Anger grows over separation of immigrant parents and kids at US border
Trump administration's separation of immigrant parents and children at border sparks anger
The photo was heartbreaking. A toddler, face covered in grief, crying for her mother.
This was not from a refugee camp in some war-torn third-world state but at the border of one of the richest countries in the world.
The photo of the anguished two-year-old Honduran girl, looking up at her mother, was taken as her mum was being searched by a US Border Patrol agent in southern Texas.
That photo has now gone viral and has added fuel to the controversy of the Trump administration's separation of immigrant parents and children at the US-Mexico border.
The policy has generated reactions from a range of people including celebrities, former first ladies and both Democrats and Republicans.
And the plight of the children is not lost on the man on the street.
When US couple Charlotte and Dave Willner saw the photo, they started a Facebook fund-raising page on Saturday to collect money for the Refugee and Immigrant Centre for Education and Legal Services, a non-profit organisation that provides low-cost legal defence services to immigrant and refugee families in Texas.
They set a modest goal of US$1,500 (S$2,034) but to their surprise, they raised US$5 million and it became the largest single fundraiser in Facebook's history, The New York Times reported.
And it may be having an effect on the Trump administration's new immigration policy.
US President Donald Trump told Republican lawmakers on Tuesday that he would back either of the immigration Bills making their way through the House of Representatives.
Representative Mark Meadows said Mr Trump told Republican members of the House at a meeting on Capitol Hill that they needed to get something done on immigration "right away", Reuters reported.
In the meeting, Mr Trump said separating families was "certainly not an attractive thing and does look bad," added Representative Tom Cole.
Congressional Republicans have been scrambling to craft legislation as videos of youngsters in cages and an audiotape of wailing children have sparked anger at home from groups ranging from clergy to influential business leaders, as well as condemnation abroad.
A Reuters/Ipsos national opinion poll released on Tuesday showed fewer than one in three American adults supporting the policy.
The June 16-19 poll found that 28 per cent of people polled supported the policy, while 57 per cent opposed it and the remaining 15 per cent said they did not know.
Several hundred protesters, chanting "Keep families together!" marched in New York City. Ms Anne Heaney, 74, a retired teacher, held a sign that read: "Children do not belong in cages. Maybe Trump and Pence do".
Apple chief executive Tim Cook described the separation of children from parents at the US-Mexico border as "inhumane" and promised to be a "constructive voice" in seeking to end the issue, the Irish Times reported.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella called the policy cruel in an e-mail to employees that was posted on Linkedin.com. He also said the company is not working on any projects with the US government related to separating children from their families at the border.
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