Big City Mayors: Zero-Tolerance Approach To Immigration Remains A Humanitarian Threat
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA/AP) — Mayor Eric Garcetti was among a bipartisan delegation of mayors that visited a federal detention center in Tornillo, Texas to protest the Trump Administration's recent family separation policy.
The visit was organized by the U.S. Conference of Mayors before President Donald Trump announced Wednesday he would end the highly criticized policy of separating children and their parents at the Mexican border when the parents are suspected of entering the country illegally.
Santa Fe, N.M. Mayor Alan Webber said the president's zero-tolerance approach to illegal border crossings has traumatized children and remains a humanitarian threat.
"You can't backpedal on the damage you have already done to all of those children," Webber said. "The fact that, at least for the moment, Trump has gotten a little less inhumane hardly solves the problem."
In the face of worldwide outrage, Trump on Wednesday reversed a policy that has already separated more than 2,300 children from their parents.
The new executive order requires immigrant families to be detained together when they are caught entering the country illegally, although some of the details on how long they could be held were unclear. The order comes after the administration had faced bipartisan pressure to end the separation policy.
"Yesterday was the right thing to do, but it leaves as many questions unanswered as it resolves," Garcetti said during a news conference after the visit. "We have over 2,000 children still far away from their parents and hundreds of them streaming into our cities, over 100 in my city."
Garcetti, who has acknowledged he is exploring a run for the presidency in 2020, will next travel to Phoenix to deliver the keynote address at the annual conference of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. He is also scheduled to attend and speak at a fundraiser in support of Greg Stanton for Congress and will attend and speak at an event in support of the Maricopa County Democratic Party. Stanton was mayor of Phoenix until May.
(© Copyright 2018 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
