Trump Signs Executive Order "Ending" Family Separation After International Outcry

After weeks of international condemnation and bipartisan criticism, President Trump signed an executive order on June 20, 2018 ostensibly ending the family separation policy his administration had deliberately implemented. The order came after intense public pressure, including from many Republicans, but falsely blamed Democrats for the crisis and provided no plan to reunite the 2,000+ children already separated from their parents.

The Reversal Under Pressure

For weeks, Trump and his administration had insisted they were merely “enforcing the law” and blamed Democrats for not changing immigration legislation, despite the zero-tolerance policy being a deliberate Trump administration choice announced by Jeff Sessions on April 6, 2018. As images of children in cages and audio of toddlers crying for their parents sparked global outrage, Trump finally capitulated.

Trump stated at the signing: “we’re going to keep the families together. I didn’t like the sight or the feeling of families being separated.” This statement contradicted weeks of his administration defending the policy as necessary deterrence and claiming they had no choice but to implement it.

What the Order Did

The executive order directed the Department of Homeland Security to maintain custody of families jointly during criminal and immigration proceedings, “to the extent permitted by law and subject to the availability of appropriations.” Specifically, it:

• Instructed DHS to detain families together rather than separating them
• Directed the Attorney General to request modification of the Flores Settlement (a 1997 court ruling limiting child detention to 20 days)
• Ordered the Department of Defense to find or construct facilities for detained families
• Required the Attorney General to prioritize cases involving detained families

However, Trump insisted the order wouldn’t end his administration’s “zero tolerance” policy of charging everyone who attempts to cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally—creating an inherent contradiction since prosecuting parents necessarily meant separating them from children who cannot be held in criminal jails.

What the Order Didn’t Do

Critically, the executive order provided no plan whatsoever to reunite the 2,000+ children already separated from their parents. Michelle Brané of the Women’s Refugee Commission noted: “this executive order does nothing to address that nightmare” of already-separated families.

A Health and Human Services official stated the administration was “awaiting further guidance on the matter” regarding reunification—an admission that the government had torn thousands of families apart with no system to track or reunite them.

The order effectively replaced “family separation” with “family detention”—creating what critics called “family prisons” rather than solving the humanitarian crisis. Advocates argued the administration was simply substituting one human rights violation for another.

The False Obama Blame

Both before and after signing the order, Trump repeatedly and falsely blamed President Obama for the family separation policy. He claimed: “Nobody talks about that, but under President Obama, they separated children from the parents” and “President Obama separated children from families, and all I did was take the same law.”

These claims were comprehensively debunked by fact-checkers and immigration experts:

• Obama never enforced a zero-tolerance policy that led to mass family separations
• Former Obama domestic policy adviser Cecilia Muñoz told NPR in May 2018: “We did not separate children from their parents”
• Family separations under Obama were rare and occurred only in exceptional circumstances (such as serious criminal charges or doubts about parentage)
• Under Trump, separations were systematic and intentional policy to deter asylum seekers
• The zero-tolerance policy was explicitly created by Trump’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions

PolitiFact, NPR, and multiple other fact-checkers repeatedly rated Trump’s claims as false. The practice of systematic family separation as deterrence emerged in 2018, under Trump, after Sessions announced the policy.

Court-Ordered Reunification

The executive order did not end the crisis. On June 26, U.S. District Court Judge Dana Sabraw issued a nationwide preliminary injunction against the family separation policy and required the government to:

• Reunite children under five with their parents within 14 days
• Reunite all separated children with their parents within 30 days

The government failed to meet these deadlines, and years later, hundreds of children remained separated because the Trump administration had implemented the policy with no tracking system for reunification.

Historical Significance

Trump’s executive order demonstrated that the family separation policy was always a choice, not a legal requirement as the administration had claimed. His decision to reverse it under pressure—while simultaneously denying responsibility and falsely blaming Obama—exemplified his administration’s pattern of implementing cruel policies, defending them as necessary, then denying culpability when facing consequences.

The international community condemned the policy as government-sanctioned child abuse. The UN called it torture, and medical professionals documented psychological trauma to separated children equivalent to crimes against humanity. Over 5,500 children were ultimately identified as having been separated, though HHS Inspector General reports suggested thousands more may have been affected through pilot programs beginning in 2017.