Hours after retreating from policy, president uses issue to lash opposition and revive attacks on Hillary Clinton

Only hours after signing an executive order to end the practice of separating migrant families at the US-Mexico border, Donald Trump said the public uproar over his administration’s policy was a distraction by Democrats from a report into the FBI’s Hillary Clinton’s email investigation.

Speaking to a packed rally in Duluth, Minnesota, on Wednesday night, Trump tied the issue to the inspector general’s report about the FBI’s handling of its Clinton inquiry during the 2016 elections, which he falsely claimed had proved his innocence in the Russia investigation while covering up Clinton’s guilt.

“Right now they are building up immigration, they are building up immigration,” Trump said. “They don’t want to show what’s happening in Congress where this scam has been revealed.”

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Trump faced significant backlash in recent days after audio and video emerged of children separated from their families under the “zero tolerance” policy implemented by his administration. It has led to 2,300 children being separated from their parents. Although Trump’s executive order is prospective, it does nothing to reunite children who have already been separated.

Play Video 2:12 Why were families being separated at the southern US border? – video explainer

The event was held in a congressional district in north-east Minnesota that Trump had won easily in 2016, but where the incumbent Democratic congressman Rick Nolan held on. With Nolan’s retirement, the district has become a top target for Republicans in the 2016 midterms.

As Trump asked, “How guilty is she?”, the crowd chanted, “Lock her up”.

Trump also dwelled on a familiar array of topics. He expressed his resentment at critics who were dubbed elites. “Why are they elite?” asked Trump. “I have a much better apartment than they do. I’m smarter than they are. I’m richer than they are, I became president and they didn’t and I’m representing the greatest, smartest, most loyal, best people on earth, the deplorables.”

Quick guide Why are families being separated at US border? Show Hide Why are children being separated from their families? In April 2018, the US attorney general, Jeff Sessions, announced a “zero tolerance” policy under which anyone who crossed the border without legal status would be prosecuted by the justice department. This includes some, but not all, asylum seekers. Because children can’t be held in adult detention facilities, they are being separated from their parents. Immigrant advocacy groups, however, say hundreds of families have been separated since at least July 2017. More than 200 child welfare groups, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the United Nations, said they opposed the practice. What happens to the children? They are supposed to enter the system for processing “unaccompanied alien children”, which exists primarily to serve children who voluntarily arrive at the border on their own. Unaccompanied alien children are placed in health department custody within 72 hours of being apprehended by border agents. They then wait in shelters for weeks or months at a time as the government searches for parents, relatives or family friends to place them with in the US. This already overstretched system has been thrown into chaos by the new influx of children. Can these children be reunited with their parents? Immigration advocacy groups and attorneys have warned that there is not a clear system in place to reunite families. In one case, attorneys in Texas said they had been given a phone number to help parents locate their children, but it ended up being the number for an immigration enforcement tip line. Advocates for children have said they do not know how to find parents, who are more likely to have important information about why the family is fleeing its home country. And if, for instance, a parent is deported, there is no clear way for them to ensure their child is deported with them. What happened to families before? When an influx of families and unaccompanied children fleeing Central America arrived at the border in 2014, Barack Obama’s administration detained families. This was harshly criticized and a federal court in 2015 stopped the government from holding families for months without explanation. Instead, they were released while they waited for their immigration cases to be heard in court. Not everyone shows up for those court dates, leading the Trump administration to condemn what it calls a “catch and release” program. By Amanda Holpuch Read more



He also defended his summit with North Korea, saying that he prevented war and predicted that the country’s dictator, Kim Jong-un, “will turn that country into a great successful country”. Trump also touched on familiar themes on immigration, claiming that, since taking office, towns on Long Island had been “liberated” from the gang MS-13 and that Democrats “put illegal immigrants before American citizens”. He also referenced his infamous announcement speech where he claimed that Mexico was deliberately sending rapists and murderers into the United States. Trump noted of the United States’s southern neighbor: “They are not sending their finest let me tell you and we are sending them the hell back.”

Trump was not the only speaker to say the issue of family separation was an attempt to divert attention from his successes and his opponent’s failures. Speaking before he arrived at the venue, his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, said it was a distraction from Trump’s visit to North Korea.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Attendees at the rally in Duluth. Photograph: Susan Walsh/AP

She said the media was focusing on “people coming into our country illegally, breaking our laws and paying the consequences about it”. She went on to lay the blame for Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy implemented by his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, on the Obama administration.

“People are hysterical about it. The media is going crazy about it, but this has been going on for years and years and years. It happened for eight years under President Obama. Where was hysteria? Where was uproar? Where were Democrats calling out for him to change it?”

Attendees had mixed views of the Trump administration’s family separation policy. Jack Nylund, an ardent Trump supporter, disapproved of the policy.

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“I don’t know why they are doing that. There’s got to be a solution to that you don’t separate kids from parents,” said Nylund, who added that he was separated from his parents at the age of five and spent much of his youth in “boarding houses”.

However, he supported Trump’s tough stance on immigration. “We can’t afford to support them. They’re flooding our own country and we can’t afford to take care of our elderly and children.”

Others dismissed the issue. Jim Lundy of Lindstrom, Minnesota, was unconcerned about the reports about children being separated from their parents at the border.

“I think it is bullshit,” said Lundy, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan “I lived through Obama now you can live through Trump.”

He added: “They are following the law. Kids are supposed to be separated from them. They are here illegally. They know it’s going to happen. I don’t understand what the problem is.”