Donald Trump says practice of separating migrant families would be ‘simple to fix’ as government sets up office for reunification

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Donald Trump used Twitter on Wednesday to take another swipe at victims of his practice of separating migrant families – as the government announced it was setting up a special office to reunite children and parents caught up in the “zero tolerance” immigration policy.

Trump blames missed reunification deadline on families: 'Don’t come to our country illegally' Read more

“Democrats in Congress must no longer Obstruct [sic] – vote to fix our terrible Immigration Laws [sic] now. I am watching what is going on from Europe – it would be soooo simple to fix. Judges run the system and illegals and traffickers know how it works. They are just using children!” the president tweeted.

He made the post on Wednesday evening as he prepared to attend a Nato reception and dinner in Brussels after a tumultuous day of haranguing America’s closest European military allies.

Meanwhile, the US homeland security secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, announced her department was creating an office to help the governments of Central America and Mexico get information about reunifying families, following their separation by the Trump administration.

Nielsen met on Tuesday in Guatemala with the foreign ministers of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador and discussed the separated families and reunification effort.

US immigration officials are working to reunite thousands of children with their parents amid a court mandate. More than 2,300 children were separated from their parents amid Trump’s zero-tolerance policy at the southern US border. The policy used existing law banning unlawful crossing of the border – hence Trump’s repeated tactic of blaming Democrats – but with a hardline crackdown mandating that therefore parents would then be prosecuted as criminals after thus entering the US and have their children taken away from them.

Trump issued an executive order reversing family separations as set policy last month, but up to 3,000 children are waiting to be reunited with their parents amid US bureaucratic chaos.

Nielsen said she hoped the new office within DHS would help streamline the foreign requests and the process.

“I think we all echoed the same thought, every minister, that nobody is in favor of any system that ends up with family separations,” she said.

A US judge had ruled that children under five must be reunited by Tuesday – though government attorneys said it needed more time to track down parents who have already been deported or released within the US.

The Trump administration faces a second, bigger deadline – 26 July – to reunite 2,000 or so older children.