Co-host Ainsley Earhardt stated that Trump’s policy is in place to “vet who’s coming across the border, in case it’s MS-13 or drugs.” 
 
 Kilmeade went on, “Somebody has to deal with this issue. It doesn’t matter who the president is. If you don’t like his policy, he’s also open to your policy, rather than just criticizing his. He’s trying to send a message to the other countries, ‘this is not the way you do it,’ because this is a country that has rules and laws. We just can’t let everybody in that wants to be here.” 
 
 On Wednesday, the president signed an executive order he claimed would end the immigration policy he initiated that separated thousands of children from their parents at the United States-Mexico border. However, the executive order also aims to increase the government’s ability to detain kids with their parents indefinitely. 
 
 MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle ripped apart Kilmeade’s remarks on air, saying that she wanted to “point something out to our colleagues over at ‘Fox & Friends.’” ||||| On Friday’s Fox & Friends, Brian Kilmeade defended President Donald Trump‘s border policies at one point by more or less saying, Hey, at least he’s not taking American kids away from their parents. 
 
 As Kilmeade spoke with his colleagues about the ongoing debate surrounding the immigration compromise bill being floated through Congress, he expressed support for Trump broadcasting a deterrent for Latin American migrants who wish to seek shelter in the United States. This tied in with a broader show of support for how Trump is enforcing the rule of law by taking border security seriously. 
 
 “Somebody has to deal with this issue,” Kilmeade said. “We just can’t let everybody in that wants to be here.” 
 
 Shortly after that, Kilmeade topped off his commentary with this statement: 
 
 “Like it or not, these aren’t our kids. Show them compassion, but it’s not like he is doing this to the people of Idaho or Texas. These are people from another country and now people are saying that they’re more important than people in our country who are paying taxes and who have needs as well.” 
 
 UPDATE: Kilmeade has offered a clarification for his remarks. 
 
 Watch above, via Fox News. 
 
 [Image via screengrab] 
 
 — — 
 
 >> Follow Ken Meyer (@KenMeyer91) on Twitter 
 
 Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com ||||| The first daughter remained silent for months about her father's policy of separating parents and children at the border. During an interview with Fox Business on Friday, Ivanka Trump commented verbally on the family separation policy. When asked whether she'd approached Trump about it, Ivanka said she had, and added that she has "very strong opinions on that topic." 
 
 In April, the Trump administration announced a "zero-tolerance" immigration policy of prosecuting all parents who crossed the border without paperwork, part of which included taking children from their parents and detaining them separately. Ivanka didn't speak out publicly about the policy for months, until the president signed an executive order in June to replace it with one that would allow the government to keep families in detention together indefinitely. 
 
 After discussing the first daughter's support for a child tax credit, interviewer Maria Bartiromo brought up family separation. "Our first lady was very moved by it, went to the border twice," she said. "Did you also say something to him [...] before he signed that executive order?" 
 
 "Of course," Ivanka said, nodding. "I have very strong opinions on that topic." She did not elaborate on those opinions, and Bartiromo ended the interview there. 
 
 Prior to Friday, the first daughter had only commented on the policy via Twitter. After Trump signed the order, she tweeted: 
 
 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." 
 
 She also wrote that families should be reunited as "swiftly and safely" as possible. These tweets, and her comment to Fox Business, suggest that she was opposed to the separation policy — and she's received some criticism for not saying so openly while it was still going on. 
 
 "Where is Ivanka in all of this?" Meghan McCain, ABC host and daughter of Senator John McCain (R-AZ), said on June 19. "Because she's all for women and mothers, and she has a White House role... and I'm sort of interested that her platform has been women and mothers and she doesn't seem to have anything to say about this." 
 
 The first daughter also experienced backlash for posting photos of her children on social media during the border crisis. Journalist Brian Klaas called one of the pictures "unbelievably tone deaf." 
 
 Even though Ivanka has been reticent to address the crisis in public, Trump told lawmakers on June 19 that she approached him about it privately. "Daddy, what are we doing about this?" he said she asked him. 
 
