"I hate the children being taken away. The Democrats have to change their law." 
 
 Evan Vucci / AP 
 
 President Donald Trump said Friday morning that his administration was separating immigrant children from their parents at the border because it's "the law" and a law created by Democrats — which is not true. "I hate the children being taken away. The Democrats have to change their law. That's their law," Trump said during an impromptu press conference outside the White House on Friday morning. 
 
 Fox News 
 
 There is no law that determines children must be taken away from their parents when they cross the border. Crossing the border illegally is a federal misdemeanor, and recrossing illegally is a felony, but there is no law mandating the separation of families that cross the border illegally. Instead, the increase in family separation, which has seen hundreds of immigrant children detained and kept apart from their parents, comes from a zero-tolerance policy introduced by the Trump administration and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. 
 
 Trump instead blamed Democrats. "The children can be taken care of quickly, beautifully, and immediately. The Democrats forced that law upon our nation. I hate it. I hate to see separation of parents and children," Trump inaccurately said. Previously, the policy of the Homeland Security Department was that children would be removed from parents if the parents were referred for criminal prosecution. The new zero-tolerance policy means everyone crossing the border illegally is being prosecuted. 
 
 But with Trump hoping that Democrats will agree to an immigration bill that would include funding to build a wall between the United States and Mexico, he continued to blame Democrats publicly. "That is a Democrat bill. That is Democrats wanting to do this," said Trump. On Thursday, other Trump administration officials also repeatedly declared the administration policy "the law," including Sessions and White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders in a heated argument with reporters. The president crossed the White House lawn on Friday morning for a surprise TV appearance on Fox and Friends. 
 
 Donald Trump walking down the White House lawn so he can make a surprise live appearance on his favorite TV show is just completely bonkers https://t.co/3VzN44TlKQ ||||| (CNN) President Donald Trump blamed Democrats for the separation of families at the US border Friday, a response he's repeatedly made to criticism his administration has faced since it adopted a policy that results in far more children being separated from their parents. 
 
 "The Democrats forced that law upon our nation," Trump told reporters at the White House. "I hate it. I hate to see separation of parents and children. The Democrats can come to us as they actually are in all fairness, we are talking to them, and they can change the whole border security. We need a wall. We need border security. We've got to get rid of catch and release." 
 
 The President's comments are significant given how his administration is operating and what Congress is trying to do to address a variety of immigration and border security issues. Just 24 hours ago, House Republicans unveiled legislation aimed at both addressing Trump's priorities on immigration as well as possibly make changes to protocol to address family separation (more on that below). 
 
 To add some clarity here given this morning's (and the last few weeks) comments, here's where things stand: 
 
 On the 'compromise' GOP legislation, and the 'fix' on separation 
 
 Yes, a compromise bill worked out by House GOP leaders, moderates and conservatives addresses the issue of separating parents from their children, through overturning a settlement that stipulates children cannot be detained more than three weeks so that families are kept together but doing so would allow entire families to be detained indefinitely. House Speaker Paul Ryan cited that settlement on Thursday as the reason this was happening in the first place. 
 
 But -- and this is a key: the bill does nothing to prohibit the criminal prosecution of parents who cross the border illegally, i.e. the current Trump Administration policy that is driving the separation (children can't be brought into the criminal justice system). 
 
 In other words: It does nothing to stop the current policy. It just requires the government to keep them together when in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security. 
 
 So here's the bottom line: the bill touches on the issue, but it's hardly a fix. 
 
 As one Democratic staffer told CNN: "The answer to separating families is not to put them behind bars." 
 
 Where are Democrats on the separation policy and new legislation? 
 
 Democrats want the administration to reverse the policy. 
 
 House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi told reporters on Thursday she sees "no prospects" for a legislative fix. Democrats aren't even talking to Republicans about a legislative fix -- neither in the broader immigration bills to be considered next week or in a more targeted manner. 
 
 They are going to the border to highlight the issue. They have marched to highlight the issue. This is a very motivating issue for them. But they see the mechanism for addressing it sitting purely with the executive branch. 
 
 Is this the fault of Democrats, as Trump has continued to claim falsely for weeks? 
 
 No. This was a deliberate policy shift by the Trump administration. They have the power to unilaterally reverse it. It's legal, no question, but it's purely the administration's decision. 
 
