NEW YORK (LEX 18)– The past month has been centered around immigration in the United States and what President Trump’s permanent solution will be.
This week, images of kids locked in cages emerged, sparking a debate about the current border separation policy.
Republicans frantically searched Tuesday for ways to end the Trump administration’s policy of separating families after illegal border crossings, with the focus shifting on a new plan to keep children in detention, but with their parents.
On Wednesday, he signed an executive order halting the policy.
"We’re going to have strong, very strong borders, but we’re going to keep the families together," said Trump, who added that he didn’t like the "sight" or "feeling" of children separated from their parents.
TIME magazine released the cover of their July issue Thursday morning and the message is powerful. Here’s what they say is the story behind it:
John Moore, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer for Getty Images, has been photographing immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border for years. This week one of his pictures became the most visible symbol of the immigration debate in America.
“This one was tough for me. As soon as it was over, they were put into a van. I had to stop and take deep breaths,” Moore told TIME Tuesday, describing his reaction to the scene of a two-year-old Honduran girl crying as her mother was being detained in McAllen, Texas. “All I wanted to do was pick her up. But I couldn’t.”
Due to the power of the image, which appeared as critics from across the political spectrum attacked President Trump’s now-reversed policy of separating children from parents who are being detained for illegally entering the United States, TIME’s editors selected Moore’s photograph to create a photo illustration, including Trump, to make the July 2, 2018, cover of the magazine.
TIME’s new cover: A reckoning after Trump’s border separation policy: What kind of country are we? https://t.co/U4Uf8bffoR pic.twitter.com/sBCMdHuPGc
— TIME (@TIME) June 21, 2018