 Representative Carlos Curbelo (R-FL) told The Daily Beast that Ivanka was eager to end family separations. "She has been apparently very affected by this and moved, and asked him to find a way to stop this practice," he said. Axios reported that she also told the president that photographs from the border crisis were a "problem." 
 
 Last week, Ivanka donated $50,000 to a megachurch in Plano, Texas that plans to help separated migrant kids. The church says that it will hold an event to raise the children's spirits and give families financial assistance. The donation brought her a new round of condemnation, though, when word spread that the church engages in anti-LGBTQ activism. 
 
 The first daughter's comments on Thursday seem destined to bring her yet another surge of criticism. "After weeks of silence on Trump's immoral family separation policy," CNN pundit Keith Boykin tweeted on Friday, "Ivanka Trump now wants to take credit for her father's policy shift." ||||| Immigrants in handcuffs and ankle chains arrive at the Federal Courthouse for hearings, Thursday, June 21, 2018, in McAllen, Texas. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday to end family... (Associated Press) 
 
 Immigrants in handcuffs and ankle chains arrive at the Federal Courthouse for hearings, Thursday, June 21, 2018, in McAllen, Texas. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday to end family separations at the border. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) (Associated Press) 
 
 EL PASO, Texas (AP) — The Latest on the separation of immigrant children from their parents following President Donald Trump's order allowing them to remain with their parents (all times local): 
 
 8:25 p.m. 
 
 A senior Trump administration official says about 500 of the more than 2,000 children separated from their families at the border have been reunited since May. 
 
 The official said Thursday those children had been separated from their parents as a result of a "zero tolerance" policy that calls for the criminal prosecution of anyone caught crossing the U.S. border illegally. The official was not authorized to give out the number and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. 
 
 The official says many of the children were reunited within days after being separated from their families. The official wasn't certain how many of the reunited children remained in custody with their families or how many were no longer in the country. 
 
 The official says U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Health and Human Services are working to set up a centralized reunification process at the Port Isabel Detention Center near Los Fresnos, Texas. 
 
 ---Associated Press writer Colleen Long in Washington, D.C. 
 
 ____ 
 
 6:45 p.m. 
 
 An email from the federal public defender's office that covers cases from El Paso to San Antonio shows that the U.S. Attorney's Office will be dismissing cases in which parents were charged with illegally entering or re-entering the country and were subsequently separated from their children. 
 
 The notification came Thursday afternoon from the federal public defender's office for the western district of Texas. 
 
 El Paso immigration attorney Carlos Spector says the notice puts "a major dent" in the zero-tolerance policy as it implies that federal officials will not be prosecuting these cases. It's unclear how many cases have been and will be dismissed as a result. 
 
 With the criminal charges dismissed, Spector said this removes the basis for separating children from their parents. 
 
 ___ 
 
 5:45 p.m. 
 
 Arkansas' Republican governor says he's opposed to the federal government using any facilities in the state to house migrant children who are separated from their parents. 
 
 Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Thursday he understands that officials are looking at the Little Rock Air Force Base and unused federal land in south Arkansas to house immigrants and that the decision on using the facilities is being made in Washington and not at the state level. 
 
 Hutchinson says any costs for housing immigrant families would be paid by the federal government. 
 
 Hutchinson a day earlier rejected calls from Democratic leaders in the majority-Republican legislature to recall the state's National Guard soldiers deployed to assist in border surveillance. 
 
 4:50 p.m. 
 
 Pope Francis says countries should take in as many migrants as they can handle and properly integrate into their societies. 
 
 Speaking to reporters aboard his airplane as he flew back to Rome on Thursday after a daylong trip to Geneva, Francis reiterated that he supports the U.S. bishops who condemned the immigration policy of separating children from parents who enter the United States illegally. 
 
 Francis also endorsed European proposals to develop jobs and education in African countries to combat trafficking of migrants seeking better lives in Europe. 
 
 The pope decried that migrants sent back to Libya suffer torture and other abuse in prisons he likened to World War II concentration camps. 
 
 He said: "Each country can accept the migrants that they can handle and integrate," including by having enough jobs. 
 
