Melania Trump is visiting two Texas facilities housing some of the more than 2,300 migrant children sent by the U.S. government after their families entered the country illegally.

The first lady's visit to Upbring New Hope Children's Center on Thursday comes after President Donald Trump signed an executive order halting the practice of separating families. However, his policy of criminally prosecuting illegal border-crossers remains.

Mrs. Trump, whose focus is on children, may have helped encourage her husband to act.

U.S. first lady Melania Trump arrives for a discussion with doctors and social workers at the Upbring New Hope Childrens Center June 21, 2018 in McAllen, Texas.

The first lady said earlier through her spokeswoman that she "hates" to see families separated at the border. A White House official followed up Wednesday, saying Mrs. Trump had been making her opinion known to the president that he needed to act to keep migrant families together.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>WASHINGTON/MCALLEN, Texas (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Thursday he was directing federal agencies to begin reuniting children and parents separated at the U.S.-Mexico border after entering the country illegally, a first step to implementing his executive order reversing an administration policy that had drawn global condemnation.

Trump’s announcement came as his wife, Melania, made a damage-control visit to a border detention facility in Texas where children are being held. Video footage of children sitting in cages and an audiotape of wailing children had sparked anger as the images were broadcast worldwide.

“We want to put them together. We don’t want to have children separated from their parents,” Trump said at a meeting with his Cabinet.

Trump told the Cabinet he had directed the departments of Justice, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services “to work together to keep illegal immigrant families together during the immigration process and to reunite these previously separated groups.”

Last week Trump had said only Congress could change the separation policy but on Wednesday he signed an executive order to keep families together during immigration proceedings. The order still faces possible legal challenges and administration lawyers were expected to file a request as early as Thursday to modify a 1997 court settlement that limits the government’s detention of minors to 20 days.

Melania Trump made an unannounced trip to the border city of McAllen to meet with staff members at a detention facility for minors and asked about their work and the treatment of children.

“I’m here to learn about your facility, in which I know you house children on a long-term basis, and also like to ask you how I can help these children to reunite with their families as quickly as possible,” she said.

The executive order was an unusual reversal for Trump, who made cracking down on illegal immigration a key part of his presidential campaign. It moves parents with children to the front of the line for immigration proceedings but it does not end a 10-week-old “zero tolerance” policy that calls for prosecution of immigrants crossing the border illegally under the country’s criminal entry statute.

There were some early signs that prosecutors at the border with Mexico were showing more leniency.

In a federal courthouse in McAllen, not far from the detention facility the first lady visited, 17 cases against parents who had crossed illegally and whose children had been taken away were dismissed on Thursday, according to Carlos Garcia, an immigration attorney on the board of directors of the Texas Civil Rights Project.

There was no formal court proceeding and the magistrate judge was not there, said Garcia, who was in attendance. Instead, federal public defenders told the 17 adults they would not be prosecuted.

There was no immediate prospect, however, of them reuniting with their children. The children and parents were separated two or three days ago and are now in custody, with parents unaware of their exact whereabouts. Attorneys have not been notified of any reunification efforts, Garcia said.

The administration also has sought a permanent legislative fix on the issue, but congressional Republicans said the U.S. House of Representatives was likely to reject two immigration bills designed to halt the practice of splitting up families and address a range of other immigration issues.

Republican U.S. Representatives Ralph Norman and Mark Meadows, prominent members of the conservative Freedom Caucus, told reporters they did not think either of the bills had enough support to pass the Republican-controlled House.

Both House bills, backed by Trump but opposed by Democrats and immigration advocacy groups, would fund the wall Trump has proposed along the U.S. border with Mexico and reduce legal migration, in part by denying visas for some relatives of U.S. residents and citizens living abroad.

The more conservative bill would deny the chance of future citizenship to “Dreamers” - immigrants brought illegally into the United States years ago when they were children.

Even if a bill clears the House, it would face an uncertain future in the Senate, where lawmakers are considering different measures and where Republicans would need at least nine senators from the Democratic caucus to join them to ensure any bill could overcome procedural hurdles.

“What is the purpose of the House doing good immigration bills when you need 9 votes by Democrats in the Senate, and the Dems are only looking to Obstruct,” Trump said in a tweet as he renewed his call for a change in Senate rules to allow legislation to move with a simple majority.</s>Melania Trump is visiting two Texas facilities housing some of the more than 2,300 migrant children sent by the U.S. government after their families entered the country illegally.

The first lady's visit to Upbring New Hope Children's Center on Thursday comes after President Donald Trump signed an executive order halting the practice of separating families. However, his policy of criminally prosecuting illegal border-crossers remains.

