Mass. AG joins lawsuit against Trump administration's border policy

BOSTON — Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey is joining a lawsuit against President Donald Trump's administration calling for an end to his 'cruel policy of separating immigrant families.'

Healey tweeted the announcement Thursday afternoon, saying a coalition of 11 states had filed a lawsuit to declare the Trump administration's policy unconstitutional.

"The President’s words cannot be trusted. Since the Administration won't do the right thing, we will," she tweeted.

Spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores says there has been no change to the "zero tolerance" policy that resulted in the separation of more than 2,300 children from their parents.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an order to stop the separations. Justice Department lawyers are working on a legal challenge to allow families to be detained longer than 20 days.

The Washington Post reported that the policy was suspended until U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement could find space to detain them.

On Wednesday, Trump downplayed the crisis that has threatened to envelop the White House amid days of heart-wrenching images of children being pulled from their immigrant parents along the nation's southern border. He made only a brief mention of his decision to sign an executive order after spending days insisting, wrongly, that his administration had no choice but to separate families apprehended at the border because of federal law and a court decision.

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