 ___ 
 
 4:10 p.m. 
 
 Two Pennsylvania facilities are housing immigrant children separated from their families at the border under President Donald Trump's "zero tolerance" policy. 
 
 The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that about 50 children have been sent to the Holy Family Institute in Emsworth, about 8 miles (13 kilometers) north of Pittsburgh since April. 
 
 Facility CEO Sister Linda Yankoski confirmed the Institute is under contract with the Office of Refugee Resettlement, is housing the children and has housed unaccompanied minors since 2010. 
 
 WHYY radio reports at least nine children have been sent to another shelter in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley. 
 
 Elizabeth Yaeger, supervising attorney for HIAS Pennsylvania's Immigrant Youth Advocacy Project said she could not disclose the exact location or name of the shelter. 
 
 ___ 
 
 3:30 p.m. 
 
 An attorney representing immigrant children says a decades-old court settlement doesn't require or even imply that the U.S. government should separate families entering the country illegally. 
 
 Peter Schey said Thursday that he will oppose a Trump administration request for a federal judge in Los Angeles to alter the longstanding agreement that ensures children are released from detention facilities. 
 
 Schey says the administration is seeking to deflect blame for its recent family separation policy after public outcry and called the government's filing "deceptive and dishonest." 
 
 The judge ruled during the Obama administration that children had to be released from family detention facilities after authorities began detaining mothers with children in response to a surge in Central American immigrants seeking asylum. 
 
 ___ 
 
 3:15 p.m. 
 
 The prospect of the U.S. government housing up to 20,000 migrant children on military bases has raised questions on Capitol Hill. 
 
 Sen. Chuck Schumer said Thursday that he wants to know how many children are already being held after illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border and in what conditions. 
 
 A defense official says the Department Health and Human Services asked for the space and the Pentagon agreed. The official had knowledge of the request and spoke on condition of anonymity because the arrangement hasn't yet been announced. 
 
 Schumer asked why reporters haven't been allowed to tour detention facilities and how the new plan would work. The New York Democrat also wondered how the Trump administration was keeping track of families separated under its "zero tolerance" policy on illegal border crossings. 
 
 — Associated Press journalist Robert Burns in Washington 
 
 ___ 
 
 3:15 p.m. 
 
 A Florida criminal defendant says he's been working at a Miami-area facility housing dozens of children separated from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border. 
 
 The Miami Herald reported that Franky Santos told Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jeri Cohen this week that his job was "like a day care," overseeing children ages 12 to 17. He said he wasn't supposed to discuss it publicly. 
 
 Santos faces felony drug possession charges from a 2017 traffic stop where an officer found 20 grams of marijuana. He said the contractor running the facility knew his criminal history. 
 
 Cohen said Santos' hiring was "a disgrace" and urged him to quit. She said people with pending criminal cases shouldn't be working there. 
 
 The contractor, Comprehensive Health Services Inc., referred questions to the Department Health and Human Services. 
 
 ___ 
 
 2:45 p.m. 
 
 A defense official says the Pentagon has agreed to provide housing on military bases for up to 20,000 migrant children detained after illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. 
 
 The official says the Department Health and Human Services asked for the space and the Pentagon agreed to support it. The official had knowledge of the request and spoke on condition of anonymity because the arrangement has not yet been announced. 
 
 It was first reported by The Washington Post. 
 
 It's unclear which military bases would be used to house the children. HHS has assessed four military bases as prospective housing for child migrants. 
 
 Three are in Texas: Fort Bliss, Goodfellow Air Force Base and Dyess Air Force Base. The fourth is Little Rock Air Force Base in Arkansas. It's not clear whether other bases are under consideration. 
 
 — Associated Press journalist Robert Burns in Washington 
 
 ___ 
 
 2:45 p.m. 
 
 Washington and more than a half-dozen other states say they plan to sue the Trump administration over a policy that separated immigrant families illegally entering the United States. 
 
 Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson made the announcement Thursday outside a federal prison in the city of SeaTac, south of Seattle, where about 200 immigration detainees have been transferred — including women separated from their children. 
 
