The Trump administration has implemented a new "zero tolerance" policy that has separated families suspected of immigration violations.

Apple CEO Tim Cook is the latest business leader to slam the policy, calling it "inhumane" and saying "it needs to stop."

Apple CEO Tim Cook is the latest business leader to vocally condemn the Trump administration's new "zero tolerance" policy that has resulted in immigrant children being separated from their parents at the US border. In an interview with The Irish Times, Cook specifically mentioned an audio recording published Monday by ProPublica in which detained children could be heard crying out for their parents.

"It's heartbreaking to see the images and hear the sounds of the kids," Cook told The Irish Times. "Kids are the most vulnerable people in any society. I think that what's happening is inhumane, it needs to stop." The Apple CEO is in Ireland to open a new office.

Cook has had an open line of communication with the Trump administration as well as other controversial world leaders. He has frequently argued that he and Apple can change policy by staying involved.

"I'm personally a big believer in the way to be a good citizen is to participate, is to try to advocate your point of view, not to just sit on the sideline and yell or complain," he told The Irish Times.

"That will be the approach we will take here. This one in particular is just heartbreaking and tragic."

Hundreds of immigrant children, most of them Central American, are being processed and held at the US Customs and Border Protection Nogales Placement Center. Ross D. Franklin/AP

Cook and Trump

Cook with President Donald Trump at a tech roundtable last year. Getty

The Apple CEO has been in contact with the Trump administration since President Donald Trump was elected. Apple and Cook have strived to change Trump's mind on several social issues.

Cook said in a recent interview that he pushed the president to find a resolution for the class of young immigrants who were protected from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which Trump has moved to end.

Cook has also publicly disagreed with Trump over the administration's decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement.

The New York Times reported Monday that Cook spoke with Trump last month about the administration's tough talk about tariffs and about Apple's opposition to them.

He was apparently told the administration did not plan to place tariffs on iPhones, which are Apple's most important product. The Times said Apple had a more direct line into the Trump administration than it had in the Obama administration.