Voices in both parties call for halt to practice of separating families

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June 18, 2018 4:17 AM

WASHINGTON — Leading figures of both parties pressured President Donald Trump on Sunday to halt his administration’s practice of separating children from their parents when apprehended at the border as the issue further polarized the already divisive immigration debate in Washington.

Republican lawmakers, former fist lady Laura Bush and a onetime adviser to Trump joined Democrats, including former President Bill Clinton, in condemning the family separations that have removed nearly 2,000 children from their parents in just six weeks.

The administration pushed back, arguing that it was just enforcing the law.

The issue took on special resonance on Father’s Day as Democratic lawmakers made visits to detention facilities in Texas and New Jersey to protest the separations and the House prepared to take up immigration legislation.

Trump remained unusually silent on the issue Sunday even as Melania Trump weighed in, saying she “hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together.”

Melania Trump “believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with a heart,” the first lady said in a statement issued by her office.

By laying responsibility for the situation on “both sides,” Trump effectively echoed her husband’s assertion that it was the result of a law written by Democrats. In fact, the administration announced a zero-tolerance approach this spring, leading to the separations.

Bush, the last Republican first lady, spoke out forcefully against the practice Sunday in a rare foray into domestic politics, comparing it to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. “I live in a border state,” she wrote in a guest column in The Washington Post. “I appreciate the need to enforce and protect our international boundaries, but this zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart.”

Contrary to the president’s public statements, no law requires families to necessarily be separated at the border. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ “zero tolerance” announcement this spring that the government will prosecute all unlawful immigrants as criminals set up a situation in which children are removed when their parents are taken into federal custody.

Previous administrations made exceptions to such prosecutions for adults traveling with minor children, but the Trump administration has said it will not do so.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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