 Ferguson says the separations violate the due process rights of children and their parents and that Trump's executive order Wednesday halting the practice hasn't resolved the legal concerns. 
 
 Massachusetts, California, Maryland, Oregon, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Minnesota plan to join the lawsuit. New York has separately announced plans to sue. 
 
 ___ 
 
 1:05 p.m. 
 
 First lady Melania Trump boarded a flight to a facility housing migrant children separated from their parents wearing a jacket that read "I really don't care, do u?" 
 
 The green hooded spring military jacket has the words written graffiti-style on the back. 
 
 When asked what message the first lady's jacket intended to send, spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said: "It's a jacket. There was no hidden message." 
 
 Mrs. Trump wore a different pale yellow jacket when the plane landed in McAllen, Texas, for a visit to the Upbring New Hope Children's Center, which houses 55 migrant children. 
 
 The trendy jacket sharply contrasts with the first lady's typically bold, foreign-flavored wardrobe. 
 
 In public appearances, the first lady has worn designs by Dolce & Gabbana, Del Pozo, Christian Dior, Emilio Pucci, Givenchy and Valentino, often with daringly high Christian Louboutin heels. 
 
 ___ 
 
 1 p.m. 
 
 The Justice Department has agreed to release a child separated from his migrant mother after she sued in federal court. 
 
 Justice Department lawyer Sarah Fabian told U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman at a hearing Thursday that the child would be released in the afternoon. 
 
 The mother is Beata Mariana de Jesus Mejia-Mejia. She filed for political asylum after crossing the border with her 7-year old son Darwin following a trek from Guatemala. 
 
 Mother and son will be reunited in the Washington area before traveling to Texas, where they will live while her asylum claim is being decided. 
 
 ___ 
 
 12:30 p.m. 
 
 The Justice Department has formally asked a federal judge to change the rules on detaining families caught at the border. 
 
 Lawyers on Thursday filed a memorandum to a class-settlement that governs how children are handled when they are caught crossing the U.S. border illegally. 
 
 The Flores settlement states that families cannot be detained longer than 20 days. 
 
 The move is aimed at stopping the separation of children from their families amid a new policy where anyone caught crossing the border is charged criminally. 
 
 President Donald Trump signed an order Wednesday stopping the practice that has resulted in the separation of more than 2,300 children from their families. Homeland Security officials will detain families together. 
 
 It's not clear what will happen with the children already separated. 
 
 12:25 p.m. 
 
 Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam has ordered state officials to investigate claims made by immigrant teens of severe physical abuse at a juvenile detention facility. 
 
 Northam announced the probe in a tweet on Thursday, hours after The Associated Press reported on a half-dozen sworn statements from Latino teens held at the Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center. 
 
 Youths as young as 14 say they were beaten while handcuffed and locked up for long periods in solitary confinement, left nude and shivering in concrete cells. 
 
 Detainees also say the guards stripped them of their clothes and strapped them to chairs with bags placed over their heads. 
 
 The governor, a Democrat, said the allegations are disturbing and ordered the state's secretary of public safety and homeland security to report back to him about conditions inside the facility. 
 
 The center's lawyers deny all abuse allegations. 
 
 ___ 
 
 12:20 p.m. 
 
 Melania Trump in a visit to Texas facility got a firsthand look at some of the migrant children sent there by the U.S. government after their families entered the country illegally. 
 
 The first lady's stop Thursday at Upbring New Hope Children's Center came the morning after President Donald Trump signed an executive order halting the practice of separating these families. 
 
 She visited a one-story red brick building, which houses 55 children between the ages of 12 and 17. 
 
 Third-graders welcomed the first lady with a large paper American flag they'd signed taped to a wall. 
 
 With the words, "Welcome! First Lady" written in black marker across the red and white bars, Mrs. Trump also signed the flag, which the children gave to her. 
 
 ___ 
 
 11:20 a.m. 
 
 The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Portland has been closed for a second day because of a demonstration against Trump administration immigration policies. 
 
