US Immigration Policy: Trump administration defends policy of separating families amid outcry

World
Europe

03:00

Over 2-thousand children have been removed from their parents since May, shortly after Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced in April that all immigrants apprehended while crossing the US-Mexico border should be criminally prosecuted. The policy sparked outcry inside the US, especially after images showing immigrants detained in cages were revealed. Omar Khan has the story.

The audio was reportedly recorded last week inside a US Customs and Border Protection detention center. Since April, Washington has charged illegal immigrants as criminals and separated them from their children. Some of them infants. The White House says the zero-tolerance policy should deter families from breaking the law. The United Nations calls it child abuse.

ZEID RA'AD AL HUSSEIN UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS "The thought that any state would seek to deter parents by inflicting such abuse on children is unconscionable. I call on the United States to immediately end the practice of forcible separation of these children."

First Lady Melania Trump herself says she hates to see families separated. Furthermore, all four former living first ladies, also condemned the practice, including Republican first lady Laura Bush, who wrote in the Washington Post:"This zero-tolerance policy is cruel, it is immoral and it breaks my heart."

But President Donald Trump says he won't apologize for taking a hard line.

DONALD TRUMP US PRESIDENT "The United States will not be a migrant camp, and it will not be a refugee holding facility - won't be. You look at what's happening in Europe. You look at what's happening in other places. We cannot allow that to happen in the United States. Not on my watch."

There are mass protests against the family separations around the country.

ANNA MARIE STENBERG PROTESTER "I'm a mother. I'm a grandmother. I listened to those babies cry. I see what's happening in this country. I couldn't sleep. I got up at 5:30 in the morning. I had to come down. I had to come to the belly of the beast. I had to do it."

Thousands of medical and mental health professionals are also calling on the administration to immediately end the practice, citing harmful effects on childhood development.

KATHRYN HAMPTON NETWORK PROGRAM OFFICER, PHYSICIANS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS "Separating parents and children is absolutely devastating. It's very harmful both for the short-term and in terms of its long-term effects, even on the neuro-development of children, and can result in impairment of their social, emotional, and cognitive functioning."

But it looks like the Trump administration is not backing down. Omar Khan, CGTN.