Four former first ladies have joined the current one, Melania Trump, in voicing opposition to the Trump administration’s move to separate families at the US-Mexico border.
Mrs Trump was the first to raise concern for the policy, saying she “hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform”.
Then followed Laura Bush, a Republican and the wife of former president George W Bush, who condemned the move as “immoral” and “reminiscent of the internment camps for US citizens and noncitizens of Japanese descent during World War II”.
Responding to Mrs Bush’s comments, Michelle Obama replied with a simple statement, saying: “Sometimes truth transcends party”.
Hillary Clinton, a stern opponent of President Trump, took to social media to criticise the policy, calling it a “humanitarian crisis”.
“Every parent who has ever held a child in their arms, every human being with a sense of compassion and decency, should be outraged.
“Those who selectively use the Bible to justify this cruelty are ignoring a central tenet of Christianity. Jesus said, 'Suffer the little children unto me'. He did not say ‘let the children suffer’.”
Former president Jimmy Carter’s wife Rosalynn said the policy was “disgraceful”.
“When I was first lady, I worked to call attention to the plight of refugees fleeing Cambodia for Thailand.
“I visited Thailand and witnessed firsthand the trauma of parents and children separated by circumstances beyond their control. The practice and policy today of removing children from their parents’ care at our border with Mexico is disgraceful and a shame to our country.”
The policy, in which children are separated from their parents as they’re taken into custody at the border, is generating huge debate in the US.
American University professor of government, Jennifer Lawless, said Mrs Trump’s intervention in the debate was unusual for a first lady.
People inside a United States Border Patrol Processing Center in McAllen, Texas, Source: AAP
“I can’t come up with an example of a time that a first lady’s statement comes pretty close to contravening the West Wing,” she told the Washington Post.
“It’s incredibly rare to have two policy statements that are pretty much at odds.”
