More on child migrants crisis

The executive order calls for:

Immigrant families to be detained together while their legal cases are considered

Expediting immigration cases involving families

Requesting the modification of a court ruling that dictates how long immigrant children can be detained

The president said his wife, Melania, and daughter, Ivanka, who reportedly have been applying pressure on him to drop the policy, "feel strongly" about ending the practice of separating migrant families. "Instead of pushing legislation that endorses the Trump administration's policy of detaining families, House Republicans should join Democrats in calling for an end to the policy and in making sure we reunite the families that have been ripped apart," he said. In recent days, the Republican president had insisted his hands were tied by law on the issue of family separations and had sought to blame Democrats, although it was his administration that implemented the policy of strict adherence to immigration law. The new executive order came after more than 2,300 children were separated from their parents and relatives which now, requires agencies and Pentagon to place families together in family units who have entered the country illegally. Until Wednesday, the president, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and other officials had repeatedly argued the only way to end the practice was for Congress to pass new legislation, while Democrats said Trump could do it with his signature alone. Peter Schey, class-appointed counsel in the Flores case, said Wednesday there was nothing in the agreement that prevents Homeland Security officials from detaining children with their parents, "as long as the conditions of detention are humane and the child remains eligible for release, unless the child is a flight risk, or a danger to herself or others, or the child's parent does not wish the child to be released." "I did not like the sight of families being separated," he said, but added the administration would continue its "zero tolerance policy" of criminally prosecuting anyone who crosses the border illegally. Rather than end it, Trump is taking advantage of the outrage over the inhumanity of his family separation policy to ramp up the mass incarceration of children and parents.”

Resonating views with Tanden and Jayapal, Congressman Ro Khanna expressed his content that children would no longer be separated from their parents, however, he believes that the new order “does not come close to fixing the problem”. The Flores settlement, named for a teenage girl who brought the case in the 1980s, requires the government to release children from custody and to their parents, adult relatives or other caretakers, in order of preference. The policy had led to a spike in family separations in recent weeks, with more than 2,300 minors separated from their families at the border from May 5 through June 9, according to Homeland Security. Parents referred by border agents for prosecution are held in federal jails, while their children have remained in U.S. Customs and Border Protection custody or have been moved into detention facilities managed by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, a Department of Health and Human Services agency.
U.S. President Donald Trump signs an executive order to "maintain family unity", amid global outrage over the separation of migrant children from their families, reversing the administration's policy. It affirms the U.S. policy of "detaining alien families together where appropriate and consistent with law and available resources".