jose Rodriguez described the plan as &quot;totally inhumane&quot; and &quot;outrageous&quot;, adding: &quot;It should be condemned by anyone who has a moral sense of responsibility.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Protesters marched to one such tent city in Tornillo, Texas, on Sunday where hundreds of children were being held separately from their parents.<\/p>\n<p>They chanted &quot;Families united!&quot; and &quot;Free our children now!&quot;, reported NPR.<\/p>\n<figure>             <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/images\/ic\/720x405\/p06b0g60.jpg\"\/>Media playback is unsupported on your device<figcaption>Media captionA lorry full of migrants was found in Texas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2>Is the policy working?<\/h2>\n<p>The number of families trying to enter the US overland without documentation is on the rise. Mr Sessions has recognised this, commenting last month that current immigration trends &quot;must end&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>In the first two weeks of the new &quot;zero-tolerance&quot; approach, 658 minors - including many babies and toddlers - were separated from the adults that travelled with them, according to US border officials.<\/p>\n<p>In many of the cases, the families have been reunited after the parent was released from detention. However, there are reports of people being kept apart for weeks and even months.<\/p>\n<p>But it is not clear if this new tougher policy will stop the migrants from travelling. <\/p>\n<p>This is because many are fleeing violence and poverty in countries such as Honduras and El Salvador, and staying put is often fraught with dangers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright Getty ImagesImage caption Adults who try to cross the US-Mexico border are automatically taken into custody The former US First Lady Laura Bush has condemned a controversial policy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":142603,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-142602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}