U.S. First Lady Melania Trump took it upon herself to visit a child detention centre in Texas near the country’s border with Mexico. Her visit comes amid growing domestic and international outrage against her husband Donald Trump’s administration for its policy of separating children from their parents if they enter the U.S. illegally to seek asylum.
The First Lady reportedly informed the President of her plan to visit the centre after pictures were splashed across American news media of detention centres which were holding children in chain-link cages.
At the Centre, Melania interacted with the care staff who told her the majority of the children with them were unaccompanied minors i.e. those under the age of 18 who had crossed the U.S. border illegally and not accompanied by any adult. The Centre said of the total minors in its care just ten percent were children who had been separated from their parents.
Melania also interacted with the children and reportedly told them “to be good to each other” and “Best of luck.”
However, despite her intention of attempting to show the Trump Administration in better light what caught everyone’s attention was her jacket that she wore on the visit to the centre. The casual, olive-green jacket went with her less-formal clothing but the words on the back raised eyebrows. The Zara jacket in bright, white print proclaims on the back, “I don’t care, do (u) you?”
Critics of the Trump Administration have latched on to the faux pas and apparent insensitivity of the attire while analysts said it was a mistake of the First Lady’s PR and media team for the oversight.
Despite the controversy around Melania Trump’s jacket, her visit to the child centre is sure to keep her approval ratings high. She is right now much more popular that her husband and has been so for the past few months. Donald Trump’s ‘zero tolerance policy’ which has led to the separation of over 3,000 children from their parents since October 2017 is not acceptable to 67% of Americans according to a recent poll by CNN. And his administration’s about-turn on keeping the children together has reportedly come after Melania and the President’s daughter Ivanka Trump who is also a senior White House adviser, told him that they did not agree with the policy.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 22, 2018 12:41 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).