Trump defends harsh immigration policies

WASHINGTON (AP) - Defending his administration's harsh immigration policies, President Donald Trump says the U.S. won't be a "migrant camp" or "refugee holding facility."

Says Trump: "Not on my watch."

Unbowed by mounting bipartisan criticism of a policy that separates some immigrant children and parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, Trump says, "I say it's very strongly the Democrats' fault."

Speaking before an event on U.S. space policy, Trump says there is "death and destruction" caused by people in the U.S. illegally.

He says: "A country without borders is not a country at all."

Trump has blamed Democrats for the separation of families at the border and is pressuring them to negotiate with Republicans on an immigration bill. But the separations are a consequence of the Trump administration "zero tolerance" policy, announced in April, which maximizes criminal prosecutions of people caught trying to enter the U.S. illegally. That means more adults are jailed, pending trial, so their children are removed from them.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says Republicans have a moral and legal responsibility to end a policy that has led to children being separated from their families along the border between the U.S. and Mexico.

Pelosi says that ripping vulnerable children away from their parents is "an utter atrocity that debases America's values and our legacy as a beacon of hope, opportunity and freedom."

President Donald Trump has sought to blame Democrats for the family separations, but Pelosi says the "blame for every mistreated child, heartbroken mother and father and broken family rests squarely on the President, and only he can end the trauma."

She calls on Trump to "immediately rescind this barbarous policy."