WASHINGTON — President Trump hit back on Friday at criticism over his administration’s hard-line stance on immigration, lamenting the “death and destruction caused by people that shouldn’t be here,” and accusing Democrats and the news media of not caring.

While statistics show that native-born Americans commit crimes at higher rates than immigrants, Mr. Trump has long pushed a narrative that suggests otherwise.

“No major networks send cameras to their homes or display the images of their incredible loved ones,” Mr. Trump said about the people who stood behind him on Friday — family members of those killed by undocumented immigrants. “These are the stories that Democrats and people that are weak on immigration” do not want to hear, he added.

Mr. Trump’s somberly delivered remarks came two days after he signed an executive order to end the separation of families at the border, and amid a fiercely emotional national debate over the fate of some 2,300 children — many of them toddlers and infants — who have already been separated from their parents while trying to enter the United States.