FORMER US President Barack Obama called for an end to the separation of migrant children from parents at the US-Mexico border, saying the “cruelty” of the practice was contrary to American ideals.

“To watch those families broken apart in real time puts to us a very simple question: are we a nation that accepts the cruelty of ripping children from their parents’ arms, or are we a nation that values families, and works to keep them together?” Obama said in a statement posted on Facebook.

“To find a way to welcome the refugee and the immigrant — to be big enough and wise enough to uphold our laws and honour our values at the same time — is part of what makes us American,” said the former president, while acknowledging that Wednesday was World Refugee Day.

Mr Obama’s comments joined a firestorm of opposition to the Donald Trump administration’s so-called “zero tolerance” policy begun in early May that caused the separation of more than 2,300 children from their parents after they crossed the US-Mexico border illegally.

Acknowledging the overwhelming criticism, President Trump signed an order to keep migrant families together, despite for days insisting that only a new law passed by Congress could halt the separations.

Mr Trump’s decision came after sustained bipartisan criticism, including from former first ladies who spoke out on Monday.

Michelle Obama said simply, “Sometimes truth transcends party,” while retweeting an excerpt of a newspaper op-ed by Laura Bush.

Bush wrote in the Washington Post: “I live in a border state. I appreciate the need to enforce and protect our international boundaries, but this zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral.

And it breaks my heart.” She also compared the family separations to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, considered one of the darkest chapters of American history.

POPE, THERESA MAY SLAM ‘IMMORAL’ TRUMP
It comes as Pope Francis is criticised the policy, declaring that he agrees with US Catholic bishops that separating children from their parents at a border is “immoral.”

Continuing his criticism on Wednesday, he tweeted: “A person’s dignity does not depend on them being a citizen, a migrant, or a refugee.

Saving the life of someone fleeing war and poverty is an act of humanity.”

President Trump’s Attorney-General, Jeff Sessions, has quoted the Bible in defending the policy, which calls for every person who crosses the border illegally to be prosecuted and detained. The result has seen more than 2000 children detained without a guardian and no clear plan on how the families will be reunited.

Pope Francis told Reuters in a wide-ranging interview on Sunday that he agrees with recent statements by US Catholic bishops who called the separation of children from their parents “contrary to our Catholic values.” He said “it’s not easy, but populism is not the solution.”

British Prime Minister Theresa May also spoke out on Wednesday, saying images from the United States of migrant children kept in cages were “deeply disturbing” and that she would press President Donald Trump on the issue.

“On what we have seen in the United States, pictures of children being held in what appear to be cages are deeply disturbing … this is wrong,” she told MPs.

Ms May said she would raise the issue with Trump when the pair meet in Britain next month.

“When we disagree with the United States we tell them so,” she told MPs.

“But we also have some key shared interests with the United States in the security and defence field and on other areas as well.

“And it is right that we are able to sit down and discuss those with the president.”

Mr Trump told Republican politicians on Tuesday he backed their efforts to craft an immigration solution that ends the politically toxic practice of separating families on the US-Mexico border.

Ms May appeared to criticise the practice, saying that when she was interior minister: “I ended the routine detention of families with children.”