US mayors gather at border to demand family reunification

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Mayors of cities from across the United States have begun to gather at Texas’ border with Mexico to condemn President Trump’s treatment of immigrant families under a zero-tolerance policy for people who cross into the United States illegally.

Santa Fe Mayor Alan Webber arrived Wednesday in El Paso, Texas, to join more than a dozen mayors in demanding that families who were separated while trying to enter the United States illegally be immediately reunited.

Trump has signed an executive order ending the process of separating children from families after they are detained crossing the U.S. border illegally.

Webber said the Trump administration cannot easily repair the emotional trauma inflicted on immigrant children and that the president’s executive order doesn’t fix a racist approach to immigration policy.