Trump signs order overturning family separation policy in dramatic U-turn after widespread anger

The president has always had the unilateral ability to change the policy

Donald Trump has signed an executive order ending the controversial policy of family separation at the US-Mexico border after days of public outrage and bipartisan criticism.

In an apparent snub to Congressional Democrats, whom Mr Trump repeatedly, falsely blamed for the continuation of the policy, the executive order is titled "Affording Congress the Opportunity to Address Family Separation". The executive order, however, does not actually eliminate the underlying issue: Attorney General Jeff Sessions‘ “zero tolerance” policy on immigration.

The reversal comes after the controversial policy had led to more than 2,000 children to be separated from their families after they crossed the border illegally since last month. The parents have been charged with a crime, even those seeking asylum in the US, and children are unable to enter the US criminal justice system. With the new executive order, "family unity" will be maintained "where appropriate and consistent with law and available resources".

The White House has not immediately responded to a request for comment on the matter, however the president told journalists during unscheduled remarks earlier in the day at a cabinet meeting: ”We’re looking to keep families together. Very important. We’re going to be signing an executive order. We are also going to count on Congress, obviously, but we are signing an executive order in a little while.” He said he planned to act before leaving to Minnesota for a political rally this evening.

He maintained though that the US will “maintain toughness or our country will be overrun by people, by crime, by all of the things that we don’t stand for and that we don’t want”. Mr Trump has referred to certain undocumented immigrants as “animals” in the past, saying he was only speaking of MS-13 gang members but critics took it to imply xenophobia.

“I think you have to understand, we’re keeping families together but we have to keep our borders strong. We will be overrun with crime and with people that should not be in our country,” the president repeated.

Vice President Mike Pence, also present at the Cabinet meeting, once again repeated a lie told by administration officials over and over again in the wake of public uproar over the family separation policy. Mr Pence said it was “the law” to separate children from families.

However, there is no US immigration law or court precedent that compels the federal government to do so. The policy laid out in May 2018 by Mr Sessions essentially made seeking asylum – which according to US law requires entry into the country first – a crime. When parents are detained within the criminal justice system, it necessitates separating children from them.

“The dilemma is that if you’re weak, if you’re weak, which some people would like you to be, if you’re really, really pathetically weak, the country’s going to be overrun with millions of people. And if you’re strong, then you don’t have any heart. That’s a tough dilemma. Perhaps I would rather be strong, but that’s a tough dilemma,” Mr Trump continued as a response to Republican Senator Lindsey Graham calling US immigration law “a mess”.

Mr Trump has also been repeatedly, falsely blaming Democrats for the continuation of the policy and said that he wanted a wholesale change to US immigration policy not just a temporary solution - which would be to stop the active separation. The new executive order appears to be just that, however.

During the Cabinet meeting he, as other administration officials have been doing for weeks, also conflated the issue of protecting unaccompanied minors from human trafficking with the separated children once again. The administration, through the forthcoming executive order and before, has the ability to unilaterally stop family separation.

The president said during the Cabinet meeting that the administration is “having a lot of problems with Democrats that don’t want to vote for anything. They don’t care about lack of security. They really would like to have open borders where anybody in the world can just flow in, including from the Middle East, from anybody anywhere they can just flow into our country”.

It was Mr Trump who said only days ago that he would not support a “moderate” bill proposed by his own party’s member in the House because Democrats would not come to the negotiating table. The White House later said the president was confused and would support the legislation.

"Under current law, we have only two policy options to respond to this massive crisis. We can either release all illegal immigrant families and minors who show up at the border from Central America or we can arrest the adults for the federal crime of illegal entry. Those are the only two options, totally open borders or criminal prosecution for law-breaking," Mr Trump had said before changing his mind and exercising the ability to change the Department of Justice policy he has had all along.

While the administration of predecessor Barack Obama did detain undocumented immigrants, families were not separated in facilities, kept for a maximum of 20 days, and released pending their court or asylum hearings.

What may have prompted Mr Trump sign the order was the massive public outcry after a series of audio, video, and reports of crying children in detention facilities begging to see their family members as well as the emotional trauma inflicted upon them. Coupled with public criticism from fellow Republicans, the Trump administration could have seen the public relations disaster's impact on the upcoming midterm elections in November 2018.

Even First Lady Melania Trump issued a rare statement which implied she had pushed the president to keep families together. Her communications director Stephanie Grisham told CNN that Ms Trump “hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform. She believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart”. ​

The House, where Republicans have a clear majority, are voting tomorrow on a bill that is labelled as a compromise between far right and moderate members of the GOP, House Speaker Paul Ryan announced just an hour before Mr Trump's reversal.

The proposed bill is expected to also address the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (Daca) programme recipients, or so-called Dreamers who are allowed to stay in the country if they were brought in illegally when they were children, which makes its fate tenuous as with any immigration bill in this Congress.