The visit of the Kings to the White House on Monday was perhaps the only moment of respite that Donald Trump had at the beginning of the week. The scandal of separation at the border of immigrant children from their families propagated by images of children crying out of the hands of their parents and teenagers caged in detention centers had erupted and the US president. I felt the harassment from all sides, inside and outside the country. Even within your own family.

Finally, today Trump signed to avoid the separation of families who cross the border illegally. "It will be something preventive that later will be completed with legislation," he announced at a meeting with legislators hours before presenting the decree.

Trump's announcement came when the crisis caused by the so-called "zero tolerance" policy on the border was already unsustainable. Shortly before his decision, the Republican leader in the House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, had appeared to oppose the separation. "We will take action to keep families together and, at the same time, comply with immigration laws," he said while announcing that today a legislative proposal on the matter would be voted on in the lower house. The idea would be that the families would remain united in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) "throughout their legal proceedings."Families should not separate. Point. We have seen the videos and heard the sounds".

A hard president

Trump exposed today in a simple way the crossroads he faces: "If you are weak, the country is going to overflow with millions of people. And if you are hard, then you do not have a heart. Maybe I prefer to be tough, but it's a complicated dilemma. "

The "zero tolerance" in the control of the border started in mid-April. It supposes the strict application of the migratory law and is the one that has had as a collateral consequence the separation of minors from their parents. When an immigrant family enters illegally and is detained, adults can be detained while the border and immigration police (ICE) handles the case and decides on their situation or their deportation. What happens with the minors? A judicial decision of 1997, the so-called "Flores Agreement", establishes that the Government must leave children in detention as short as possible and under the least restrictive conditions. A sentence of 2016 established a limit of 20 days for the detention of minors. The reality is that, faced with the influx of immigrants, the review processes of each case last longer than that term. Until now, the policy had been to free minors with their families, and, at best, to place adults in an electronic locator.

Trump, spurred by the toughest sector of his government, the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, or the adviser Stephen Miller, opted for a policy that he knows gives him revenues in his electorate: that of the hard frontier sheriff. But the profusion of images of the separation of minors and the consequent scandal in public opinion in recent days has forced him to back down.

For several days, Trump followed the line that the responsibility for the separation is from the Democrats, who refuse to approve immigration reform with the conditions of the president: that is, finance the construction of the controversial wall with Mexico. The argument deteriorated day by day, with the cascade of criticism of his politics inside and outside the country. In addition to the Democratic opposition, influential voices such as that of Republican Senator John McCain or symbolic as that of former first lady Laura Bush denounced the separation. Republican lawmakers began to see the issue as a problem in an election year, in which many are playing their seats in the fall elections. Even Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, has referred to the matter, in an unusual practice among former presidents. "Are we a country that accepts the cruelty of plucking children from the arms of their parents, or are we a country that values ​​families and works to keep them together?" He asked in his Facebook account.

Outside, criticisms also came from strategic allies. Theresa May, the British prime minister, described the policy as "wrong". His Canadian counterpart, Justin Trudeau, said it is "unacceptable." Even an ideological ally of Trump like Marie Le Pen, the president of the French National Front, declared herself "opposed to separation", although she blamed the problem "on immigrant parents and politicians who encourage them to immigrate".

The hardest criticism for Trump came from Francisco I, who called him a "populist" and supported the US bishopric, which had called the policy "immoral." Even the first lady, Melania Trump, sent a rare statement in which she said she "hates" seeing children separated from their parents and called for an agreement from lawmakers.

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A difficult front

Now Trump has a difficult front. It has to maintain the appearance of hardness on the migratory front and end the separation. Everything indicates that he will defend that the families remain together in detention. But that will open a legal battle over the "Flores Agreement" and the rest of the jurisprudence that prevents minors from spending long periods in detention. As in the case of the prohibition of entry of citizens of Islamic countries last year, such an executive order could be bogged down in the courts.

Despite the problems, Trump will point a little political. The concession of not separating families will mean a bit in the negotiation in Congress with the Democrats and put more pressure on them to accept financing the wall with Mexico.