United Nations to Trump: Stop ripping children away from their parents

The United Nations is demanding the White House immediately end the “arbitrary” and “unlawful” practice of separating children from their parents at the border.

“The use of immigration detention and family separation as a deterrent runs counter to human rights standards and principles,” announced U.N. spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani.

The targeted families are asylum-seeking Central Americans fleeing to the U.S. to escape poverty and violence back home. When they reach the U.S. border, they voluntarily turn themselves over to authorities and begin the asylum-seeking process.

Under Trump though, children from those families — some as young as one year old — are now being taken away from their parents. Republicans see this “zero tolerance” policy as an effective way to slow the number of asylum seekers.

The U.N. sees it as immoral.

“The child’s best interest should always come first, including over migration management objectives or other administrative concerns,” said Shamdasani. “It is therefore of great concern that in the US, migration control appears to have been prioritized over the effective care and protection of migrant children.”

Note that this isn’t the first time the United Nations has aired its dire concerns about the United States in the age of Trump.

Last year, in the wake of the deadly white nationalist uprising in Charlottesville, Virginia, and after Trump publicly sided with neo-Nazis, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination announced it was “alarmed by the racist demonstrations, with overtly racist slogans, chants and salutes by white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and the Ku Klux Klan, promoting white supremacy and inciting racial discrimination and hatred.”

Meanwhile, Trump has been lying about his own horrendous role in the policy  — daring it to blame it on Democrats. On Tuesday morning, Trump continued his frantic attempt to distance himself.

“Separating families at the Border is the fault of bad legislation passed by the Democrats,” he tweeted. “Border Security laws should be changed but the Dems can’t get their act together! Started the Wall.”

He’s lying, of course.

The policy of separating families at the border was proudly announced by Trump’s attorney general, Jeff Sessions, and eagerly implemented by the administration.

But now as international outrage grows, Trump and the GOP are scrambling to disown their own radical and hateful immigration agenda.