 Agency spokeswoman Carissa Cutrell says people who had appointments scheduled for Thursday will be contacted by deportation officers to have their meetings rescheduled. The appointments will not be reported as missed check-ins. 
 
 Cutrell declined to say how many people work at the Portland office, or if they have been working from home. 
 
 The round-the-clock protest began Sunday, with protesters calling for an end to the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy in which all unlawful border crossings are referred for prosecution. 
 
 Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, a Trump critic, says he does not want city police involved in any effort to end the protest. 
 
 ___ 
 
 11:10 a.m. 
 
 A spokeswoman for the Department of Justice says a report is inaccurate that parents who try to illegally cross the border with children will no longer be criminally prosecuted. 
 
 Spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores says there has been no change to the "zero tolerance" policy that resulted in the separation of more than 2,300 children from their parents. 
 
 President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an order to stop the separations. Justice Department lawyers are working on a legal challenge to allow families to be detained longer than 20 days. 
 
 The Washington Post reported that the policy was suspended until U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement could find space to detain them. 
 
 In McAllen, Texas, a civil rights group attorney says federal prosecutors unexpectedly dropped misdemeanor charges against 17 adult immigrants who crossed the border with children Thursday. 
 
 ___ 
 
 10:50 a.m. 
 
 Mayors who gathered at a holding facility for immigrant children at Texas' border with Mexico say that President Trump has failed to address a humanitarian crisis of his own making with an executive order to halt the separation minors from families that are detained crossing the U.S. border illegally. 
 
 Seattle Mayor and former U.S. attorney Jenny Durkan said Thursday at a news conference on the outskirts of El Paso that immigrant shelters have been overwhelmed by criminal prosecutions ordered by the Trump administration. 
 
 She joined about 20 mayors from cities across the country to call for the immediate reunification of immigrant children with their families. 
 
 New York Mayor Bill de Blasio says that separated immigrant children still don't know when they will see their parents again. 
 
 Columbia, South Carolina Mayor Steve Benjamin says a request to tour the holding facility for minors at Tornillo, Texas, was denied by the Department of Health and Human Services. 
 
 ___ 
 
 9:50 a.m. 
 
 An official says three immigrant children who have been staying in a Catholic Charities shelter in Fort Worth, Texas, are expected to be reunited with their family Thursday. 
 
 Heather Reynolds, the nonprofit's director, says the three are among 12 immigrant children at the shelter who were separated from their parents under a Trump administration "zero tolerance" policy. She says half are boys and half are girls, and they range in age from age 5 to 12. 
 
 Reynolds declined to provide details about the three kids who are expected to be reunited with family Thursday. 
 
 She says Present Donald Trump's executive order Wednesday allowing immigrant kids to remain with their parents mentions how future illegal border crossing will be handled, but it doesn't address the more than 2,000 children who have already been separated since May. She says this leaves groups like hers "uncertain" about how to manage those kids already in detention in the U.S. 
 
 ___ 
 
 9 a.m. 
 
 A civil rights group attorney says federal prosecutors unexpectedly dropped misdemeanor charges against 17 adult immigrants who crossed the border with children. 
 
 Efren Olivares, a lawyer with the Texas Civil Rights Project, said outside of the federal courthouse in McAllen, Texas, that the 17 immigrants were supposed to have been sentenced Thursday morning for improperly entering the U.S. 
 
 Olivares says the 17 will likely be placed in immigration detention, though he didn't know whether they would be reunited immediately with their children or released altogether. Asked if they had any reaction to the charges against them being dropped, he said, "They're asking about their children, frankly." 
 
 The Texas Civil Rights Project is interviewing adults to track them and their children through separate government systems. 
 
 The dropping of the charges comes a day after President Donald Trump reversed a policy of forcibly separating immigrant children from their parents upon entering the U.S. without permission. ||||| 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. ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. 
 
 / Updated By Julia Ainsley and Courtney Kube 
 
 WASHINGTON — Border agents and child welfare workers are running out of space to shelter children who have been separated from their parents at the U.S. border as part of the Trump administration's new "zero tolerance" policy, according to two U.S. officials and a document obtained by NBC News. 
 
