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AFP
El Paso, United States
The fate of 2,300 children wrested from their parents at the US border with Mexico remained unclear Friday two days after Donald Trump ended migrant family separations, as the president accused Democrats of spinning"phony"tales of suffering for electoral gain.
While the US leader bowed to global outrage over the splitting of families, government agencies were unable to say what would happen to the children already sent to tent camps and other facilities around the country while their parents were charged with immigration offenses.
Having been forced into a climbdown on the hot-button issue of immigration, Trump meanwhile swung back into fighting mode -- insisting he remained committed to the"zero tolerance"policy that aims to deter the flow of migrants from Central America.
"We must maintain a Strong Southern Border. We cannot allow our Country to be overrun by illegal immigrants as the Democrats tell their phony stories of sadness and grief, hoping it will help them in the elections,"he tweeted.
Accusing Democrats of"playing games,"Trump urged Republican lawmakers to"stop wasting their time on Immigration"until after the November midterm polls.
The president's comments came a day after divided congressional Republicans failed to pass one bill that promised to reform laws regarding illegal immigrants, and a second proposal was put off until next week.
And while Melania Trump sought to demonstrate concern with a surprise visit to migrant children at the border Thursday, the administration remained under siege amid continued accounts of parents unable to find their children and no system in place for reuniting them.
Protestors demonstrated Friday morning outside the suburban Washington home of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, two days after Trump announced her department would take over the handling and processing of families at the border.
They held posters reading"Child Snatcher"in large letters with photos of Nielsen -- who has faced intense scrutiny as the public face of the hardline border policy.
Some reunifications were taking place, though it was not clear whether they involved the 700 children taken from parents between October and April, or the 2,300 since the mandatory prosecution of illegal border crossers, whose children were taken away as a result, began in early May.
Others remained in painful limbo. One woman, Cindy Madrid from El Salvador, dictated her US-resident sister's phone number to her six-year-old daughter before she crossed the border and the family was separated. The child was one of those heard crying out -- and reciting the number -- in an audio recording reportedly made inside a detention center, which galvanized opposition to the separations.