 The more nuanced point from the administration is that this is something that can and should be addressed by broader immigration legislative efforts, and that Democrats are blocking those efforts. It's correct that Democrats aren't in the room on the current House effort. But this is far more a Republican issue than Democrat one. Here's why: 
 
 1. The President's immigration bill got all of 39 votes in the Senate (the bipartisan effort also fell short of the 60 votes needed to move forward, but received more support.) 
 
 2. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has explicitly said the Senate won't take up any immigration legislation again unless the House passes it and the President is explicit he will sign it (more on that below). 
 
 3. The House Republican effort has been a purely partisan one -- Democrats aren't in negotiations, being consulted, or expected to provide any "yes" votes given the conservative turn even the compromise bill has taken 
 
 4. Even the GOP-only effort in the House, which is scheduled to be considered next week, is a long way away from having enough to pass at this point. 
 
 5. The President, in Friday's Fox News interview, said he's opposed to the GOP moderate-negotiated House bill. This is a kill shot to the entire House exercise, whether they manage the scrounge together the votes or not. 
 
 Bottom line: The Trump administration implemented the current separation policy. 
 
 While it's designed, as Attorney General Jeff Sessions describes it, to have a deterrent effect, it's also a negotiating play to try and force Democrats to the table on immigration legislation the President favors. 
 
 But Democrats aren't in the room on those legislative efforts and the President just nuked the lone House GOP effort that had a shot at passage. And the Senate wants no part of this. 
 
 So its prospects -- and any effort in the near future to prevent families from being separated at the border -- aren't looking good. ||||| poster="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201806/2747/1155968404_5799880576001_5799877076001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true immigration Trump signs executive order halting family separations The furor over forcibly removing children from their parents prompted the administration to move without waiting for Congress. 
 
 President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday that ends the administration’s policy of separating migrant families crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, abandoning the president’s previous stance that only Congress can fix the problem. 
 
 “I didn’t like the sight or the feeling of families being separated,” the president told reporters in the Oval Office, flanked by Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Vice President Mike Pence. “I think anybody with a heart would feel strongly about it. We don’t like to see families separated.” 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 Yet Trump said that he wanted to continue enforcing a strong policy at the border, an issue he campaigned on: “We are keeping a very powerful border and it continues to be a zero tolerance. We have zero tolerance for people that enter our country illegally.” 
 
 And the president continued to say that the underlying issue remains one for Congress to fix, titling the document an “executive order affording Congress an opportunity to address family separation.” 
 
 Administration officials also said that children who have already been separated from their parents won’t immediately be reunited, even if the parents remain in federal custody. 
 
 Breaking News Alerts Get breaking news when it happens — in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. 
 
 “For the minors currently in the unaccompanied alien children program, the sponsorship process will proceed as usual,” Kenneth Wolfe, a spokesman for the Health and Human Services Department’s Administration for Children and Families, told POLITICO on Wednesday evening. 
 
 Another spokesman later said Wolfe had misspoken. 
 
 “It is still very early and we are awaiting guidance,” Brian Marriott, the HHS division’s senior director of communications, said in a statement. “Our focus is on continuing to provide quality services and care to the minors ... and reunifying minors with a relative or appropriate sponsor as we have done since HHS inherited the program. 
 
 “Reunification is always the ultimate goal of those entrusted with the care of UACs“ — unaccompanied alien children — “and the administration is working towards that for those UACs currently in HHS custody." 
 
 The executive order came after Trump and his team faced harsh criticism from lawmakers, activists, religious leaders and former first ladies over the separation of children from their parents in custody, which was panned almost universally as cruel and damaging to the kids’ well-being. 
 
 It was a remarkable shift from a president who is typically reluctant to bow to outside pressure. He often doubles down on his existing stance when confronted with criticism. 
 
 With cable news flashing images of migrant children held in cages and lawmakers’ offices facing a flood of angry phone calls, the president was under increased pressure to come up with a speedy solution. White House aides came to the conclusion on Wednesday that Congress was unlikely to act quickly to resolve the crisis, even though they sent signals that Trump would be willing to sign a narrow, stand-alone fix without other immigration-related provisions. 
 
 The decision to end the separation policy via executive action appeared to have happened quickly, and some in the White House were left in the dark. Key members of the White House legislative affairs team, which had been working with Hill lawmakers in a bid to find a legislative fix, were left out of the loop and hadn't seen text of the executive action as of early Wednesday afternoon, according to two people familiar with the issue. 
 
 Nielsen and Justice Department officials went to the White House Wednesday morning to work with administration lawyers to draft the order. The action will direct the Department of Homeland Security to keep families together and will instruct the Department of Defense to help house the families because many of the detention centers are at capacity, according to a person familiar with the matter. 
 
