CNN reported Thursday that the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump called the separation of undocumented migrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border a “low point” in her father’s administration.
Ivanka made this comment during an Axios Newsmakers event at the Newseum on Thursday morning. Claiming that family separation at the border “was a low point” for her throughout her time at the White House.
“I felt very strongly about that and I am very vehemently against family separation and the separation of parents and children so I would agree with that sentiment,” she added.
“Immigration is incredibly complex as a topic,” Ivanka continued. “Illegal immigration is incredibly complicated.”
Families were first separated at the border at increased rates after President Trump enacted his administration’s zero tolerance policy earlier in the year. While the president eventually reversed the immigration policy in June, hundreds of migrant children have yet to be reunited with their parents and families. The Trump administration announced that most children would be reunited with their parents by last week’s Thursday deadline, but now, a week later, one in three children are still uncertain of when they will be able to see their families again.
Ivanka also went on to talk about her mother, Ivana, who emigrated from the Czech Republic prior to marrying her now ex-husband, Donald Trump. “I am the daughter of an immigrant, my mother grew up in communist Czech Republic, but we are a country of laws,” Ivanka said.
“She came to this country legally and we have to be very careful about incentivizing behavior that puts children at risk of being trafficked,” she added, “at risk of entering this country with coyotes or making an incredibly dangerous journey alone.”
“These are not easy issues,” Ivanka continued, “these are incredibly difficult issues and like the rest of the country, I experienced them actually in a very emotional way.”
After meeting with President Trump in June to discuss photographs that had surfaced of children being separated from their parents at the border, Ivanka successfully encouraged her father to put an end to the zero tolerance policy. At the time, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley had told CNN that “she offered the president her support and she said she would talk to any member of Congress to help find a legislative solution to the issue.”
During the Axios event, Ivanka also noted that she does not believe the media is the “enemy of the people,” breaking with yet another of her father’s recent statements.
