President Trump Signs Executive Order Allowing Joint Family Detention

“President Trump signed an executive order Wednesday afternoon to end the practice of separating children from parents accused of illegally crossing the border,” Steven Nelson reports in the Washington Examiner. “I didn't like the sight or the feeling of families being separated,” the President said from the Oval Office.

“The laws need to be changed,” Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen said at the signing. “We ask Congress to do their part.”

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“We do not want to separate parents from their children. What we want is a safe, lawful system of immigration that would end this question altogether,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions writes in USA Today. “Those who want to come to this country can and should apply legally. We have the most generous immigration laws in the world — but they should be enforced. At the Department of Justice, that is what we intend to do, and we ask Congress to be our partners in this effort.”

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In Business Insider, Joe Perticone reports that U.S. manufacturers are feeling record levels of confidence in their businesses, according to a new survey from the National Association of Manufacturers. “This record optimism is no accident,” NAM President Jay Timmons said in a statement. “It is fueled by the game-changing tax-reform passed six months ago.”

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Nelson D. Schwartz reports in The New York Times that “the number of Americans seeking Social Security disability benefits is plunging, a startling reversal of a decades-old trend that threatened the program’s solvency. It is the latest evidence of a stronger economy pulling people back into the job market or preventing workers from being sidelined in the first place.”

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“After more than a year of unsuccessful efforts to fix these fundamental defects, the U.S. delegation announced Tuesday our withdrawal from the council. Our country will no longer be party to this deeply flawed institution, which harms the cause of human rights more than it helps it,” writes Nikki Haley, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, in The Wall Street Journal.

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“On Monday, President Trump signed Space Policy Directive 3, America’s first comprehensive space traffic management policy,” Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross writes in The Washington Post. “To remain the flag of choice for commercial space activity, it is imperative that the United States lead this effort and enhance U.S.-based space activities.”

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In the New York Post, Dawn Sweeney, President of the National Restaurant Association, writes that the Trump Administration is giving small businesses a major healthcare boost. Sweeney explains that “the US Department of Labor finalized regulations to expand Small Business Health Plans — also known as Association Health Plans. This will help level the playing field for smaller and mid-sized businesses by allowing owners and their employees to enjoy similar health coverage benefits as large employers.”