Trump's Executive Order Means He Won't Separate Families at the Border, but He's Still Detaining Children
After days of public outcry around the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy that allowed for the separation of immigrant children from their parents at the border, President Trump signed an executive order that ends that separation.
However, the “zero-tolerance” policy that created the recent crisis remains.
“We are keeping families together and this will solve that problem. At the same time we are keeping a very powerful border and it continues to be a zero tolerance, we have zero tolerance for people that enter our country illegally,” Trump told the White House pool reporters present in the Oval Office, per CBS News.
“I didn’t like sight or the feeling of families being separated,” Trump said.
The executive order notes that it is “the policy of this Administration to rigorously enforce our immigration laws” and that they will initiate proceedings to enforce laws about “improper entry.” But this section also allows for families to be held together during the prosecution process: “It is also the policy of this Administration to maintain family unity, including by detaining alien families together where appropriate and consistent with law and available resources.”
The order further stated, “It is unfortunate that Congress’s failure to act and court orders have put the Administration in the position of separating alien families to effectively enforce the law.”
It is important to note, that according to experts who spoke with Glamour, the separation policy is not a law. It was also up to Trump himself to make the call on ending the family separations.
Earlier today, the New York Times reported that sources close to the president said he believes his immigration policies are “appropriate and necessary,” but that he was frustrated by the criticism he’d been receiving.
Many news outlets report that there could be legal battles ahead for this order due to a 1997 consent decree from a federal court, called the Flores settlement, that says children can be detained for only 20 days, even if they are with their parents.
It is unclear at this time what will happen to the families that are currently separated and being held in detention facilities—or how long detained families can be held.
Trump spoke earlier this morning about the possibility of an executive order. “We’re meeting right now on immigration and we are very strong at the border, we’re very strong on security. We want security for our country,” he said at the White House. “The Republicans want security and insist on security for our country, and we will have that.”
ABC News reports that First Lady Melania Trump may have played a part in the president’s decision to sign the order. She has been pressuring her husband to end the child separation policy, according to a White House official. Their source also claims that Ivanka Trump has shown the president images of children in detention centers and urged him to end the policy.
As of Wednesday afternoon, she had not made any public statements on the issue, although she did tweet after the signing of the executive order.
We will update this story as new details around the policy and executive order emerge.
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Here Are the Facts About Trump’s ‘Zero Tolerance’ Immigration Policy
Here’s How to Help Immigrant Families Who Have Been Separated at the Border