Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Ivanka Says Family Separation Was ‘A Low Point For Me’

Ivanka Trump spoke out against family separations at the border on Thursday, calling it a “low point,” the New York Daily News reported.

“That was a low point for me,” she said in an interview at an Axios Newsmakers event. “I feel very strongly about that. I am very vehemently against family separation and the separation of parents and children.”

She shared her own family history while also emphasizing that immigration is “incredibly complex” and “illegal immigration is incredibly complicated.”

“I am the daughter of an immigrant, my mother grew up in communist Czech Republic, but we are a country of laws,” Trump said. “She came to this country legally and we have to be very careful about incentivizing behavior that puts children at risk of being trafficked, at risk of entering this country with coyotes, of making an incredibly dangerous journey alone. These are incredibly difficult issues and like the rest of the country, I experienced them myself in a very emotional way.”

Many children are still waiting to be reunited with their parents, following the the zero-tolerance immigration policy that President Trump enacted at the U.S.-Mexico border, the Daily News reported. The Trump administration says that 1,442 are now back with their families. The initial count of separated children was 2,551.

Back in June, Trump reportedly met with her father to discuss images and audio from the border. The Washington Post reported that she asked if there was anything he could do to stop the family crisis.

Alyssa Fisher is a news writer at the Forward. Email her at [email protected], or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.