SAN ANTONIO — Sen. Ted Cruz again defended the Trump administration's controversial new policy of separating children from parents at the border, blaming migrants for putting their offspring in jeopardy and insisting that such tragedies also occurred in the Obama era.

"There's no doubt that the images that we've seen of children, and children being separated from their parents, are heartbreaking. They were heartbreaking when Obama was president," Cruz told reporters Saturday after speaking at the Texas Republican convention. "I visited the Obama camps that he set up to detain little boys and little girls who crossed the border illegally. Illegal immigration produces human tragedies that are wrong."

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has described the "zero tolerance" policy for illegal border crossing, and the policy of separating children from parents when they're detained, as a deterrent against illegal immigration.

President Donald Trump and his aides have insisted that laws enacted with Democratic support require family separation. Democratic lawmakers and immigration law experts vehemently dispute that.

Cruz deflected criticism of the policy but adopted a softer tone than he offered five days earlier when he first weighed in on the controversy, defending family separation, though the message was effectively the same.

"When you see reporters, when you see Democrats saying, 'Don't separate kids from their parents,' what they're really saying is don't arrest illegal aliens," Cruz said Monday.

Meanwhile, Cruz's Democratic opponent, Rep. Beto O'Rourke, announced that he will lead a Father's Day march on Sunday to the Tornillo tent camp, 35 miles southeast of El Paso, to raise awareness.

O'Rourke denounced the "inhumane separation of children from their parents" and the conditions at the tent camp, and complained that migrants who present themselves at ports of entry, seeking legal asylum, are being denied due process.

Lupe Valdez, the Democrat challenging Gov. Greg Abbott, will join the march, saying, "Separating children from their parents and then incarcerating them like criminals is cruel and inhumane. It's torture."

Cruz focused on the actions of migrant parents rather than federal authorities.

"I don't think we should have any children that are brought across the border illegally, many times by drug cartels and coyotes who abuse those children, and sexually assault, physically assault those children," Cruz said Saturday.

The ACLU has sued the federal government to block the family separation policy. Scores of federal lawmakers and more than 100 advocacy groups have lodged protests.

News hit Thursday that federal authorities had chosen Tornillo, a small town outside El Paso, for a tent city to house unaccompanied minors detained at the border. Up to 360 children will be housed there.

"This week we're experiencing 100- to 105-degree weather," state Sen. José Rodríguez, D-El Paso, told the El Paso Times. "You are talking about placing children in tents in the desert regions of West Texas? It is totally inhumane and it is outrageous. It should be condemned by anyone who has a moral sense of responsibility."

"It really doesn't matter where the tent cities are constructed — we shouldn't be doing this," O'Rourke told the Times. "We shouldn't be separating children from their parents."

Crossing the border illegally is a crime, but there are also reports of migrants being blocked at ports of entry, and refused the opportunity to apply for asylum, as provided under U.S. law.

Cruz ignored a question about that element of the administration's policies.

Rep. Will Hurd, a San Antonio Republican whose sprawling West Texas district spans nearly a third of the U.S.-Mexico border, visited the Tornillo camp Friday. He has been critical of the president's push for a border wall, and he condemned the family separation policy and the conditions in which authorities are detaining children.

"In the land of the free and the home of the brave, we shouldn't be using children as a deterrent," he tweeted Saturday.

In the land of the free and the home of the brave, we shouldn’t be using children as a deterrent.https://t.co/yPUzAR3hkv — Rep. Will Hurd (@HurdOnTheHill) June 16, 2018

The family separation policy has sparked an uproar. Defenders, including Cruz, have insisted that anyone who commits a crime — whether burglary or border-jumping — is subject to being jailed, and children can't be jailed for the actions of a parent.

Critics reject that. They noted that entering the United States is a misdemeanor, that some of the separations involve families that face no criminal charge, and that children have been sent thousands of miles from their parents for indefinite periods, often with no information given to them or their parents about when they might be reunited.

On Monday, Sessions announced that claims of fleeing gang violence or domestic abuse would no longer be allowed as grounds for an asylum claim. Critics deemed that an especially callous move.

Sessions defended the policy Thursday on biblical grounds. Speaking to a police group in Fort Wayne, Ind., he cited Romans 13, a passage that directs the faithful to obey the laws of the government.

The United Methodist Church — Sessions' denomination — took issue with his interpretation of Scripture.

"The Christ we follow would have no part in ripping children from their mothers' arms or shunning those fleeing violence. It is unimaginable that faith leaders even have to say that these policies are antithetical to the teachings of Christ," wrote the Rev. Susan Henry-Crowe, the church's general secretary. "Christian sacred texts should never be used to justify policies that oppress or harm children and families."

Texas Democrats took aim at Cruz and other top Texas Republicans for defending the policy or staying silent.

"The conditions where these children are being jailed are horrifying and heartbreaking," Texas Democratic Party chairman Gilberto Hinojosa said. "These children are escaping abuse, violence, and trauma, only to be subjected to more trauma on Texas soil from Trump's racist and anti-immigrant policies."

Democrats noted that Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has defended the separation practice, likening it to a situation in which social workers step in to protect children from abuse.

"Ted Cruz has already defended Trump's cruelty," Hinojosa said. "History will judge us. ... What did Texas do when children were ripped away from their families at our border?"