Donald Trump’s daughter and adviser says she is “vehemently against” separations and experienced them in an “emotional” way.
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Video: Ivanka Trump: Family separations ‘low point’
Donald Trump’s daughter has said that she regards the separation of families at the US border as a “low point” in her time at the White House.
Ivanka Trump said she felt “very strongly” about the splitting up of families, which prompted widespread condemnation after more than 2,500 children were split from their parents and placed in detention on the southern US border in June.
“I am very vehemently against family separation and the separation of parents and children,” she said.
It was last week revealed that more than 700 children were still separated from their parents, including 431 whose parents have been deported, with officials unable to clarify when they would be reunited.
A judge on Friday ordered that an independent monitor would look at the conditions children were detained in at the border, amid accounts of a lack of food and water, freezing accommodation and alleged abuse, including sexual abuse.
Ms Trump had kept largely silent as children were separated from their families and detained in border camps as a hardline policy that prosecuted people entering the US without papers was implemented.
It was reported that the 36-year-old, who serves as an adviser on employment to her father, had privately urged Mr Trump to find a solution to the policy and tweeted thanks when he signed an executive order ending it.
But while some viewed her comments as a rare and significant case of dissent within the White House, many US critics were unimpressed by Ms Trump’s admission of concern.
Calling it “shameful”, organisers of the anti-Trump Women’s March tweeted that Ms Trump should take “action”.
“Imagine being complicit in the horrifying kidnapping of children, the separation of families, and the detention of immigrants in inhumane conditions-and commenting about how hard this has been for *you*,” they said.
Ms Trump made the comments in an interview on Thursday, at an event run by US media outlet Axios
She also said that that while she had “some sensitivity” with her father’s criticism of the press and accusations of “fake news”, she did not believe the media to be the “enemy of the people”.
In a conversation titled “women, leadership and the workforce”, she acknowledged she was the daughter of an immigrant to the United States but stressed that her mother, Ivana Trump, came to the US legally.
“These are not easy issues, these are incredibly difficult issues,” she said. “Like the rest of the country I experience them in a very emotional way.”
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