Bono, the lead singer of U2, is calling on members of Congress from both parties to demand an end to family separations at the U. S.-Mexico border.
The Latest on Congress and immigration (all times local):
4 p.m.
Bono, the lead singer of U2, is calling on members of Congress from both parties to demand an end to family separations at the U. S.-Mexico border.
“I cannot think of a more un-American thing than warehousing children,” the musician tells The Associated Press.
Bono says that because he’s Irish, it’s hard not to think of his own people’s history. He says of the family separations, “For anybody, but for Irish people, who were essentially economic refuges to this country, it’s very, very upsetting.”
Bono was visiting Capitol Hill Tuesday to thank Republican and Democratic lawmakers in Congress for funding international development programs. He’s the co-founder of The One Campaign, which advocates for ending extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa.
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3:55 p.m.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo says New York state will sue the federal government over the Trump administration’s policy of separating families accused of crossing the U. S. border illegally.
The Democrat said in a conference call with reporters Tuesday that he expects the lawsuit to be filed within two weeks.
Cuomo says at least 70 children who were separated from their parents are currently being housed in New York facilities that have contracts with the federal government. Most of the facilities are in the New York City area.
Cuomo says the Trump administration’s policy of separating families is “inhumane.”
The governor says the lawsuit will claim the children were taken from their parents without due process under federal and state laws.
The Trump administration says the family separations are required under the law.
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3:30 p.m.
Homeland Security officials say there have been 148 cases where someone fraudulently posed as a family member of children at the U. S. border from October to April.
According to figures released Tuesday, the cases involved 301 people. Officials did not say how many were children.
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has said there was a 314 percent increase in adults showing up with kids who are not family members. She says they are traffickers and smugglers.
More than 2,300 minors have been separated from their families crossing the border to the U. S. under a zero-tolerance policy where everyone caught crossing illegally is prosecuted.
Nielsen says those legitimately seeking asylum should go to official border crossings with their families and they will not be separated.
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3:15 p.m.
Delaware’s governor is turning down a request to send National Guard troops to the United States’ southwest border.
Gov. John Carney, a Democrat, said he won’t use the guard in support of the Trump administration’s policy of separating immigrant children from their families. He said the state received a request Tuesday to send troops to the border.
In a statement, Carney said Delaware will help at the border if President Donald Trump revokes the current policy.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, and Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, also announced Tuesday that they were recalling Guard troops and resources deployed to the border, in protest of the Trump administration’s policy.
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3:05 p.m.
Some business leaders are condemning the Trump administration’s decision to separate children from parents who are accused of crossing the border illegally.
The Business Roundtable, a lobbying group that includes the CEOs of Walmart Inc., General Motors Co., Boeing Co. and Mastercard Inc., released a statement Tuesday urging the immediate end to the policy.
“This practice is cruel and contrary to American values,” said Chuck Robbins, the chairman and CEO of Cisco Systems Inc. and the head of the Business Roundtable’s immigration committee.
The group called for comprehensive immigration reform that protects some immigrants who arrived in the U. S. as children. The group also doesn’t want to curb legal immigration, which it says helps U. S. businesses.
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2:50 p.m.
Dozens of people protesting the Trump administration’s separation of immigrant children at the border gathered for the arrival of Vice President Mike Pence in upstate New York.
Pence landed in Syracuse Tuesday for an event with Republican Congressman John Katko and a tour of the Nucor Steel plant in nearby Auburn.
Across the street from the Katko event, protesters held signs condemning the practice of separating migrant children from their parents at the U. S.-Mexico border. Democrats and some Republicans are urging an end to the practice, which separated nearly 2,000 children from their families over a six-week period in April and May.
Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo marked the vice president’s visit with an open letter to Pence warning of the immigration policy’s potential to cause psychological harm.
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2:45 p.m.
Senate Republican leaders say they are supporting a plan to detain immigrant families in custody together to avoid separating children from parents at the border.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters Tuesday that all Senate Republicans are supporting the plan. He said he’s reaching out to Democrats for bipartisan backing, since the proposal would need to reach the 60-vote threshold for approval in the Senate.
