US mayors travel to border to demand family reunification
Mayors from more than a dozen U.S. cities including New York and Los Angeles gathered near a holding facility for immigrant children on Texas’ border with Mexico to call for the immediate reunification of immigrant children with their families.
Trump has ordered a halt to the separation minors from families that are detained crossing the U.S. border illegally. But concerns persisted Thursday about the emotional trauma inflicted on immigrant children under President Trump’s zero-tolerance policy for illegal border crossings.
New York City’s Bill de Blasio, Los Angeles’ Eric Garcetti and Democratic mayors from new Mexico’s three most populous cities were among those who gathered near the facility on the outskirts of El Paso, Texas.
Santa Fe, N.M. Mayor Alan Webber said the president’s zero-tolerance approach to illegal border crossings has traumatized children and remains a humanitarian threat.
“You can’t backpedal on the damage you have already done to all of those children,” Webber said. “The fact that, at least for the moment, Trump has gotten a little less inhumane hardly solves the problem.”
In the face of worldwide outrage, Trump on Wednesday reversed a policy that has already separated more than 2,300 children from their parents.
In Washington D.C., the House of Representative prepared to vote Thursday on a Republican immigration bill. Trump suggested that any measure that is approved by the House would be doomed in the Senate anyway.
