This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Donald Trump has said he will not reinstate the widely-condemned policy of separating children from parents who had illegally crossed the US-Mexico border, amid concerns over a renewed hardening of the White House’s stance on immigration.

Top Republican senator warns Trump to halt apparent homeland security purge Read more

“We’re not looking to do that,” the president told reporters on Tuesday before a meeting with Egypt’s president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, adding a raft of criticisms of US immigration policy and Congress.

Trump’s week began with turbulence in his cabinet after Kirstjen Nielsen, the head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), was ousted on Sunday following a disagreement on the best way to handle border security. The White House plans to remove more personnel in a purge of DHS leadership, an official familiar with the matter told the Associated Press.

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Trump, reportedly acting on the advice of his hardline immigration adviser, Stephen Miller, also announced the departure of the director of the Secret Service, Randolph Alles, on Monday.

Last week, Trump abruptly withdrew his nominee to lead Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (Ice), saying he wanted someone “tougher”.

Top Republicans have cautioned Trump against more shakeups in the department, and the president faced bipartisan pushback on the idea of renewing the controversial family separation policy.

The Iowa senator Chuck Grassley, the longest-serving Republican in the US Senate, told the Washington Post he was urging Trump to save the job of Lee Francis Cissna, the director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), who is reportedly in Trump’s crosshairs just two days after the forced resignation of Nielsen.

“The president has to have some stability, and particularly with the number one issue that he’s made for his campaign, throughout his two and a half years of presidency,” Grassley said. “He’s pulling the rug out from the very people that are trying to help him accomplish his goal.”

Nielsen oversaw the “zero-tolerance” prosecution policy that required adults crossing the border illegally to be criminally prosecuted. Because children could not be held in federal jails with their parents, the policy led to the separation of parents from thousands of their young children with whom they traveled.

The border enforcement stance led to legal challenges and a public outcry that eventually forced the policy’s reversal.

Under Trump, federal agencies are trying to stem rising numbers of people arriving at the border, many of them families fleeing violence and poverty in Central America, which swelled last month to the highest in a decade. Trump, a Republican, campaigned in 2016 on a promise to restrict immigration and has made it a central focus of his presidency.

On Tuesday, Trump said he was not responsible for the family separation policy, which his administration put in place last year, and falsely claimed the Obama administration started the policy of separating families at the southern US border.

“President Obama separated children. I was the one who that changed it,” Trump falsely claimed.

He also suggested migrants and asylum seekers had an incentive to cross the border when it was not being used.

“Once you don’t have it, that’s why you see many more people coming. They’re coming like it’s a picnic because ‘let’s go to Disneyland’,” Trump said.

Trump is “becoming increasingly unhinged about the border crisis”, a senior administration official told CNN, with the president demanding actions such as blocking all migrants from seeking asylum, which top DHS officials resisted because it would be illegal.

Media reports this week said the administration was revisiting last spring’s policy of family separations, which caused chaos and widespread uproar.

Nielsen's exit is another victory for Trump adviser Stephen Miller Read more

Grassley told the Post he was “very, very concerned” about reports that Cissna could be ousted next. He said he texted the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to express his concerns, and was appearing on Fox News in an effort to get the attention of Trump, who is an avid viewer of the network.

“One, those are good public servants,” Grassley said. “Secondly, besides the personal connection I have with them and the qualifications they have, they are the intellectual basis for what the president wants to accomplish in immigration.”

Grassley also criticized the growing influence of Miller within the administration. “I think it would be hard for him to demonstrate he’s accomplished anything for the president,” he told the Post.

Another Trump policy carried out to discourage immigration across the southern border, sending some asylum seekers to wait out their cases in Mexico, was blocked by a judge on Monday.

Joanna Walters contributed to this report