Trump: I won't sign GOP bill that would stop separating families at border

Image: Trump speaks to the press before leaving the White House
Donald Trump leaves the White House for the G-7 summit on June 8, 2018. Copyright Nicholas Kamm AFP - Getty Images file
By Adam Edelman with NBC News Politics
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The remarks could upend a painstaking process to reach a compromise in the House that would end the administration's policy of tearing families apart.

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President Donald Trump said Friday he would refuse to sign a new compromise Republican immigration bill that would bar his administration from implementing its policy of separating of children from their parents or legal guardian at the border.

In an interview Friday morning with "Fox and Friends," Trump said he was "looking at both" immigration proposals put forth by GOP members of the House — the compromise bill, as well as a more conservative measure.

But he added, "I certainly wouldn't sign the more moderate one."

The remarks could upend a painstaking process — that the White House had been involved in — for the Republican majority in Congress to reach a compromise on immigration and to end theTrump administration's policy of tearing families apart at the U.S. border.

In addition to curbing his administration's policy of separating parents from their children — which has faced extraordinary criticism from Republicans, Democrats and Christian conservatives — the "moderate" bill Trump was referring to would provide $25 billion in additional funding for a wall along the southern U.S. border and legal status for people who came to the U.S. illegally as children, including a path to citizenship. However, the bill would tie legal status for DACA recipients to uninterrupted border security funding.

The White House had been involved behind the scenes in crafting the legislation with congressional Republicans. Immigration hardliner Stephen Miller has been working with House negotiators, briefing the conservative Republican Study Committee on Wednesday on the details of the bill.

House Republican leaders released text of the highly anticipated compromise measure Thursday afternoon to its members. The chamber is slated to vote on the legislation next week, in addition to a more conservative bill sponsored by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.

The White House, in recent days, has been widely criticized for its "zero tolerance policy" to criminally prosecute people crossing the border illegally, which has resulted in the separation of children from their parents at the border.

On Friday, however, Trump said that while he "hated" that children were being separated from the parents, it was the fault of Democratic lawmakers, not himself — a false claim he has made repeatedly.

"I hate children being taken away," he told reporters on the White House lawn. "That's the Democrats."

"That's what the Democrats gave us," he said.

Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress. Current law does notprohibit separating children from their parents, and it's not a policy Democrats have pushed or can change as the minority party in Congress.

Crossing the border illegally is a misdemeanor for the first offense, and when parents are charged they end up in federal prison and separated from their children.

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