The Last Week Tonight host explored the effects of Trump’s policy as a final plea for change before the midterms

John Oliver has criticised the racist tactics of Donald Trump’s White House in a new attack on the policy of family separation.

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On his HBO show Last Week Tonight, the comic started with discussion of the migrant caravan and Trump’s unfounded statements about how dangerous and evil many of the asylum seekers are. “That is such old-timey racism. I’m genuinely amazed that image didn’t automatically turn black and white as he talked like Pleasantville in reverse,” he said.

He then proceeded to talk about the family separation policy that has seen young children ripped away from their parents at the border. It has also led to some children going missing in the system. “You shouldn’t be able to lose children in a government system as easily as in a Chuck E Cheese ballpit,” Oliver said.

He played footage explaining that a policy of finding babies involved calling out their names to see who responds. “Anyone who calls a baby’s name and then gives up on finding them either knows nothing about babies or is covering for a baby who doesn’t actually want to be reached,” he said.

Oliver continued: “When it comes to ‘How did we do this?’ the answer seems to be a combination of incompetently and cruelly.”

In a presser with the secretary of homeland security, Kirstjen Nielsen, she was outraged when asked if the deliberate separation was being used as a deterrent. “You can always tell you’ve figured out exactly what they’re doing when they get offended by your description of what they might be doing,” he said.

Oliver continued: “It’s not that they don’t want immigrants to come here because they’re criminals, it’s that they’re calling them criminals because they don’t want them to come here.”

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One of the biggest concerns is how young children are able to cope with the trauma. “Lasting damage to children is a huge consequence,” he said. “You’re separating them from their parents, not telling them you ate all their Halloween candy to get on Jimmy fucking Kimmel.”

Trump has repeatedly referred to the caravan as an invasion, despite the fact that it’s made up of asylum seekers. “Even though the language of war is being used, there is not a war, and the only reason people keep talking like there is one is to give themselves permission to make the choices they want to be forced to make but family separation cannot be one of them,” he said.

Oliver ended by saying: “If the president really wants to make Tuesday’s election about him and about immigration then fine, let’s make it about that because family separation is perhaps the most emblematic moment of his presidency so far. It was cruel, sloppy, needless, racist and ultimately exactly what we should have expected.”