First lady Melania Trump made an unannounced trip Thursday to Texas to visit a holding facility at the southern border where children who have entered the U.S. illegally are being held.
“First Lady Melania Trump has arrived in Texas to take part in briefings and tours at a nonprofit social services center for children who have entered the United States illegally and a customs and border patrol processing center,” Trump’s communications director Stephanie Grisham said in a statement.
Trump’s goal is to give support and hear more about how the administration can continue to help reunite children with their families, according to the statement.
[Related: Melania encouraged Trump to stop family separations at the border]
Trump sat down with officials at at an immigrant detention center in McAllen, Texas, before going on a tour of the facility where she said she would visit some of the children.
“I’m also here to ask you how I can help to reunite these children with their families as quickly as possible,” Trump said.
While in Texas, Trump’s schedule was to visit the Ursula Border Patrol Processing Center, a Customs and Border Patrol intake center where migrant families spend a few days. She is also going to Upbring New Hope Children’s Shelter, part of Lutheran Social Services which is an HHS grantee facility that currently houses about 60 kids, ages five to 17, from Honduras and El Salvador.
Most of the children there are teenagers — only six of these kids were separated from parents, and the rest arrived as unaccompanied minors, according to a senior administration official.
“I’m glad I’m here, and I’m looking forward to seeing and meeting children,” Trump said during the briefing in Texas. “But first of all, let me begin to recognize each of you and thank you for your heroic work. We know they’re here without their families, and I want to thank you for your hard work, your compassion, and your kindness.”
According to a report, Trump has had several conversations with President Trump the past week regarding his zero tolerance policy and what could be done to stop the influx of migrant children being separated from their parents while crossing the border illegally.
[Also read: Ivanka Trump silent no longer on family separations]
Earlier this week, Grisham told the Washington Examiner that “Mrs. Trump hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform.”
President Trump signed an executive order Wednesday afternoon to end the practice of separating children from parents accused of illegally crossing the border.