 Attorney General Jeff Sessions was slated to go to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to brief lawmakers on the administration’s plans. 
 
 Trump and his top aides, led by Nielsen, have been saying that the law requires them to separate children from parents who were being prosecuted for crossing the border illegally. 
 
 Nielsen and Trump repeatedly tried to blame Democrats for the situation at the border, saying that nothing could be done without a legislative resolution. But the separations were the direct result of a DOJ decision in April to prosecute border-crossers as criminals — a change Sessions described as “zero-tolerance.” The separation policy has been applied to most families detained at the border, with children handed over to federal welfare agencies after their parents are taken into custody by U.S. marshals. 
 
 Nielsen, who had expressed skepticism about moving forward with a zero-tolerance policy without action from Congress, has nonetheless become the public face of the crisis after defending the administration’s position during a tense briefing at the White House on Monday. On Tuesday night, protesters confronted her at a high-end Mexican restaurant in Washington. 
 
 Nielsen won’t abandon her demands for a legislative solution that would deal with family separations and accomplish Trump’s broader immigration agenda, according to a senior administration official. 
 
 “We’re still going to be pushing Congress to address this,” the official said. “That’s obvious and that’s not changing.” 
 
 The official said Nielsen was “a key player” in the talks at the White House on Wednesday morning, and had spent hours there. But the move appeared to take some Homeland Security Department officials by surprise. 
 
 The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement legal team wasn’t clued into the decision, according to a former DHS official with knowledge of the situation. “It sounds like they blindsided everybody,” this person said. “What changed in the last 12, 24 hours? … Either you believe that, operationally, this is what you need to be doing, or you don’t.” 
 
 ICE declined to comment, and several DHS component agencies did not immediately respond to related requests. 
 
 The executive action may not put an end to the question of how migrant children are handled at the border. The American Civil Liberties Union, which is already suing the administration on behalf of separated families, said prolonged detention of asylum seekers even as a unit would be unacceptable. “What we don’t want to see happen is we’ll keep the child and parent together but we’re going to detain them for a long time,” said ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the nonprofit’s Immigrant Rights Project. “We don’t want to see a situation where they’re building more and more detention facilities. 
 
 Public outcry over the family separations reached new heights on Wednesday after The Associated Press reported that the administration is placing babies and toddlers in “tender age” shelters. The story capped a grim 24 hours that stood out as a low point even for a White House that long ago grew accustomed to operating in a perpetual state of crisis. 
 
 On Tuesday night, shortly before the AP story broke, Trump attended a $100,000-plus-per-person fundraiser at his hotel in Washington. Before that, he met with House Republicans at the Capitol, where he sounded off on everything from trade to fighter jets, while only briefly acknowledging the outcry over the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border. 
 
 Yet on Wednesday, Trump announced he’d delay the annual congressional picnic at the White House, planned for Thursday. “I said, you know, it doesn't feel right to have a picnic for Congress when we're working on doing something very important,” he said in a meeting with lawmakers at the White House. “It didn’t feel exactly right to me.” 
 
 During the meeting, Trump said he hoped his action would be “matched by legislation.” 
 
 Behind the scenes, White House officials have grown increasingly concerned about the fallout from the policy. Trump, for his part, seemed to vacillate between doubling down on the policy and complaining that Democrats are using the issue to sabotage him politically, and signaling to aides that he wants the issue resolved. 
 
 “It’s the Democrats fault, they won’t give us the votes needed to pass good immigration legislation,” Trump tweeted Wednesday. “They want open borders, which breeds horrible crime. Republicans want security. But I am working on something — it never ends!” The president also retweeted a tweet by Darrell Scott, a pastor and Trump supporter, that declared, “Once the mid terms are over, liberals won’t talk about detained or separated illegal immigrant children until 2020. #itsallpolitics.” 
 
 poster="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201806/3051/1155968404_5799817983001_5799805714001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" 
 
 Earlier Wednesday morning, Trump again defended his border security policies, while bashing the news media. The tweet came one day after the president revived the divisive anti-immigration rhetoric that defined his presidential campaign, warning Tuesday on Twitter that immigrants would “infest“ the United States. 
 
 “The Fake News is not mentioning the safety and security of our Country when talking about illegal immigration,” he wrote on Twitter. “Our immigration laws are the weakest and worst anywhere in the world, and the Dems will do anything not to change them & to obstruct-want open borders which means crime!” 
 
