Trump, GOP leaders strain for migrant-kids solution

“Nobody knows how much we are paying for this monstrosity that’s been created over the years”, he said.

Asked if the White House supports the measures presented by Mr Cruz, Mercedes Schlapp, director of strategic communications, told reporters: “We’re looking into the legislative text on the Cruz bill”.

In case you haven’t been watching the news or following any social media timelines, the Trump administration is now separating children from their families at the border and keeping them in literal cages. As a company, Microsoft has worked for over 20 years to combine technology with the rule of law to ensure that children who are refugees and immigrants can remain with their parents.

As Trump walked out of the session in the Capitol basement, he was confronted by about a half-dozen House Democrats, who yelled, “Stop separating our families!”

“Quit separating the kids!”

World leaders, senior Democrats and Republicans, the United Nations and religious leaders have united to speak out against the damaging policy.

One House Republican in a swing district, Rep. Mike Coffman of Colorado, said he’s willing to endorse the Feinstein bill if that’s what it takes.

The White House said it has not seen that legislation and couldn’t comment on whether Trump would support the bill.

“Is that how you come and rally support for a bill?” this member said.

Two of the top US business groups, the US Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable, decried the separation policy on Tuesday and called for its immediate cessation.

The second-ranking Senate Republican, John Cornyn, said they’re proposing a “humane, safe and secure family facility” where parents and children who are minors could be detained together.

Several Republicans have said the more conservative plan is doomed, and that Trump’s address was helpful in unifying the divided caucus. Nobody has such sad, such bad and actually, in many cases, such awful and tough – you see about child separation, you see what’s going on there. Trump tweeted as the uproar grew over children being seized and separated from their parents as they sneak over the U.S. -Mexico border.

He labeled the bill the “Ryan amnesty” and said it also repeats the same mistakes of the failed 2013 “Gang of 8” immigration bill.

The zero-tolerance policy separates families by prosecuting parents and other border-crossers for entering the United States without authorization. “Fixing these issues will clearly boost the economy”, he added.

The division within the White House was made most clear by a statement from First Lady Melania Trump which simultaneously decried the policy and deflected blame for it.

Senator Pat Roberts, from Kansas, said he is “against using parental separation as a deterrent to illegal immigration”.

Amnesty International branded the action “nothing short of torture” and Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook called it “inhumane”. Mexico’s foreign minister condemned it as “cruel and inhuman”.

House Republicans, who rarely buck the president, realize this time he may have gone too far. “Therefore, we refrain from public comment on immigration and many other topics, including other policies that impact families”.

The Department of Health and Human Services said there are now 11,700 children under its care in 100 shelters across 17 states.

It requires the government to release rather than detain children caught trying to enter the USA and exempts them from an immediate return to their home countries.

As he prepared to head to Congress on Tuesday afternoon to debate the “zero tolerance” policy introduced in April, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the state will sue the Trump administration “for violating the Constitutional rights of immigrant children and their families who have been separated at the border”. Any child who is with the adult is put into the custody of the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, since children can not be held in an adult facility.

US Customs and Border Protection said on Tuesday that 2,342 children had been separated from their parents at the border between May 5 and June 9. There are now 12,000 children in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Most crossed the border without their parents.