First lady visits immigrant shelter

She asks at Texas facility how to reunite children, parents

First lady Melania Trump arrives Thursday at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland after her trip to a shelter in McAllen, Texas, wearing a jacket with “I really don’t care. Do U?” emblazoned on the back. President Donald Trump tweeted that the message “refers to the Fake News Media. Melania has learned how dishonest they are, and she truly no longer cares!”
First lady Melania Trump arrives Thursday at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland after her trip to a shelter in McAllen, Texas, wearing a jacket with “I really don’t care. Do U?” emblazoned on the back. President Donald Trump tweeted that the message “refers to the Fake News Media. Melania has learned how dishonest they are, and she truly no longer cares!”

First lady Melania Trump made a visit Thursday to a Texas facility housing children who have been separated from their parents, as President Donald Trump's administration backtracks on its enforcement policy for families crossing the border illegally.

The visit, which was not announced ahead of time, is another sign that members of Trump's own family have been uncomfortable with the policy of removing children from their families. Trump reversed the policy Wednesday, but the next steps are not clear yet for children like those Melania Trump saw Thursday.

"I'm here to learn about your facility," Melania Trump said as she received a briefing about the work of Upbring New Hope Children's Shelter. She told facility directors that she wants to "ask you how I can help these children be reunited with their families as quickly as possible."

Children welcomed her with a large paper American flag that they'd signed and taped to a wall. The words, "Welcome! First Lady" were written in black marker across the red and white bars. Melania Trump, herself an immigrant from Slovenia, signed the flag and gifted it back to the center.

The first lady, who has a 12-year-old son, smiled and laughed with the children. "Be kind and nice to each other, OK?" she told them.

Rogelio De La Cerda, the shelter's program director, told her that the children are "in a safe environment, free from abuse."

"We provide a lot of structure. We try to educate them, we try to assimilate them to what the public school environment is like," he said. "This is home. They refer to this as a shelter, but this is their home."

President Trump announced the visit at the start of a Cabinet meeting at the White House, saying that Melania Trump had gone to the border "because it really bothered her to be looking at this and seeing it, as it bothered me."

Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter and adviser, tweeted Thursday that "it is time to focus on swiftly and safely reuniting the families that have been separated."

Melania Trump's communications director, Stephanie Grisham, told reporters traveling with her that the first lady had asked Tuesday that the trip be organized, one day before the president issued an executive order changing his policy.

"I don't know what she knew. She knew what she wanted to do, and she told us," Grisham said.

[U.S. immigration: Data visualization of selected immigration statistics, U.S. border map]

"She wanted to see everything for herself. ... She supports family reunification. She thinks that it's important that children stay with their families."

The first lady said in a written statement after she returned to the White House that the visit had "impacted me greatly." She called on Congress to work together on immigration legislation that would benefit the children.

"Spending time with them reinforces the fact that these kids are in this situation as a direct result of adult actions," she said. "It is my hope that Members of Congress will finally reach across the aisle and work together to solve this problem with common sense immigration reform that secures our borders and keeps families together."

The facility in McAllen, Texas, is operated by Lutheran Social Services. The facility housed 55 boys and girls, ages 12-17, on Thursday, but only about six of them had been separated from parents, officials said. The other children were placed there after they crossed into the U.S. alone.

"She's seen the images. She's heard the recordings," Grisham said. "She was on top of the situation before any of that came out. She was concerned about it."

The spokesman said she does not know whether the first lady's own background as an immigrant affected her thinking. Melania Trump immigrated to the U.S. from her native Slovenia.

"When she came into this country, she did it legally, and she feels that everybody should enter the country legally," Grisham said.

Grisham later told a pool reporter traveling with the first lady that "there was no hidden message" in the design of a jacket that Melania Trump wore at the start of the trip. The green jacket had white words on the back, written in graffiti style, that read, "I really don't care. Do U?"

The large lettering was visible as the first lady boarded her plane at Joint Base Andrews, outside Washington, on Thursday morning.

"There was no hidden message. After today's important visit to Texas, I hope the media isn't going to choose to focus on her wardrobe." Grisham later tweeted, underscoring the message with the hashtags #SheCares and #ItsJustAJacket.

Melania Trump had changed into a pale yellow jacket before arriving in McAllen and wore it during the more than hourlong visit to the center, but donned the green jacket once again as she returned to the White House. She went straight to the Oval Office to brief the president, who later tweeted that the jacket's message "refers to the Fake News Media. Melania has learned how dishonest they are, and she truly no longer cares!"

Information for this article was contributed by Anne Gearan of The Washington Post; and by Darlene Superville and Catherine Lucey of The Associated Press.

photo

AP/ANDREW HARNIK

First lady Melania Trump tours a facility Thursday in McAllen, Texas, where children separated from their parents at the border are being held. She told facility directors that she wants to “ask you how I can help these children be reunited with their families as quickly as possible.”



RELATED ARTICLES

http://www.arkansas…">GOP immigration bill fails; vote on 2nd measure put offhttp://www.arkansas…">Sheriff: No deputies to work at detained-kids shelterhttp://www.arkansas…">2 state sites on detention-camp list

A Section on 06/22/2018

Upcoming Events