Melania Trump makes surprise visit to child migrant detention centre

The First Lady makes a surprise visit to a child immigrant detention centre after days of political pressure on her husband over the separation of families.

Melania Trump made a surprise trip to the US-Mexican border, visiting a migrant children’s shelter as her husband’s administration seeks to quell a firestorm over family separations.

The unannounced visit by the First Lady came a day after President Donald Trump — in a stunning about-face — moved to end the practice of splitting immigrant families.

Her visit also came after a week of public outrage and political pressure, fuelled by pictures of children locked in cages. A spokeswoman for Mrs Trump said: “She’s seen the images. She’s heard the recordings. The images struck her, as a mother, as a human being.”

The spokeswoman said that Mrs Trump had told her husband: “I’m headed down to Texas” and that he had supported the idea.

Mrs Trump’s visit to the border marks one of her most high-profile acts since becoming the First Lady and focusing on children’s issues. In May, Mrs Trump rolled out her “Be Best” program, which aims to protect children from cyberbullying and drugs. However, in recent weeks she largely has dropped out of the public eye as she recovered from a medical procedure for a benign kidney condition.

The issue of family separation has dominated national politics in the US, with Time magazine covering the subject in its latest issue. The cover features Mr Trump and a sobbing migrant child, who was photographed by Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer John Moore.

Time magazine’s latest cover.

The First Lady landed in McAllen, Texas under a heavy downpour, her motorcade driving through deep water to the Upbring New Hope Children’s Shelter, a federally-funded facility that houses around 60 children from Honduras and El Salvador, ages five to 17.

She met with officials and employees at the facility accompanied by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar hearing caregivers explain how the children are treated. She asked many questions, seeking assurances that they are being properly cared for.

“I’m glad I’m here and I’m looking forward to seeing and meeting children, but first of all let me begin to recognise each of you and thanking you for all that you do, for your heroic work that you do every day and what you do for those children,” Mrs Trump said.

“I’d also like to ask you how I can help these children to reunite with their families as quickly as possible,” she said.

Later, she toured a section of the facility where the children have bedrooms and was told they maintain their own rooms. She visited a schoolroom at Upbring and chatted with about 20 young girls and boys who had school folders on their desks. She spoke to many individually through a translator, and as she walked out she told them: “Be kind and nice to each other, OK? Nice to meet you.” In one classroom, children were being taught about the July Fourth Independence Day holiday. On the wall was a handpainted American flag and the children signed it. The first lady signed it as well.

In signing the executive order he used to reverse the separation policy yesterday, Mr Trump cited his daughter and his wife. “Ivanka feels very strongly, my wife feels very strongly about it, I feel very strongly about it. I think anybody with a heart would feel very strongly about it. We don’t like to see families separated,” Mr Trump said.

First Lady Melania Trump visits the Upbring New Hope Children Centre.

Images and recordings of wailing children detained in cage-like enclosures has ignited global outrage, and Mrs Trump herself had called for a political compromise to end the separations — the result of the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy towards illegal border crossers enforced since early May.

Mrs Trump’s spokeswoman said that the First Lady, an immigrant from Slovenia, would be speaking to the president about bringing families back together. “She’s going to lend her support and I’m sure she’ll continue to give her husband opinions on what she’s thinking.”

Despite Mr Trump’s executive order on ending family separations, there was no immediate plan in place to reunite the more than 2300 children already separated from their families.

In addition, Mr Trump’s order would keep families together but in custody indefinitely while parents are prosecuted for entering the country illegally — a move that could lead to new legal battles for the administration.

“The executive order certainly is helping pave the way a little bit, but there’s still a lot to be done,” Ms Grisham acknowledged.

Choice of jacket

Mrs Trump wore a jacket that read “I really don’t care, do u?” as she boarded her flight to the facility housing migrant children.

The green, hooded military jacket had the words written graffiti-style on the back.

When asked what message the First Lady’s jacket intended to send, her spokeswoman Ms Grisham said: “It’s a jacket. There was no hidden message. After today’s important visit to Texas, I hope the media isn’t going to choose to focus on her wardrobe. ”

Mrs Trump changed into a pale yellow jacket before the plane landed in McAllen. The youthful jacket sharply contrasted with the First Lady’s typically bold, foreign-flavoured wardrobe. In public appearances, she has worn designs by Dolce & Gabbana, Del Pozo, Christian Dior, Emilio Pucci, Givenchy and Valentino, often with daringly high Christian Louboutin heels.

Melania Trump’s jacket for her visit to Texas.

Legislative drama

Mrs Trump’s visit also came barely an hour before divided US politicians were to begin voting on a pair of immigration bills in the House of Representatives, including one that directly addresses the family separation issue.

But Republicans were divided over the two measures, and Democrats signalled their opposition, making for a day of legislative drama.

“Congress has the authority and the responsibility to make the law of the land and to fix the immigration system,” Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told a security forum on Capitol Hill.

“We need Congress to act.” Two measures are before the House of Representatives -- a conservative bill and a more moderate “compromise,” which the White House and leadership in the Republican-controlled Congress has been urging rank-and-file members to support.

Top House Democrat Nancy Pelosi said her caucus was opposed to both bills, and it was unclear if there was sufficient Republican support for the compromise measure.

In addition to ending family separations, the compromise addresses Trump’s goals of boosting border security including funding for his wall, limiting so-called “chain migration,” ending the visa lottery program and providing legal protections for so-called Dreamer immigrants who were brought to the country illegally as children.

New legal battles

Mr Trump has accused rival Democrats of causing the crisis at the border through inaction on illegal immigration — charging that his opponents put “illegal immigrants before they put American citizens.” For weeks, Mr Trump had insisted he was bound by law to split children from their parents and that only Congress could resolve the problem -- before he radically shifted gears.

Mr Trump’s executive order suggests the government intends to hold the families indefinitely by challenging a 1997 court ruling known as the Flores Settlement, which places a 20-day limit on how long children, alone or with their parents, can be detained.

Mr Trump said there was a need to sustain his “zero tolerance” policy to prevent crime.

“We still have to maintain toughness, or our country will be overrun by people, by crime, by all of the things that we don’t stand for and we don’t want,” he said.

After a downturn last year, the flow of migrants from Central America and Mexico has surged since October.

From March to May this year, more than 50,000 people a month were apprehended for illegally crossing the border from Mexico.

Nearly all of the arriving families, and many others, have officially requested asylum, citing the high levels of violence in their home countries.

The “zero tolerance” policy, under which illegal border crossers were systematically prosecuted and their children separated from them as a result, was announced May 7.

Justice Department officials have characterised the executive order as a “stopgap” move, saying Congress needs to pass new legislation to give the president more powers to fight illegal immigration

AP, AFP, Reuters