 The swirling controversy has sparked tensions inside the White House and among Trump’s allies, again laying bare the divide between the president’s hard-line advisers, including policy aide Stephen Miller, and more moderate influences. 
 
 Trump told lawmakers on Tuesday that his daughter and adviser Ivanka — who was widely criticized after posting a photograph of herself cuddling with her infant son amid the crisis — had about the separations. Ivanka Trump tweeted on Wednesday, after the executive order was signed: “Thank you @POTUS for taking critical action ending family separation at our border. Congress must now act + find a lasting solution that is consistent with our shared values;the same values that so many come here seeking as they endeavor to create a better life for their families.” 
 
 A White House official said on Wednesday that first lady Melania Trump had also been arguing behind the scenes, including in direct conversations with her husband, to end the family separation policy. 
 
 But others close to the president had encouraged him to double down on the policy, arguing that border security was one of the central pillars of his campaign and is deeply popular with his conservative base. 
 
 “It’s a mess,” one former White House official said. 
 
 One Republican former Department of Homeland Security official who has ties to the Trump administration and asked for anonymity to talk about the policy put it bluntly: “I’m ashamed of what they’re doing.” 
 
 The White House faced a wave of damaging stories about the family separations — from leaked audio of children crying to the revelations about the high cost of detaining children alone. The AP story, which detailed “play rooms of crying preschool-age children in crisis,” struck a particular chord, prompting MSNBC host Rachel Maddow to break down in tears on her Tuesday night television show. 
 
 Trump’s critics also pounced on an offensive comment by Trump’s former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, on Fox News. When Democratic strategist Zac Petkanas referenced a report that a 10-year-old girl with Down syndrome was among the children who had been separated from her family at the border, Lewandowski could be heard saying, “Womp, womp,” later adding that immigrants give up rights when they cross the border illegally. 
 
 Lewandowski is still firmly in Trump’s inner circle as an informal adviser and recently joined Vice President Mike Pence’s political action committee. 
 
 In response to criticism of his remarks, Lewandowski complained Wednesday on Twitter that there was “lots of Fake News today” and argued he simply “mocked a liberal who attempted to politicize children as opposed to discussing the real issue which is fixing a broken immigration system.” 
 
 While some in Trump’s inner circle have defended the policy, lawmakers in both parties have condemned it. Even the pope has weighed in, telling Reuters that he agreed with recent comments by U.S. Roman Catholic bishops who called the policy “immoral.” 
 
 During her dinner at a Mexican restaurant on Tuesday night, one protester asked Nielsen, “How can you enjoy a Mexican dinner as you’re deporting and imprisoning tens of thousands of people who come here seeking asylum in the United States?” 
 
 Nielsen left the restaurant and a DHS spokesman later said: “While having a work dinner tonight, the secretary and her staff heard from a small group of protesters who share her concern with our current immigration laws that have created a crisis on our southern border. The secretary encourages all — including this group — who want to see an immigration system that works, that contributes to our economy, that protects our security, and that reflects our values to reach out to members of Congress and seek their support to close the terrible immigration loopholes that have made our system a mess.” 
 
 Ted Hesson, Rachael Bade, Eliana Johnson, Josh Gerstein and Stephanie Murray contributed to this report. ||||| “What the administration has decided to do is to separate children from their parents to try to send a message that, if you cross the border with children, your children are going to be ripped away from you,” she said on “Face the Nation” on CBS. “That is traumatizing to the children, who are innocent victims. And it is contrary to our values in this country.” 
 
 Former President Bill Clinton likewise spoke out, suggesting that Mr. Trump was using the widely denounced practice to leverage Democrats into accepting immigration limits in legislation they would otherwise oppose. 
 
 “These children should not be a negotiating tool,” he wrote on Twitter. “And reuniting them with their families would reaffirm America’s belief in & support for all parents who love their children.” 
 
 Hillary Clinton retweeted that message, adding, “YES!” 
 
 Contrary to the president’s public statements, no law requires families to necessarily be separated at the border. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s “zero tolerance” announcement this spring that the government will prosecute all unlawful immigrants as criminals set up a situation in which children are removed when their parents are taken into federal custody. 
 
 Previous administrations made exceptions to such prosecutions for adults traveling with minor children, but the Trump administration has said it will not do so. While the president has blamed Democrats, his senior adviser, Stephen Miller, told The New York Times last week that it was “a simple decision by the administration to have a zero tolerance policy for illegal entry, period.” 
 
