OTTAWA—Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has issued his strongest criticism to date of the United States’ practice of separating migrant children from parents, calling the Trump policy “wrong” and “unacceptable.”
Speaking as he entered a Liberal caucus meeting Wednesday , Trudeau said “What’s going on in the United States is wrong.
“I can’t imagine what the families living through this are enduring. Obviously this is not the way we do things in Canada.”
In French, he said what is happening in the U.S. “is unacceptable.”
Searing images of children as young as two being separated from parents who have unlawfully crossed the U.S.-Mexican border have triggered a global wave of public outrage, and brought new pressure on U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration in Washington, which instructed border guards to prosecute every single unlawful border-crosser and asylum-seeker and separate parents from their children. Babies, toddlers and teens have been split from their families, held in cages or put in institutional or foster care over the past several weeks, with estimates ranging from 2,300 up to 6,000 children potentially in U.S. custody.
That agreement applies at official border points of entry, however due to a loophole, it does not apply to irregular border crossings, for example across fields or roads where there is no formal border inspection point. That’s why so many migrants have in the past couple of years chosen to cross at wooded points near Lacolle, Que., or Emerson, Man.
Trudeau’s words echoed those of U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May who told the British House of Commons Wednesday that separating families is “deeply disturbing’’ and “wrong.’’
“The pictures of children being held in what appear to be cages are deeply disturbing,” she said. “This is wrong. This is not something we agree with. This is not the U.K.’s approach.”
Trump is scheduled to travel to Britain in mid-July, and when questioned about whether he should still be welcomed, May said, “When we disagree with the United States we say so. But we also have some key shared interests with the United States and it is right that we should be able to sit down with the president.”
Trudeau is sure to be pressed further on the question of what he will do now later in question period in the Commons and at a session-ending news conference planned for late afternoon.
Tonda MacCharles is an Ottawa-based reporter covering federal politics. Follow her on Twitter: @tondamacc
