Nearly 2,000 minors were separated from their parents or adult guardians who illegally crossed into the U.S. over a recent six-week period, officials said on Friday, as debate raged over how to end the practice.
President Donald Trump, facing mounting anger over his administration’s “zero tolerance” border security policy, repeated that he is incensed about the family separations but continued to blame opposition Democrats for the crisis, which critics say is one of his own making.
Compromise Bill
After Mr. Trump initially seemed to say he was not keen on a Republican compromise Bill that includes a fix to the separation issue as well as DACA protections for young migrants who arrived illegally as children, the White House walked back his remarks.
According to a Department of Homeland Security spokesman, between April 19 and May 31, 1,995 children were separated from 1,940 adults who were being held by U.S. border patrol.
Amid an outcry over the detentions, the DHS official insisted the minors were held in decent conditions. “We have some of the highest detention standards in the world for children,” he said.
Some 1,500 boys are being held in a former Walmart supermarket in Texas, and the government is erecting tent structures near the border to house the increasing number of migrant children, including unaccompanied minors, in custody.
With the crackdown in full swing, the detained parents are “in jail settings”, the official said, awaiting adjudication and possible prosecution for crossing the border. The process can take several weeks. “This administration has made it clear that we are not going to ignore the law any longer,” the official said.
Meanwhile, congressional Republicans have struggled to craft a viable immigration plan. The Republican-led House of Representatives may vote next week on two immigration measures — a hard-line Bill drafted by House Judiciary chairman Bob Goodlatte, and a compromise measure that limits legal immigration while also ending the family separations. “I certainly wouldn’t sign the more moderate one,” Mr. Trump said on Friday.
Hours after the comments, the White House issued a statement saying the President had misspoken.
