Living

First lady Melania Trump steps in again on migrant kids crisis in surprise trip to Texas

Without telling anyone in advance, first lady Melania Trump jetted off to Texas Thursday to check out for herself the detained children separated from their migrant parents at the U.S.-Mexico border.

"I'm looking forward to seeing the children," Trump said when she arrived at Upbring New Hope Children Center, run by the Lutheran Social Services of the South in McAllen, Texas, at the far southeastern border with Mexico.

Her spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, announced her trip in an email to USA TODAY only after she arrived in Texas.

"First Lady Melania Trump has arrived in Texas to take part in briefings and tours at a nonprofit social services center for children who have entered the United States illegally and a customs and border patrol processing center," the statement said.

"Her goals are to thank law enforcement and social services providers for their hard work, lend support and hear more on how the administration can build upon the already existing efforts to reunite children with their families."

News cameras showed the first lady, dressed casually in slacks and tennis shoes and accompanied by Human Services secretary Alex Azar, speaking with officials at the center, thanking them for "all the heroic work you do every day."

She said she was there because of her concern that thousands of children, many of them infants, have been separated from their parents who are being detained for illegally crossing the border or presenting themselves there to ask for asylum.

She said she wanted to learn more about how these children can be reunited with their parents "as quickly as possible." One of her first questions: How often do the detained kids get to speak with their parents or family?

Late Thursday, her office released a statement on how she viewed the trip.

“Today’s visit impacted me greatly,” her statement said. "Spending time with (the detained children) reinforces the fact that these kids are in this situation as a direct result of adult actions." She again called on Congress to do something about "common-sense immigration reform that secures our borders and keeps families together.”

After enduring days of excoriating criticism of his separation policy, accompanied by pictures, video and audio of wailing children and desperate parents, President Donald Trump reversed course on Wednesday, declaring that migrant parents and children would no longer be separated, although it's not clear how those already dispersed around the country will be reunited.

Melania Trump, plus the four living former first ladies, all expressed dismay about the separation policy to one degree or another. Former first lady Laura Bush outright called it "cruel" and "immoral."

The current first lady, in a statement issued by Grisham, echoed her husband's comments condemning the separations but falsely blaming Democrats for the policy.

After the president decided to drop the separations, Trump himself said he was swayed by arguments of his elder daughter, Ivanka Trump, and by his wife.

Melania Trump first weighed in Sunday, issuing a statement that she "hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform. She believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart."

Later, word emerged from the White House that the first lady was encouraging her husband to do more to help families stay together, either on his own or by working with Congress.

Melania has spent the past week sharing her opinion with Trump, according to a person familiar with her thinking but not authorized to speak publicly. Melania became more vocal in the past few days, recognizing this issue was not likely going to be changed through legislation, which was what she had hoped would happen, the person said.

The McAllen trip was characteristic of the first lady: Unexpected, unconventional and shrouded by secrecy until the last moment. The press pool traveling with her didn't know their destination until her plane took off and Grisham spoke to reporters.

Grisham said Trump asked her staff to arrange the trip on Tuesday, and it was "100 percent" the first lady's idea, not the president's. She was not "sent" there by the president, Grisham said. In fact, the trip was her idea before he signed his executive order Wednesday, she said.

"She knew what she wanted to do and she told us....She wanted to see everything for herself…. She supports family reunification. She thinks that it’s important that children stay with their families," Grisham said. “She wants to see these children and she wants to help children. It’s not about anything more than that…. She wants to see what’s real. She wants to see a realistic view.”

Besides the children's shelter, she also planned to tour the Ursula Border Patrol Processing Center, a Customs and Border Patrol/DHS intake center where migrant families spend a few days. But the tour was scrapped due to flooding from recent heavy rains.

The children's shelter currently houses about 60 kids, ages 5 to 17, from Honduras and El Salvador, most of them teens. Only six of these kids were separated from parents, and the rest arrived as unaccompanied minors, according to the pool report.

She spent about 75 minutes at the shelter, interacting with dozens of kids in three classrooms. Under the media ground rules, no audio or photos of these interactions were permitted.

Trump has made the well-being of children her announced FLOTUS agenda, provoking sharp criticism on social media about the seeming disconnect between her "Be Best" plans and the administration policy of trying to deter illegal immigration by separating children from their parents.

Then came all the heart-wrenching images of wailing children. 

“She’s seen the images," Grisham told reporters. "She’s heard the recordings… She was on top of the situation before any of that came out. She was concerned about it.

“The images struck her, as a mother, as a human being.”

The first lady's trip to Texas was another head-snapping move for a distinctly low-key first lady, who took five months before she moved into the White House and has mostly kept off major media and social media ever since.

Then, in May, she spent five days in the hospital for a kidney procedure and disappeared for three weeks, emerging in public again only at the beginning of June.

Still, she has made several trips to Trump-friendly Texas, with her husband and on her own, to inspect recovery efforts after Hurricane Harvey last year.