First lady Melania Trump visited migrants detained at U.S. immigration facilities for a second time in a week Thursday, in possibly the most visible influence she’s had over one of her husband’s policies.
Trump arrived in Tucson, Ariz., on Thursday, to visit U.S. Customs and Border Patrol facilities where new immigrant arrivals are processed. While there, she hosted a roundtable discussion with Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Marshals Service, and a local rancher. She also toured short-term holding facility Tucson Coordinating Center and an intelligence center.
Later in the day, Trump visited Southwest Key Campbell, a shelter for unaccompanied migrant children in Phoenix. She toured the shelter’s classrooms and spoke with teenage mothers and children.
“It is important to meet with children and educate myself on the operations happening on the front lines of the border,” Trump said in a statement as she returned to the White House.
She made a surprise visit to McAllen, Texas, last week to visit a holding facility where children who had entered the U.S. illegally were being held and to meet with officials about how to reunite the children with their families.
The Texas visit came as her husband’s zero tolerance immigration policy faced intense scrutiny over the separation of children from their parents. Trump privately encouraged her husband to end the separation of families at the border, according to CNN, and he later signed an executive order that sought to allow joint family detentions. The order did not address the reunification of families. More than 2,000 children have been separated from their parents since the Trump administration began enforcing the policy weeks ago.
Trump’s communications director, Stephanie Grisham, told reporters traveling with the first lady that Trump has continued to voice her opinion about the issue to her husband.
“I would say this is very visible. She cares about children deeply,” Grisham said. “She also believes in strong border laws and treating everybody equally.”
Grisham added: “She’s learning that these people at [Health and Human Services] facilities are providing some outstanding care under difficult circumstances. She’s advocating for quality care for these children under difficult circumstances.”
A federal judge in California on Tuesday ruled against the Trump administration over family separations, ordering immigration officials to stop separating immigrant parents from their children. U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw issued a preliminary injunction ordering the reunification of parents with children under the age of 5 within 14 days. Parents with children over the age of 5 must be reunited within 30 days.
“She’s anxious to learn how they’re implementing the new process,” Grisham told reporters. “There was a court case that threw a wrench in the works.”
The trip last week was overshadowed when photos circulated of the first lady boarding her plane wearing an olive green jacket with the message, “I really don’t care, do you?” inscribed on the back. She did not wear the $39 Zara jacket while in Texas.
Grisham insisted the was no meaning behind the message, but as the first lady returned to the White House that afternoon, once again wearing the jacket, the president tweeted that it was directed at the “Fake News Media.”
