First Lady Melania Trump's Comments on Immigration
The same day former First Lady Laura Bush published an op-ed in the Washington Post calling Donald Trump's zero-tolerance immigration policy "cruel," the president's wife, First Lady Melania Trump, made her own statement on the border issue.
"Mrs. Trump hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform," her spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, told CNN on Sunday. "She believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart."
The first lady, who herself immigrated to the United States from Slovenia, last month announced "Be Best," a campaign to raise awareness about children's issues.
For his part, the president told reporters on Monday that he believes "very strongly" that the situation with immigration is "the Democrats' fault."
"The United States will not be a migrant camp and it will not be a refugee holding facility," President Trump said, according to a White House pool report."Not on my watch."
He had previously tweeted about the issue over the weekend:
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!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 16, 2018
A Trump administration policy now charges every adult caught crossing the border illegally with federal crimes, as opposed to referring those with children mainly to immigration courts, as previous administrations did. Because the government is charging the parents in the criminal justice system, children are separated from them, without a clear procedure for their reunification aside from hotlines the parents can call to try to track their children down.
The policy to refer all adults for charges was publicly announced May 7, but the Justice Department announced it would prosecute 100% of the cases referred to it at the beginning of April.
Nearly 2,000 children have been separated from their parents and guardians at the southern border between April 19 and May 31, according to a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security. The groups are housed in separate holding facilities that have been referred to as "cages" (read more about the controversial debate surrounding that characterization here).
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