Mrs. Trump, whose focus is on children, may have helped encourage her husband to act.

U.S. first lady Melania Trump arrives for a discussion with doctors and social workers at the Upbring New Hope Childrens Center June 21, 2018 in McAllen, Texas.

The first lady said earlier through her spokeswoman that she "hates" to see families separated at the border. A White House official followed up Wednesday, saying Mrs. Trump had been making her opinion known to the president that he needed to act to keep migrant families together.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>Melania Trump made an unannounced visit to a Texas facility Thursday to get a first-hand look at some of the migrant children sent there by the US government after their families entered the country illegally.

The first lady’s stop at Upbring New Hope Children’s Center in McAllen came the morning after President Donald Trump signed an executive order halting the practice of separating these families. She may also visit a second facility later in the day where children housed in cages were seen by The Associated Press last week. Trump had come under pressure to stop the practice, including from GOP allies and the first lady herself, following a public outcry sparked by widespread images of children held in fence-like structures.

The trip was intended to lend support to those children who remain separated from their parents, said Stephanie Grisham, the first lady’s spokeswoman. “She wanted to see everything for herself,” Grisham said.

Read: Melania Trump ‘hates’ to see families separated at border

The president had insisted incorrectly that his administration had no choice but to separate families apprehended at the border because children cannot go to jail with adults who are being criminally prosecuted for crossing the border illegally. Trump had said only Congress could fix the problem and he specifically pointed a finger at Democrats.

He reversed course Wednesday by signing the order ending separations and keeping families together when they are in custody, at least for the next few weeks. The administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy of criminally prosecuting illegal border-crossers, which has led to the removal of some 2,300 children from their parents since May, remains.

Accompanied by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, Mrs Trump met with the executive director of the facility and other staff in a makeshift conference room where she was told the staff treated the 58 children housed there as if they were their own. The first lady asked that the children be reunited with their families “as quickly as possible.”

The trip came together within the past 48 hours, Grisham said. “She told her staff she wanted to go and we made that happen,” she said.

Trump, speaking at a Cabinet meeting, said that his wife was “down at the border,” and Grisham said that the first lady had the full backing of her husband. “She told him ‘I am headed down to Texas’ and he was supportive.”

Also read: All five first ladies speak out on family separations at border

Mrs Trump, whose focus as the first lady is on child well-being, appears to have been among those pushing her husband to act.

Grisham released a statement last weekend saying the first lady “hates” to see children separated from their families and “believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart.”

Hours before Trump used his executive order to halt family separations, a White House official let it be known that Mrs Trump had been voicing her opinion to the president for some time, including that he needed to help families stay together. The official refused to be identified discussing Trump’s private conversations with his wife.

Trump acknowledged Wednesday that the mother of his 12-year-old son, Barron, had been prodding him. “My wife feels very strongly about it,” he told reporters after he signed the order.

The pair of statements from the first lady amounted to an unusual public intervention by Mrs Trump into a policy debate. Her four former living predecessors, seemingly encouraged after Laura Bush authored a scathing opinion piece, followed with sharper commentary of their own condemning the family separations as shameful.

The last-minute trip to Texas marks the first public action by Mrs Trump since she announced in May an initiative named “Be Best” to focus on the overall well-being of children and help teach them kindness. She had been expected to travel to promote the campaign but was sidelined a week after the announcement following surgery to treat a benign kidney condition.

For all the latest World News, download Indian Express App</s></s>There was a private lobbying force behind President Trump's change of heart on his controversial policy that resulted in thousands of family separations at the southern U.S. border: first lady Melania Trump.

A White House official confirmed to NPR's Sarah McCammon that Mrs. Trump pressed her husband to act to keep undocumented immigrant families together.

"She's been talking to him about it from the very beginning," the official said, who declined to speak on the record due to the sensitivity of the issue. The first lady's "Be Best" initiative is focused on the well-being of children.

Melania Trump had first weighed in Sunday, issuing a statement via a spokeswoman that she "hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform. She believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart."

The first lady's comments were a departure from the president's approach to the crisis at the time, as the Trump administration has for days — until very recently — blamed Democrats and insisted that only Congress could act to end the family separations by passing changes to the nation's immigration laws.

After Melania Trump spoke out, every other living first lady also condemned the practice of separating children from their parents. In a Washington Post op-ed, Laura Bush called it "cruel" and "immoral." Michelle Obama retweeted Bush's article, writing that, "Sometimes truth transcends party." Hillary Clinton has also spoken out against the practice and on Monday Rosalyn Carter also issued a statement calling the Trump administration's policy "disgraceful and a shame to our country."

