[W]ASHINGTON — Amid a mounting outcry over a new border enforcement practice that has resulted in the separation of thousands of children from their parents, President Donald Trump abruptly signed an order that would keep families together.
A new “zero tolerance” policy the administration implemented has resulted in thousands of immigrant children being separated from their parents, who have been arrested and held in federal prison after entering the country without authorization.
More than 2,300 immigrant children have been separated from their parents because of the change in policy, according to the New York Times.
The practice has come under sharp criticism of Democrats, some Republicans, religious groups, corporations and others.
The order Trump signed directs the Department of Homeland Security to hold families together, meaning the families will be detained in custody as a unit.
The order could face a court challenge, which would revert to the current practice. The policy also leaves questions about details like where the families will be detained.
Members of the Trump administration have maintained that halting the policy would be up to Congress, though the practice of family separation has been avoided by past administrations that have implemented the law differently.
The administration billed the order as buying time while Congress addresses the situation.
The House is poised to vote Thursday on two immigrations bills, including one from the Republican leadership that would end family separations as well as reform immigration laws to make them stricter. Democrats have been resolutely opposed the measure.
Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., called Trump’s move a “head spinning reversal” on the immigration policy, but warned that the “devil is in the details.”
He said he expects the president to use the situation with migrant families and young undocumented immigrants to try to push extreme immigration reform policies through Congress.
“I will remain vocal and vigilant because too often with this president, what he says is not always what he does,” Welch said.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said the order proved that outcry could be effective, but he said it is not a solution.
“The president may cynically assert that protecting our borders requires abhorrent treatment of immigrant children and their parents. But that is as wrong as it is un-American,” Leahy said. “The president owns this.”
Leahy called for a clear path to reunite the children who have so far been detained with their families, to resist “mass incarceration of families,” and to restore prosecutorial discretion to prosecutors along the border.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said the order “merely replaces one inhumane act with another.”
Sanders criticized it for potentially allowing the indefinite detention of families.
“When you have the most powerful nation on Earth saying that it is acceptable to detain families indefinitely, you are sending a signal to countries around the world that this is how they can treat immigrants and minorities,” Sanders said. “I am hopeful that, as we have seen with other racist and xenophobic Trump policies, the courts will step in to rein in these unlawful actions.”
In a statement released earlier in the day, Gov. Phil Scott said he had concerns about the administration’s new policy.
“Families should be kept together, and all people should be treated humanely and with dignity,” he said.
The Vermont National Guard has not been formally requested to go to the southern border as part of a deployment that Trump ordered in April. However, Scott said he told Vermont National Guard officials at that time that he did not plan to send the Guard to the area, and he reiterated Wednesday that he has not changed his stance.
