The "very important executive order"

Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order to “keep families together” amid extraordinary public condemnation over his practice of separating children from their parents at the southern border.

[...]

The signing of the order marked a sudden reversal for Trump, who only hours earlier had insisted that the law demanded children be separated from their parents. He claimed that only Congress could resolve that.

[...]

The order instructs government officials to continue its “zero-tolerance” enforcement policy of criminal prosecution for every immigrant who crosses the border illegally, but says that officials will seek to “maintain family unity” by detaining parents and children together instead of separating them while their legal cases wind through a severely backlogged immigration court system.

The language leaves room for exceptions, however, noting that “alien families” would be detained together “where appropriate and consistent with law and available resources”.

The president’s action also directs the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, to go to court to ask for a modification to a 1997 court settlement, known as Flores, which currently prohibits the detention of migrant children for more than 20 days.

[...]

If the court denies the request, the order will almost certainly face legal challenges from immigration activists who represent families that are detained in the facilities.

“They are substituting jailing children with their families for separating children from their parents and that is not any sort of solution to family separation,” said Kate Voigt, an associate director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “The zero tolerance policy remains in effect and that is the root of the family separation crisis created by the Trump administration.”

  The Guardian

Attorney Renato Mariotti answers:





Another attorney's read:





Sloppy on purpose or their usual incompetence?






And what about those who've already been separated?







Also...that's their tagline?  "Affording Congress an Opportunity to Adddress Family Separation"?  Right.