There were other Trump family members who also pressed the president to reconsider his stance. NPR's Kelsey Snell reported that when the president met with House GOP members Tuesday he told them that Ivanka Trump, who serves as a White House adviser, has also pushed him to act to stop family separations.

"He mentioned that his daughter Ivanka had encouraged him to end this and he said he does recognize that it needs to end, that the images are painful," Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Fla., said. "He discussed the optics and the policy itself and I think he's not comfortable with either."

On Wednesday, the public pressure from both Democrats and Republicans — and private entreaties from his own family — seemed to have finally worked on the president. Trump announced he will sign an executive order to address the issue, though he didn't elaborate on how families detained at the border would be kept together or how detentions would be handled going forward.

"We're going to keep families together but 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 that we don't want," Trump said.</s>Melania Trump made an unannounced visit to a Texas facility Thursday to get a first-hand 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 at Upbring New Hope Children's Center in McAllen came the morning after President Donald Trump signed an executive order halting the practice of separating these families. She may also visit a second facility later in the day where children housed in cages were seen by The Associated Press last week. Trump had come under pressure to stop the practice, including from GOP allies and the first lady herself, following a public outcry sparked by widespread images of children held in fence-like structures.

The trip was intended to lend support to those children who remain separated from their parents, said Stephanie Grisham, the first lady's spokeswoman.

"She wanted to see everything for herself," Grisham said.

U.S. first lady Melania Trump arrives for a discussion with doctors and social workers at the Upbring New Hope Childrens Center June 21, 2018 in McAllen, Texas.

The president had insisted incorrectly that his administration had no choice but to separate families apprehended at the border because children cannot go to jail with adults who are being criminally prosecuted for crossing the border illegally. Trump had said only Congress could fix the problem and he specifically pointed a finger at Democrats.

He reversed course Wednesday by signing the order ending separations and keeping families together when they are in custody, at least for the next few weeks. The administration's "zero-tolerance" policy of criminally prosecuting illegal border-crossers, which has led to the removal of some 2,300 children from their parents since May, remains.

Accompanied by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, Mrs. Trump met with the executive director of the facility and other staff in a makeshift conference room where she was told the staff treated the 58 children housed there as if they were their own.

The first lady asked that the children be reunited with their families "as quickly as possible."

The trip came together within the past 48 hours, Grisham said.

"She told her staff she wanted to go and we made that happen," she said.

Trump, speaking at a Cabinet meeting, said that his wife was "down at the border,'" and Grisham said that the first lady had the full backing of her husband.

"She told him 'I am headed down to Texas' and he was supportive."

Mrs. Trump, whose focus as first lady is on child well-being, appears to have been among those pushing her husband to act.

Grisham released a statement last weekend saying the first lady "hates" to see children separated from their families and "believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart."

Hours before Trump used his executive order to halt family separations, a White House official let it be known that Mrs. Trump had been voicing her opinion to the president for some time, including that he needed to help families stay together. The official refused to be identified discussing Trump's private conversations with his wife.

Trump acknowledged Wednesday that the mother of his 12-year-old son, Barron, had been prodding him.

"My wife feels very strongly about it," he told reporters after he signed the order.

The pair of statements from the first lady amounted to an unusual public intervention by Mrs. Trump into a policy debate. Her four former living predecessors, seemingly encouraged after Laura Bush authored a scathing opinion piece, followed with sharper commentary of their own condemning the family separations as shameful.

The last-minute trip to Texas marks the first public action by Mrs. Trump since she announced in May an initiative named "Be Best" to focus on the overall well-being of children and help teach them kindness. She had been expected to travel to promote the campaign but was sidelined a week after the announcement following surgery to treat a benign kidney condition.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>WASHINGTON/MCALLEN, Texas (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Thursday he was directing federal agencies to begin reuniting children and parents separated at the U.S.-Mexico border after entering the country illegally, a first step to implementing his executive order reversing an administration policy that had drawn global condemnation.

Trump’s announcement came as his wife, Melania, made a damage-control visit to a border detention facility in Texas where children are being held. Video footage of children sitting in cages and an audiotape of wailing children had sparked anger as the images were broadcast worldwide.

“We want to put them together. We don’t want to have children separated from their parents,” Trump said at a meeting with his Cabinet.

Trump told the Cabinet he had directed the departments of Justice, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services “to work together to keep illegal immigrant families together during the immigration process and to reunite these previously separated groups.”

Last week Trump had said only Congress could change the separation policy but on Wednesday he signed an executive order to keep families together during immigration proceedings. The order still faces possible legal challenges and administration lawyers were expected to file a request as early as Thursday to modify a 1997 court settlement that limits the government’s detention of minors to 20 days.

