By Noah Bierman and Eli Stokols

Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump unabashedly defended his policy of separating children from their migrant parents on the southern border, spreading blame Tuesday among Democrats, Mexico and child smugglers ahead of a meeting with congressional Republicans eager for him to end the mounting political crisis.

In a partisan speech to a friendly small-business organization, Trump stuck to his demand that Congress address the crisis as part of a wide-ranging immigration bill that includes money for his promised border wall — even as more Republican lawmakers publicly said he can stop the family separations simply by ordering it done.

“The White House could change it in five minutes, and they should. It’s a mistake. It’s a change in policy by this administration,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander, a senior Republican from Tennessee.

Faced with the president’s resistance to act, however, senators in both parties have proposed limited legislation to end the family separations. Those have put about 2,000 children in detention centers since the Trump administration announced its “zero tolerance” policy six weeks ago, as many parents face criminal rather than civil prosecution for illegal entry.

All Senate Democrats have endorsed a bill by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, while Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican facing re-election in Texas, where the crisis is playing out, has proposed a separate measure. The proposals, in separate ways, would prevent the Department of Homeland Security from separating children from their parents at the border.

“I support and all of the senators of the Republican conference support a plan that keeps families together,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, reflecting the political pressure the president’s party is under.

“We need to fix the problem, and it requires a legislative solution,” the Kentucky senator said, seemingly accepting Trump’s call for Congress to act but stopping short of endorsing the broader bill that the president seeks.

Trump, however, continued to call for a comprehensive bill, including money for a border wall. He reiterated that he doesn’t want families split, yet defended the policy as putting a stop to “thousands” of child smugglers crossing the border.

“We have one chance to get it right,” said Trump, hours before a meeting with House Republicans at the Capitol to discuss their proposed legislation. “We want to solve this problem. We want to solve family separation,” he continued. “I don’t want to see children separated from their parents.”

Yet cracks appeared in the president’s insistence on using the family separation issue as leverage to get a broader immigration bill. An administration official indicated that the president would be willing to sign a narrower law that did not tackle the entire immigration issue. Trump has yet to commit to a specific measure, however, which could complicate any attempt at compromise.

“The president wants a comprehensive fix,” the official stressed, adding, “but he is willing to strongly consider legislation that would address the separation issue.”

Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, whose restrictionist views on immigration often align with the administration’s, also suggested that Trump, despite his preference for a broad bill that includes border wall funding and limits on legal as well as illegal immigration, would likely accept a narrower measure like the Cruz proposal.

“I don’t see Trump vetoing that if they pass that,” Krikorian said.

Given the public outcry, and polls showing overwhelming opposition to the family separation policy, many Republicans in Congress seemed inclined to act quickly to resolve the situation, rather than pursue the larger deal that Trump seeks, which has little chance of passing given not only Democrats’ opposition but also divisions among Republicans.

“I don’t think anyone has the patience to let him hold children hostage for a wall,” one senior Republican aide in the Senate said. “He can get that funding the old-fashioned way, through a budget request.”

According to two sources close to Republican leaders in the House and Senate, moderate Republicans see the party’s public relations crisis as an opportunity to pressure immigration hard-liners into supporting a broader legislative package.

“With the issue of the kids, they can’t be quite so hard-line,” one of the sources said. “Wait a week,” the source continued. “If it’s still going on like this in a week, then you know you’ve got a real problem.”

Trump, in his speech to the business group, assailed proposals to provide more immigration judges to expedite the backlog of asylum cases at the border. His Justice Department recently announced it was sending 18 additional judges to the border region, however, and Cruz’s bill calls for hundreds more.

“I don’t want judges. I want border security,” Trump said. “We have to have a real border. Not judges. Thousands and thousands of judges they want to hire. Who are these people?”

Speaking at a luncheon of the National Federation of Independent Business in Washington, the president riffed for nearly 20 minutes on the topic of immigration, veering from scripted lines demonizing child smugglers and Democrats to an aside blaming Mexico for allowing smugglers and drug traffickers to reach the border.

“Mexico, they do nothing for us,” Trump said. “Try staying in Mexico a couple days — see how long that lasts.”

The president asserted that the administration’s choice on family separations is a hard but necessary one: “We can either release all immigrant families and minors who show up at the border from Central America,” he said. “Or we can arrest the adults for the federal crime of illegal entries.”

He added: “Those are the only two options: Totally open borders or criminal prosecution for lawbreaking.”

Trump said he’s asking Congress for “a third option” but did not say what that might be.

“We don’t want people pouring into our country,” Trump said.

Trump attacked the news media for its reporting on the border crisis. Since late last week, the near-blanket television coverage and published reports from the border, with images of young children alone inside detention centers and an audio recording of wailing toddlers, has spawned one of the largest backlashes of the tumultuous Trump administration.

“They are fake,” he said of the news media, drawing applause. “They are helping these traffickers and these smugglers like nobody would believe. They know it.”

As he has throughout the controversy, Trump attempted to blame Democrats even though his administration formally announced the policy in May, after signaling it in April and considering it since the early days of Trump’s presidency. It opted to shift to a zero tolerance approach with asylum seekers, believing that the separation of immigrant parents and children would serve as a deterrent to illegal immigration.

“Democrats love open borders — let the whole world come in,” Trump said, asserting that “they view that as a bonus that someday, they’re going to vote for the Democrats.”

The president sought to explain his claim that the broader problem is the fault of the Democrats, although Republicans control the House and Senate, by noting that most legislation requires at least a few Democratic votes to pass in the Senate.