 As of Sunday, nearly 300 of the 550 children currently in custody at U.S. border stations had spent more than 72 hours there, the time limit for immigrants of any age to be held in the government's temporary facilities. Almost half of those 300 children are younger than 12, according to the document, meaning they are classified by the Department of Homeland Security as "tender age children." 
 
 The stations, run by the Border Patrol and meant only as the first stop for children detained at the border, often lack adequate bedding or separate sleeping rooms for children. 
 
 "It would be highly inappropriate and even unsafe to hold children for extended periods in these short-term border facilities because they often lack the adequate medical and nutritional resources for these young people," said Greg Chen, director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. "It would place these children at risk of harm if they are housed with adults without the proper privacy that children should have." 
 
 A spokesman for DHS did not respond to a request for comment. 
 
 The overstays at border stations are a result of a backlog at U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS), the agency responsible for sheltering migrant children longer term and matching them with relatives or foster parents in the U.S. The agency's Administration for Children and Families has 11,200 unaccompanied children in its care and takes 45 days on average to place a child with a sponsor, according to a spokesperson. 
 
 HHS officials will soon tour military installations near the border in Texas as they search for more space to house children while they wait for placement. The officials will tour Dyess Air Force Base, Goodfellow Air Force Base, and Fort Bliss, the spokesperson said. 
 
 "HHS will make the determination if they will use any of the three sites for UAC (unaccompanied alien children) operations," the spokesperson said. 
 
 A Defense Department spokesperson said HHS was the lead agency and referred NBC News to HHS. 
 
 Military bases have been used to house migrant children in the past, but only as a last resort, according to an Obama administration official. 
 
 In May, the Trump administration began enforcing a "zero tolerance" policy on the southern border, prosecuting any adult who entered the country illegally in order to crack down on the surge in the number of immigrants crossing the border. 
 
 Parents traveling with children are separated from their kids while they face legal proceedings. Two U.S. officials said HHS was not given proper warning of the new policy and was caught unprepared at the influx of children. 
 
 Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, on May 12. Senior Airman Shannon Hall / U.S. Air Force file 
 
 "What's happening now is a broad indication of a total lack of planning or forethought for the policy they enacted," said Peter Boogaard, a former DHS and White House official in the Obama administration who is now a spokesman for the immigration reform group FWD.us. "They didn't think this through at all — what it would mean for kids, for their parents and for the operational challenges." 
 
 "Instead of having Border Patrol agents at the border, you have them taking care of kids at border stations." 
 
 The Trump administration recently started requiring HHS to fingerprint people claiming to be parents of unaccompanied children, a move the previous administration said would delay children from being reunited with their families and scare undocumented parents away from coming forward.
– The controversy over separating immigrant children from their parents continues, this time thanks to words from a Fox & Friends co-host. Per Mediaite, Brian Kilmeade took to the airwaves Friday morning, staunchly defending President Trump's moves on dealing with immigrants trying to enter the US. "He's trying to send a message to the other countries: This is not the way you do it, because this is a country that has rules and laws," he said to co-hosts Ainsley Earhardt and Steve Doocy. But it was his remarks on the separations specifically that raised the ire of many. "Like it or not, these aren't our kids," he noted. "Show 'em compassion, but it's not like [Trump] is doing this to the people of Idaho or Texas. These are people from another country." Twitter erupted in slams, while, per HuffPost, MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle addressed any insinuation that those opposed to Trump's moves care more about migrant kids than US kids: "Please … your propaganda, that anyone is putting the life of a migrant child ahead of the life of an American child, is simply nonsense. It's ignorant. It's stupid. It's wrong." Kilmeade later clarified his comments on Twitter, tweeting, "Of course-I didn't mean to make it seem like children coming into the U.S. illegally are less important because they live in another country. I have compassion for all children, especially for all the kids separated from their parents right now." He also said he was pleased kids were "on their way" to being reunited with their parents and put up a clip from his Fox News Radio show, where he reiterated, "All kids are important. All kids are special."