'Disgraceful': Separating immigrant children from their parents is so unpopular even Trump's base is not supporting it

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Then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump attends a worship service at the International Church of Las Vegas October 30, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

• The Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy has been widely criticized, even by figures in the president's base.
• President Donald Trump won 81% of evangelical white voters, but reports of immigrant children taken from their parents appear to be turning them off.
• Franklin Graham, an ardent defender of Trump, has called the situation "disgraceful."
• The country's second-largest protestant denomination this week made pointed comments on "family unity."
• The president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has also said "separating babies from their mothers is not the answer and is immoral."

The Trump administration's policy of removing immigrant children from their families has become so controversial that even the President's base of core supporters is speaking out.

In April, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a "zero tolerance" policy towards those crossing the US border illegally.

Arizona, New Mexico, and some districts of California and Texas have been ordered to criminally prosecute adults, causing them to lose custody of any accompanying children.

Most children are sent to live with family members - but until then, they are largely housed in about 100 government-run centers, one of which limits kids to two hours of outdoor time a day.

As of Thursday there were 11,432 children in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services, and the emotional turmoil on families doing serious damage.

In 2016, 81% of white evangelicals voted for Trump. But some of the movement's leaders have started to criticize the administration's "zero tolerance" policy.

Evangelical leader and Samaritan's Purse CEO Franklin Graham is a vocal Trump supporter, who prayed at Trump's inauguration and defended the presidents' "concern for Christian values." He is now among those to disavow the policy.

"It's disgraceful. It's terrible to see families ripped apart and I don't support that one bit," Graham told CBN News this week, though he blamed "politicians for the last 20, 30 years" rather than Trump explicitly.

In extraordinary scenes on Thursday, Sessions and White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders both referenced the Bible to defend the policy.

"I can say that it is very biblical to enforce the law. That is, actually, repeated a number of times throughout the Bible," Sanders said in a press conference.

Many Christians in the US seem, in this case at least, not to agree. Just this week the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), which represents 47,272 US churches, voted on a resolution regarding immigration reform that pointedly described the importance of family.

"We desire to see immigration reform include an emphasis on securing our borders and providing a pathway to legal status with appropriate restitutionary measures, maintaining the priority of family unity, resulting in an efficient immigration system that honors the value and dignity of those seeking a better life for themselves and their families," the resolution read.

AP Photo/Jeffrey McWhorter

Southern Baptist Convention president Steve Gaines preaches at the convention's annual meeting on Tuesday, June 12, 2018 at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas.

The most public-facing arm of the SBC, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, is also part of the Evangelical Immigration Table, a coalition which recently issued a letter to Trump asking him to reverse the "zero tolerance" policy of separating "vulnerable children" from their families.

"The traumatic effects of this separation on these young children, which could be devastating and long-lasting, are of utmost concern," the letter says. Its writers include the president of World Vision, and Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and an informal evangelical adviser to Trump.

But evangelical leaders aren't the only ones speaking out.

Daniel DiNardo, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops this week issued a statement "condemning the continued use of family separation at the US/Mexico border."

"Our government has the discretion in our laws to ensure that young children are not separated from their parents and exposed to irreparable harm and trauma," said DiNardo.

He added: "Families are the foundational element of our society and they must be able to stay together. While protecting our borders is important, we can and must do better as a government, and as a society, to find other ways to ensure that safety. Separating babies from their mothers is not the answer and is immoral."

Aside from winning 4 out of 5 evangelical voters in 2016, Trump also won white Catholics with a 23-point margin, of 60% to 37%.

But that didn't stop one bishop this week suggesting that, as part of the Catholic church's focus on "life issues," it could consider denying communion or other sacraments to individuals who are involved with separating children from their parents at the border.