Melania Trump to visit immigrant children holding centers

(FILE) U.S. first lady Melania Trump (C) climbs back into her motorcade after traveling to Texas to visit facilities that house and care for children taken from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border June 21, 2018 at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/AFP

 

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Melania Trump will meet undocumented child immigrants this week, several days after a previous visit as lawmakers engage in high-stakes wrangling over immigration policy.

The first lady’s husband, President Donald Trump, has made an about-face to end the practice of separating migrant families that had led to shocking scenes of children crying out for their parents while held in caged enclosures and given only emergency blankets in the frigid spaces.

But it remains unclear how the administration will reunite the more than 2,300 children already separated from their families.

Melania Trump’s surprise visit Thursday to children held at the US-Mexico border was overshadowed by her choice of apparel. She wore a green jacket with white lettering that read “I really don’t care. Do U?” — a cryptic message that sent the internet ablaze.

At a federally-funded facility in McAllen, Texas, she asked how she could “help these children to reunite with their families as quickly as possible.”

Her spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham only indicated a second visit would take place this week, without providing an exact time and place.

© Agence France-Presse