Melania Trump made an unannounced trip to the border city of McAllen to meet with staff members at a detention facility for minors and asked about their work and the treatment of children.

“I’m here to learn about your facility, in which I know you house children on a long-term basis, and also like to ask you how I can help these children to reunite with their families as quickly as possible,” she said.

The executive order was an unusual reversal for Trump, who made cracking down on illegal immigration a key part of his presidential campaign. It moves parents with children to the front of the line for immigration proceedings but it does not end a 10-week-old “zero tolerance” policy that calls for prosecution of immigrants crossing the border illegally under the country’s criminal entry statute.

There were some early signs that prosecutors at the border with Mexico were showing more leniency.

In a federal courthouse in McAllen, not far from the detention facility the first lady visited, 17 cases against parents who had crossed illegally and whose children had been taken away were dismissed on Thursday, according to Carlos Garcia, an immigration attorney on the board of directors of the Texas Civil Rights Project.

There was no formal court proceeding and the magistrate judge was not there, said Garcia, who was in attendance. Instead, federal public defenders told the 17 adults they would not be prosecuted.

There was no immediate prospect, however, of them reuniting with their children. The children and parents were separated two or three days ago and are now in custody, with parents unaware of their exact whereabouts. Attorneys have not been notified of any reunification efforts, Garcia said.

The administration also has sought a permanent legislative fix on the issue, but congressional Republicans said the U.S. House of Representatives was likely to reject two immigration bills designed to halt the practice of splitting up families and address a range of other immigration issues.

Republican U.S. Representatives Ralph Norman and Mark Meadows, prominent members of the conservative Freedom Caucus, told reporters they did not think either of the bills had enough support to pass the Republican-controlled House.

Both House bills, backed by Trump but opposed by Democrats and immigration advocacy groups, would fund the wall Trump has proposed along the U.S. border with Mexico and reduce legal migration, in part by denying visas for some relatives of U.S. residents and citizens living abroad.

The more conservative bill would deny the chance of future citizenship to “Dreamers” - immigrants brought illegally into the United States years ago when they were children.

Even if a bill clears the House, it would face an uncertain future in the Senate, where lawmakers are considering different measures and where Republicans would need at least nine senators from the Democratic caucus to join them to ensure any bill could overcome procedural hurdles.

“What is the purpose of the House doing good immigration bills when you need 9 votes by Democrats in the Senate, and the Dems are only looking to Obstruct,” Trump said in a tweet as he renewed his call for a change in Senate rules to allow legislation to move with a simple majority.</s>WASHINGTON/MCALLEN, Texas (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Thursday he was directing federal agencies to begin reuniting children and parents separated at the U.S.-Mexico border after entering the country illegally, a first step to implementing his executive order reversing an administration policy that had drawn global condemnation.

Trump’s announcement came as his wife, Melania, made a damage-control visit to a border detention facility in Texas where children are being held. Video footage of children sitting in cages and an audiotape of wailing children had sparked anger as the images were broadcast worldwide.

“We want to put them together. We don’t want to have children separated from their parents,” Trump said at a meeting with his Cabinet.

Trump told the Cabinet he had directed the departments of Justice, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services “to work together to keep illegal immigrant families together during the immigration process and to reunite these previously separated groups.”

Last week Trump had said only Congress could change the separation policy but on Wednesday he signed an executive order to keep families together during immigration proceedings. The order still faces possible legal challenges and administration lawyers were expected to file a request as early as Thursday to modify a 1997 court settlement that limits the government’s detention of minors to 20 days.

Melania Trump made an unannounced trip to the border city of McAllen to meet with staff members at a detention facility for minors and asked about their work and the treatment of children.

“I’m here to learn about your facility, in which I know you house children on a long-term basis, and also like to ask you how I can help these children to reunite with their families as quickly as possible,” she said.

The executive order was an unusual reversal for Trump, who made cracking down on illegal immigration a key part of his presidential campaign. It moves parents with children to the front of the line for immigration proceedings but it does not end a 10-week-old “zero tolerance” policy that calls for prosecution of immigrants crossing the border illegally under the country’s criminal entry statute.

There were some early signs that prosecutors at the border with Mexico were showing more leniency.

In a federal courthouse in McAllen, not far from the detention facility the first lady visited, 17 cases against parents who had crossed illegally and whose children had been taken away were dismissed on Thursday, according to Carlos Garcia, an immigration attorney on the board of directors of the Texas Civil Rights Project.

