"This is the only solution to the border crisis,” Trump said Tuesday. “We have to stop child smuggling. This is the way to do it.” | Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images Trump falsely claimed for days that he couldn’t end family separations The president is now reversing himself after facing fierce backlash for forcibly removing thousands of children from their parents.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he would sign an executive order to pull back on his administration’s highly controversial policy of separating undocumented immigrant children from their parents.

It was a jarring reversal for the president who has been falsely stating for days that only Congress could fix the problem.


Here are Trump and his allies incorrectly claiming this week that he could not end family separations:

Trump, in a Tuesday address

“So what I’m asking Congress to do is to give us a third option, which we have been requesting since last year — the legal authority to detain and promptly remove families together as a unit. We have to be able to do this. This is the only solution to the border crisis. We have to stop child smuggling. This is the way to do it.”

Trump on Twitter on Tuesday

“Homeland Security @SecNielsen did a fabulous job yesterday at the press conference explaining security at the border and for our country, while at the same time recommending changes to obsolete & nasty laws, which force family separation. We want ‘heart’ and security in America!”

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen on Monday

“Until these loopholes are closed by Congress, it is not possible, as a matter of law, to detain and remove whole family units who arrive illegally in the United States. Congress and the courts created this problem, and Congress alone can fix it. Until then, we will enforce every law we have on the books to defend the sovereignty and security of the United States.”

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Monday

“There’s only one body here that gets to create legislation and it’s Congress. Our job is to enforce it, and we would like to see Congress fix it. That’s why the President has repeatedly called on them to work with him to do just that.”

Fox News host and Trump ally Sean Hannity, on Monday

"No one likes the idea of separating any child from any parent, but this issue has been in the hands of Congress. And right now, the whole issue can be fixed. Every law can be changed, and if they did their job, it would happen."