Trump Defends Separating Immigrant Families Amid Outcry

US President Donald Trump has defended his policy of splitting up families entering the US illegally, defying a growing chorus of condemnation.

Speaking at a business convention, Trump said children had to be taken away if their parents were jailed for illegally crossing the US border.

The president had earlier sparked outrage for tweeting that undocumented immigrants would “infest” the US.

Mexico’s foreign minister has called the US policy “cruel and inhuman”.

Trump meets Republican lawmakers to discuss a bill that proposes to curb the policy.

“I don’t want children taken away from parents,” Trump said. “When you prosecute the parents for coming in illegally – which should happen – you have to take the children away.”

Trump said he wanted to “end the border crisis” by giving border officials the resources to “detain and remove illegal immigrant families altogether”.

US immigration officials say 2,342 children have been separated from 2,206 parents from 5 May to 9 June amid a “zero-tolerance” crackdown on illegal immigration brought in by US Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Speaking on Monday evening, Sessions rejected claims US holding centres for child migrants separated from their parents were like Nazi concentration camps.

“Well, it’s a real exaggeration, of course,” the Department of Justice chief told Fox News. “In Nazi Germany, they were keeping the Jews from leaving the country.”

He added: “Fundamentally, we are enforcing the law. Hopefully people will get the message and not break across the border unlawfully.”

Meanwhile, Trump faced criticism for his choice of language on Tuesday after tweeting that immigrants threatened “to pour into and infest our Country.”





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