NICOLA Sturgeon has condemned “horrifying” video footage of a young child separated from her family on America’s border.
The First Minister was the latest world leader to join a chorus of protest at the Trump administration’s policy of removing minors from parents who try to enter the country illegally. Some 2000 children have been separated under the policy with even Trump’s wife, Melania, signalling her unhappiness.
Sturgeon’s remarks were provoked by a video published by Sky News in which a baby cries for her daddy. “This is horrifying,” the First Minister tweeted.
Veteran Republican John McCain also condemned the “zero-tolerance’ policy on Monday, making a break in the ranks of Trump’s party.
McCain tweeted: “The administration’s current family separation policy is an affront to the decency of the American people, and contrary to principles and values upon which our nation was founded,”. “The administration has the power to rescind this policy. It should do so now.”
The family separations have sparked a national outcry and emerged as a searing test of how far Americans are willing to go in their efforts to enforce immigration and border control.
The White House itself has offered conflicting accounts of the policy and the reasons behind it. Officials have alternately – and falsely – blamed Democrats for it, denied there is a separation policy or suggested the policy is intended as a deterrent to reduce illegal immigration.
Calls were mounting in Washington last night for the Trump administration to end the controversial policy.
The president’s meeting with House Republicans came as legislators in both parties are up in arms over the administration’s “zero-tolerance” approach to illegal border crossings.
Under the policy, all unlawful crossings are referred for prosecution – a process that moves adults to the custody of the US Marshals Service and sends many children to facilities run by the Department of Health and Human Services.
Under the previous administration, such families were usually referred for civil deportation proceedings, not requiring separation.
Nearly 2000 children were separated from their families over a six-week period in April and May.
The fight comes with the House already embroiled in an election-year struggle over immigration legislation that threatens to damage Republicans in November.
Democrats have seized on the family separation issue, swarming detention centres in Texas to highlight the policy.
They are demanding that the administration act to keep migrant families together, and Republicans are increasingly joining that call.
The Trump administration insists the family separations are required under law, but after signalling on Monday that it would oppose any fix aimed solely at addressing the plight of children separated from their parents under the crackdown, the White House said yesterday it is reviewing emergency legislation to keep migrant families together.
The bill would add more federal immigration judges, authorise new temporary shelters to house migrant families, speed the processing of asylum cases and require that families that cross the border illegally be kept together, if there is no criminal conduct or threats to the welfare of children.
At a White House briefing on Monday, homeland security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said: “Congress alone can fix it.”
That line has been echoed by others in the administration, including Trump, who has falsely blamed a law passed by Democrats for the “zero-tolerance” approach to prosecutions of families crossing the border.
Two immigration bills under consideration in the House could address the separations, but the outlook for passage is dim.
Conservatives say the compromise legislation that Republican leaders helped negotiate with moderates is inadequate.
Martha McSally, a Republican representative for Arizona whose district includes part of the border with Mexico, said she does not like the separation tactics being employed, but does not find fault with the Trump administration.
“We need to enforce our laws in a consistent and humane manner and [Homeland Security] should not have to choose between enforcing the law and keeping children with their parents,” she said.
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