 But Kirstjen Nielsen, the secretary of homeland security, rejected responsibility for the separations in a series of tweets on Sunday. “We do not have a policy of separating families at the border,” she wrote. “Period.” 
 
 She distinguished between asylum seekers who try to enter the country at designated points of entry and those who arrive at other parts of the border. “For those seeking asylum at ports of entry, we have continued the policy from previous Administrations and will only separate if the child is in danger, there is no custodial relationship between ‘family’ members, or if the adult has broken a law,” she wrote. ||||| A "horrible law" requires that children be separated from their parents "once they cross the Border into the U.S." 
 
 President Donald Trump wrongly blamed Democrats for his own administrator’s immigration policy. 
 
 "Put pressure on the Democrats to end the horrible law that separates children from there (sic) parents once they cross the Border into the U.S.," Trump tweeted. 
 
 Trump recently told Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, "I know what you're going through right now with families is very tough, but those are the bad laws that the Democrats gave us. We have to break up families." 
 
 But there is no law that mandates separating children from their parents. Trump’s own administration devised a policy to that effect. 
 
 So what is Trump talking about? 
 
 Whenever parents are charged with a federal misdemeanor (entry without inspection in this case), or awaiting trial, they are placed in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service. Children cannot go to jail, so they are transferred to the custody of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement. They are then placed with relatives, juvenile detention centers or foster care. That’s a longstanding Homeland Security policy, DHS told us. 
 
 Before the Trump administration, immigrants entering illegally as families were rarely prosecuted, said Sarah Pierce, an associate policy analyst of the U.S. Immigration Program at the Migration Policy Institute. Instead, immigrants were held in family detention centers until they were sent to appear before an immigration court or deported. 
 
 Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced on April 6 the Homeland Security Department would now be referring all illegal border crossings to the Justice Department for prosecution. Facing criminal charges, parents would go to detention centers, leaving their children unaccompanied. 
 
 It’s the decision to prosecute parents that is causing the separations. 
 
 "That’s a choice they have made that’s largely different from what other administrations have done," said Peter Margulies, an immigration law and national security law professor at Roger Williams University School of Law. 
 
 When we asked for evidence of policies separating families, the White House referred us to items determining what happens to unaccompanied immigrant minors. But none of the children in question would be deemed unaccompanied if the Trump administration did not decide to prosecute their parents. 
 
 The 1997 Flores Settlement Agreement, for example, calls for the release of unaccompanied minors to family members or sponsors who can care for them as their immigration case is resolved. The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, which Trump has wrongly called "a Democrat rule," determines that unaccompanied minors be transferred to Health and Human Services custody. 
 
 The White House argued such policies encourage parents to send their children into the United States, knowing they will be promptly released. 
 
 "The cruel and inhumane open borders policies of the Democratic Party are responsible for encouraging mass illegal migration, enabling horrendous child smuggling, and releasing violent MS-13 gang members into American communities," White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley said in an emailed statement. 
 
 The Trump administration may believe that Democrats are responsible for policies that encourage illegal border crossing, but we found no law mandating that children be separated from their parents. 
 
 Our ruling 
 
 Trump said a "horrible law" requires that children be separated from their parents "once they cross the Border into the U.S." 
 
 There is no such law. The Homeland Security Department’s longstanding policy is to separate children from their custodians when they are referred for criminal prosecution. Trump’s administration has decided to prosecute all illegal crossings. Families were rarely prosecuted under previous administrations. 
 
 We rate this statement False.
– Lawmakers from both parties have been criticizing the Justice Department's tough new policy that requires immigrant children to be separated from their parents at the border. On Friday, President Trump joined the critics, with a familiar caveat. "I hate it," he said. "I hate to see separation of parents and children." But he suggested the administration had no choice, asserting that "the Democrats forced that law upon our nation." A host of outlets, including BuzzFeed, CNN, and the Washington Post say Trump is incorrect about that. Under the administration's new zero-tolerance policy, every adult caught crossing the border illegally is being prosecuted, and the children are being separated while their parents await their legal cases to play out. Related coverage: Compromise in peril: House Republicans were poised to float two immigration plans, the more moderate of which would hit many of Trump's wishes (including $25 billion for border security) while ending the separation policy, reports the Hill. (See below for more on the latter.) However, Trump may have torpedoed its chances Friday when he told Fox that he wouldn't sign it, reports the AP, which now sees "eleventh-hour confusion" on the issue.