Q FM Africa's Modern Radio
Children are seen inside a recently erected tent city in Texas
US President Donald Trump has promised action to “keep families together” amid fury over separations of undocumented child migrants from adults.
“I’ll be signing something in a little while that’s going to do that,” he told reporters at the White House.
The Department of Homeland Security has reportedly drafted an executive order to stop the policy, though its wording and scope is unclear.
Mr Trump earlier urged lawmakers to pass a bill ending family separations.
- What is Trump’s family-separation endgame?
- Trump official booed at Mexican restaurant
- Who decided to take the children away?
The Republican president also wants immigration laws to be toughened under any such legislation.
Earlier on Wednesday, Republican congressional leader Paul Ryan said the House of Representatives will vote on Thursday “on legislation to keep families together”.
“We do not want children taken away from their parents,” he said at a news conference on Capitol Hill. “We can enforce our immigration laws without breaking families apart.”
He did not immediately provide details of the bill, but said that it resolves the issue of so-called Dreamers, undocumented adult migrants who were brought to the US as children, “in a very elegant way”.
Under the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy, 2,342 children have been separated from 2,206 parents between 5 May and 9 June.
What has international reaction been?
There has been global outrage at the US policy, rolled out last month, of separating migrant families at its border with Mexico.
The UK and Canadian prime ministers, Theresa May and Justin Trudeau, both called it “wrong”.
Pope Francis said he supported US Catholic bishops who said it was “immoral”.
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who in the past has praised Mr Trump’s policy of curbing immigration, told French TV that she disagreed with splitting children from parents.
On Tuesday Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray Caso said the practice was “cruel and inhuman”.
BBC