There was no formal court proceeding and the magistrate judge was not there, said Garcia, who was in attendance. Instead, federal public defenders told the 17 adults they would not be prosecuted.

There was no immediate prospect, however, of them reuniting with their children. The children and parents were separated two or three days ago and are now in custody, with parents unaware of their exact whereabouts. Attorneys have not been notified of any reunification efforts, Garcia said.

The administration also has sought a permanent legislative fix on the issue, but congressional Republicans said the U.S. House of Representatives was likely to reject two immigration bills designed to halt the practice of splitting up families and address a range of other immigration issues.

Republican U.S. Representatives Ralph Norman and Mark Meadows, prominent members of the conservative Freedom Caucus, told reporters they did not think either of the bills had enough support to pass the Republican-controlled House.

Both House bills, backed by Trump but opposed by Democrats and immigration advocacy groups, would fund the wall Trump has proposed along the U.S. border with Mexico and reduce legal migration, in part by denying visas for some relatives of U.S. residents and citizens living abroad.

The more conservative bill would deny the chance of future citizenship to “Dreamers” - immigrants brought illegally into the United States years ago when they were children.

Even if a bill clears the House, it would face an uncertain future in the Senate, where lawmakers are considering different measures and where Republicans would need at least nine senators from the Democratic caucus to join them to ensure any bill could overcome procedural hurdles.

“What is the purpose of the House doing good immigration bills when you need 9 votes by Democrats in the Senate, and the Dems are only looking to Obstruct,” Trump said in a tweet as he renewed his call for a change in Senate rules to allow legislation to move with a simple majority.</s>First lady Melania Trump made an unusual visit Thursday to a Texas facility housing migrant children who have been separated from their parents, as the Trump administration backtracks on its harsh enforcement policy for families crossing the border illegally.

The visit, which was not announced ahead of time, is another sign that members of President Donald Trump's own family have been uncomfortable with the policy of removing children from their families. Trump reversed the policy on Wednesday, but the next steps for children like those Melania Trump saw Thursday are not yet clear.

"I'm here to learn about your facility," Melania Trump said as she received a briefing about the work of Upbring New Hope Children's Shelter. She told facility directors that she wants to "ask you how I can help these children be reunited with their families as quickly as possible."

President Trump announced the visit at the start of a Cabinet meeting at the White House, saying that Melania Trump had gone to the border "because it really bothered her to be looking at this and seeing it, as it bothered me."

Trump accused congressional Democrats of deliberately blocking potential solutions, falsely saying that Democrats are responsible for "loopholes" that "lead to family separation." The separation policy is one option under federal law, but Trump's administration made the enforcement decision and then changed that enforcement.

"They're the worst immigration laws in the history of the world," Trump said. "The rest of the world is laughing."

Trump also criticized Mexico, which he said "does nothing" to prevent illegal immigration.

"Mexico is doing nothing except taking our money and sending us drugs and doing nothing," Trump said. "They could solve this problem in two minutes."

Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter and adviser, tweeted Thursday that "it is time to focus on swiftly and safely reuniting the families that have been separated."

Melania Trump's communications director, Stephanie Grisham, told reporters traveling with her that the first lady had asked Tuesday that the trip be organized, one day before the president issued an executive order changing his policy.

"I don't know what she knew. She knew what she wanted to do, and she told us," Grisham said.

"She wanted to see everything for herself. . . . She supports family reunification. She thinks that it's important that children stay with their families."

"This was 100 percent her idea. She absolutely wanted to come" and did not change her mind after the executive order was issued, Grisham added.

"She wants to see what's happening for herself, and she wants to lend her support - executive order or not. The executive order certainly is helping pave the way a little bit, but there's still a lot to be done."

President Trump supported the trip but did not send his wife on his behalf, Grisham said.

"This was her decision. She told her staff she wanted to go and we made that happen. He is supportive of it but she told him, 'I'm headed down to Texas,' and he supported it."

The facility in McAllen, Texas, is operated by Lutheran Social Services. Directors told the first lady that children there are ages 12 and older and that most had arrived at the border without their parents. That means they are not the toddlers and young children whose anguish at being recently separated from their families has fueled broad criticism of the administration.

"She's seen the images. She's heard the recordings," Grisham said. "She was on top of the situation before any of that came out. She was concerned about it."

The spokeswoman said she does not know whether the first lady's own background as an immigrant affected her thinking. Melania Trump immigrated to the U.S. from her native Slovenia.

"When she came into this country, she did it legally, and she feels that everybody should enter the country legally," Grisham said.
First Lady Melania Trump makes a surprise visit to the US-Mexico border to get a firsthand look at the immigration crisis.