The second-ranking Republican, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, said they’re proposing a “humane, safe and secure family facility” where parents and minor children could be detained together. He said families would move to the head of the line for processing.
The consensus emerged after a “robust” and “spirited” private GOP lunch, leaders said. The Senate could vote in a matter of days, possibly this week.
McConnell did not provide details of the plan. House Republicans are working on a plan that would keep children in detention longer than now permitted — but with their parents.
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2:30 p.m.
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam says he’s recalling members of the state’s National Guard from the U. S.-Mexico border because he disagrees with a federal policy of separating immigrant children from their families.
Northam made the announcement Tuesday, saying he would not devote resources that could support an “inhumane policy.”
The Democratic governor said he had ordered four crewmembers and a helicopter to return to Virginia from Arizona. The crew was assisting the Arizona National Guard in surveillance operations on the border as part of a 90-day mission.
Maryland Republican Gov. Larry Hogan also announced Tuesday that he was recalling Natural Guard members stationed at the border. And Massachusetts Republican Gov. Charlie Baker on Monday reversed a decision to send a National Guard helicopter.
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1:20 p.m.
President Donald Trump is asserting he has only two options on immigration: Separating migrant children from their parents at the border or “open borders.”
Trump is discussing immigration during remarks in front of the National Federation of Independent Business’s 75th anniversary celebration.
He says he’s requesting a “third option” from Congress that will allow officials to detain children and parents together as a family unit.
A new “zero tolerance” policy from the Trump administration has led to a spike in children being separated from their parents at the border as they seek entry.
Trump says, “we’ve got to stop separation of the families,” but says: “we can’t let people pour in.”
He’s arguing that, “politically correct or not, we have a country that needs security, that needs safety.”
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1:15 p.m.
Guatemala says it has a preliminary count of 465 children from the Central American nation who have been separated from families on the U. S. border.
Foreign Minister Sandra Jovel says authorities are checking to verify the complete number, and consular officials are working to identify minors and follow each case.
Jovel says the Guatemalan government sent a note to the U. S. State Department “asking for help” to resolve the situation. She adds that Guatemala is asking “for respect and for there to be concern for children.”
Jovel said Tuesday that the minors “are not detained but rather in shelters where they are being given the best treatment possible.”
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1:15 p.m.
President Donald Trump says Congress must give him the legal authority to detain and remove families that illegally enter the U. S. as a unit. His administration has argued that it has no choice but to separate families if the adults are caught crossing the border illegally, thus breaking the law.
Trump says right now the administration has just two options to deal with the flow: totally open borders or criminally prosecute border-crossers for breaking the law. Trump is under mounting pressure to reverse an immigration enforcement policy that has led to the separation of more than 2,300 migrant children from their families in recent weeks.
He says roughly half a million illegal family units have been released into the U. S. interior since 2014. Trump says that has come at “unbelievably great taxpayer expense.”
Trump is telling the National Federation of Independent Business on Tuesday that “we have to have Democrat support” to fix the problem.
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12:50 p.m.
Florida lawmakers were prohibited Tuesday from entering a Miami-area facility housing immigrant children.
U. S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and U. S. Sen. Bill Nelson, both Democrats, told reporters outside the Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children that they would try to record video from inside the facility.
Before attempting to enter the facility, Wasserman Schultz said it was being used for both children who arrived as unaccompanied minors as well as children separated from their families at the border.
Wasserman Schultz said she had been told she would need to make a request to visit the facility two weeks in advance. The congresswoman said that policy “continues to smack of cover up.”
Nelson called said “they are obviously hiding something” and that he will raise the issue in the Senate.
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12:35 p.m.
The Mexican government is condemning the separation of children from families on the U. S. border.
Foreign Relations Secretary Luis Videgaray says at a news conference Tuesday that the country does not promote illegal migration, but it “cannot remain indifferent in the face of something that clearly represents a violation of human rights.
