Melania Trump back on US border to meet immigrant children

29 June 2018: US First Lady Melania Trump returned to the US border region Thursday for her second trip in a week to meet undocumented child immigrants as the US-Mexico border crisis rages.

In Tucson, Arizona, Trump is due to visit a Customs and Border Patrol facility and have a roundtable discussion with Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the US Marshals Service and a local rancher for insights into the situation on the ground.

The first lady's husband, President Donald Trump, has made an about-face to end the practice of separating migrant families -- but about 2,000 children remained separated from their parents, according to official figures released last weekend.

A Republican "compromise" bill reforming US immigration law in a bid to resolve the crisis failed spectacularly in Congress on Wednesday, with 121 votes to 301.

Last week at a federally-funded facility in McAllen, Texas, the first lady asked how she could "help these children to reunite with their families as quickly as possible."