In an interview with Sean Hannity on Tuesday night, the Fox News commentator Geraldo Rivera ripped President Donald Trump's "zero tolerance" immigration policy, calling it "child abuse."

Rivera pushed back on Trump's false claims that existing immigration law is to blame for families being separated at the US-Mexico border, calling on the president to end his administration's policy.

"When did we become the party of child abuse?" Rivera told Hannity in a heated exchange.

In an interview with Sean Hannity on Tuesday night, the Fox News commentator Geraldo Rivera ripped President Donald Trump's "zero tolerance" immigration policy, describing it as "child abuse" and "cruelty."

After Hannity accused Democrats of "playing politics," Rivera said: "This is cruelty as policy. This is an obscenity. This is the government of the United States and the president that we both love advocating a system by which young children are torn from their mothers."

After Hannity tried to cut him off, Rivera continued by saying that people need to do something to reverse the policy.

"Twenty-three hundred children have been torn from their parents forcibly," Rivera said. "These are little babies, 18 months old. These are 10-year-olds with disabilities. They're taken from their parents. This is impossible. We cannot condone this. The Republicans are the party of faith and family. When did we become the party of child abuse?"

Hannity's other guest, the conservative pundit Chris Farrell from Judicial Watch, jumped into the conversation as Rivera continued to argue that the policy is a form of child abuse.

Hannity suggested that it was up to Congress to sit down with Trump and put together an immigration bill to end the family-separation policy — echoing a false claim of Trump's that existing immigration law is to blame for the separations — but Rivera said Trump should end the policy himself, given that his administration implemented it.

A fellow New Yorker who appeared on Trump's reality show "Celebrity Apprentice," Rivera is good friends with the president but doesn't always support his policies.

Rivera's criticism of Trump's policy comes amid growing outrage from members of both political parties over children being detained and separated from their parents caught crossing the US-Mexico border illegally. Rivera is among several notable Republicans who have urged Trump to end the policy.