US Immigration: White House defends policy of separating families amid outcry

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Europe

03:05

New voices emerge in the U-S immigration debate. Former first ladies and lawmakers have weighed in on the Trump administration policy that separates immigrant families attempting to enter the country. While some label the zero-tolerance policy "cruel", the White House says it won't apologize for enforcing the law. CGTN's White House Correspondent Jessica Stone explains the controversy.

They are photos that capture the raw emotion of family separation. 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 UN calls it child abuse.

ZEID RA'AD AL HUSSEIN UN HUMAN RIGHTS CHIEF "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."

All four former living first ladies - also condemned the practice, including republican first lady Laura Bush, who wrote in the Washington Post: "I live in a border state, it breaks my heart."

But U.S. president Donald Trump won't apologize for taking a hard line. His administration no longer grants asylum to refugees seeking protection from gang violence or domestic abuse. And, he is still pushing lawmakers to fund a border wall.

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 to the United States. Not on my watch."

The secretary of the department of homeland security says only Congress can fix the policies requiring agents to separate families.

KIRSTJEN NIELSEN SECRETARY, DEPT. OF HOMELAND SECURITY "Here is the bottom line: DHS is no longer ignoring the law. We are enforcing them as they appear on the books. "

Trump said Democrats must act on legislation to stop the separations. Democrats say no law change is required. Trump, they say, could stop the separations with the stroke of a pen.

"No one here is arguing for bad guys to be allowed into the United States. We are fighting to the very end for children who are snatched away from their families."

Jessica Stone, CGTN at the White House.