Melania Trump says US should govern ‘with heart’ on immigration (News)

In its editorial, headlined “Lying coward Trump: Administration separates children from their parents at the border, and he won’t even own up to his cruelty”, the paper’s editorial board said

“The only thing worse than the nauseating cruelty of President Trump’s immigration policy — captured perfectly by the agonising stories of young children forcefully being separated from their parents at the border — is the craven dishonesty with which he attempts to sell it to the American people.”

Nearly 2000 children were separated from their families over a six-week period in April and May after Attorney-General Jeff Sessions announced a new Trump administration “zero-tolerance” policy enacted this year that prosecutes all unlawful immigrants as criminals.

In a statement issued by her office, the First Lady expressed empathy for affected families but she did not directly take issue with President Donald Trump’s policy. Instead, by saying that “both sides” needed to agree, she adopted his argument that the situation was caused by political stalemate rather than a policy he initiated.

Her office said the statement was issued in response to questions by reporters.

Donald Trump has falsely blamed Democrats for the situation, saying that he was simply enforcing a law that they had written. But no law requires families to necessarily be separated at the border.

When parents are taken into federal custody, their children are removed. Previous administrations made exceptions to such prosecutions for adults travelling with minor children, but the Trump administration has said it will not do so.

Melania Trump’s statement echoed the President’s words on Friday, when he told reporters that “I hate the children being taken away.” He then added, “The Democrats have to change their law — that’s their law.”

The Daily news editorial responded to the claim with “False. False. False. A bipartisan 2008 law merely gave the government flexibility in processing border-crossing immigrants.”

At times, the First Lady has subtly sent signals different from those of her husband. After Donald Trump blamed “many sides” for violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last year, Melania Trump posted a message on Twitter saying, “Our country encourages freedom of speech, but let’s communicate w/o hate in our hearts.”

The outcry over the separation policy seemed to grow even as the President planned to meet with House Republicans on Tuesday in advance of votes on immigration legislation that has divided his party. Two competing bills are headed to the floor, a hard-line immigration measure that is expected to go down, and a compromise version crafted by the House Republican leadership.

Trump has confused his allies in the House with conflicting signals about his preferences. At one point on Friday, he said he would not sign the “moderate” bill embraced by the House speaker, Paul Ryan, only to have the White House later contradict that by saying the President had been confused.

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With the fate of the legislation uncertain, Democrats are trying to focus attention on the separation policy as an example of what they call Trump’s extremist approach to immigration.

Seven House Democrats made a surprise visit to a detention facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey, on Sunday, on the US Father’s Day, and said they were blocked for nearly two hours before finally being allowed to see the parents who had been separated from their children.

“Trump claims Democrats are to blame for families’ being broken up,” said one of the Democrats, Bill Pascrell jnr. “That is a lie. Republicans control every branch of government.”

Some Republican lawmakers have joined Democrats in recent days to push Trump to reverse or modify the family separation policy by giving new instructions to the Department of Homeland Security.

“President Trump could stop this policy with a phone call,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, and often an ally and golfing partner of the President’s, said on CNN on Friday. “I’ll go tell him. If you don’t like families’ being separated, you can tell DHS stop doing it.”

Republican Senator Susan Collins condemned the separations, except in cases where there is evidence of abuse or another good reason.

“What the administration has decided to do is to separate children from their parents to try to send a message that, if you cross the border with children, your children are going to be ripped away from you,” she said on Face the Nation on CBS. “That is traumatising to the children, who are innocent victims. And it is contrary to our values in this country.”

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Trump has said in recent days that Democrats should agree to his panoply of immigration measures, including full financing for a border wall and revamping the system of legal entry to the country, in effect making clear that any legislation addressing family separation must also include his priorities.

A top adviser to Trump said Sunday that the president was not using the family separation as leverage to force Democrats to come to the table on other policy disputes, rebutting an unnamed White House official quoted by The Washington Post.

“As a mother, as a Catholic, as somebody who has got a conscience, and wouldn’t say the junk that somebody said, apparently, allegedly, I will tell you that nobody likes this policy,” Kellyanne Conway, the White House counsellor, said on Meet the Press on NBC. “You saw the President on camera that he wants this to end, but everybody has, Congress has to act.”

Meanwhile, at least five people have died and several others were injured when a vehicle carrying more than a dozen passengers crashed while fleeing border patrol agents in South Texas.

Dimmit County Sheriff Marion Boyd says the SUV lost control while travelling at more than 160 kilometres per hour and overturned on a Texas highway.

Most of the occupants are believed to have been in the US without permission.

Texas Department of Public Safety officials say four people were pronounced dead at the scene on Sunday, while a fifth person died in hospital.

Boyd told local television station WOAI the driver and one passenger are believed to be US citizens and that both were arrested.

AP, New York Times