President Trump’s daughter and White House adviser Ivanka Trump called the administration’s separation of immigrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border “a low point” for the White House.
“That was a low point for me as well. I feel very strongly about that, and I am very vehemently against family separation and the separation of parents and children,” Trump told Axios on Thursday.
Trump had been publicly silent about the controversial issue, save for a tweet in late June thanking the president for signing an executive order stopping the practice after he faced a barrage of criticism from Democrats and Republicans.
The Washington Post previously reported that Trump was privately lobbying her father to prevent minors from being separated from their parents or guardians while the Justice Department prosecutes all illegal crossings at the border as part of the president’s zero-tolerance immigration policy.
Trump acknowledged that her mother, Ivana, is an immigrant, but noted that laws have to be followed.
“We are a country of laws. … We have to be very careful about incentivizing behavior that puts children at risk of being trafficked, at risk of entering this country with ‘coyotes’ or making an incredibly dangerous journey alone. These are not easy issues, these are incredibly difficult issues and like the rest of the country, I experience them in a very emotional way,” she said.
[Also read: Ivanka Trump says media is not the ‘enemy’]
