“Immigrant children as young as 14 housed at a juvenile detention center in Virginia say they were beaten while handcuffed and locked up for long periods in solitary confinement, left nude and shivering in concrete cells,” the AP reports.

“The abuse claims against the Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center near Staunton, Virginia, are detailed in federal court filings that include a half-dozen sworn statements from Latino teens jailed there for months or years. Multiple detainees say the guards stripped them of their clothes and strapped them to chairs with bags placed over their heads.”

“President Trump caved to enormous political pressure on Wednesday and signed an executive order meant to end the separation of families at the border by detaining parents and children together for an indefinite period,” the New York Times reports.

“But Justice Department officials said it was not clear whether the practice of separating families could resume after 20 days if a federal judge refuses to give the government the authority it wants to hold families together for a longer period.”

“And a Health and Human Services official said that more than 2,300 children who have already been separated from their parents under the president’s ‘zero tolerance’ policy will not be immediately reunited with their families while the adults remain in federal custody during their immigration proceedings.“

North Dakota U.S. Senate candidate Kevin Cramer (R-ND) “pushed back hard on the idea that keeping border-crossing children in chain-link cages was inhumane, defending the practice in two local radio shows on Wednesday,” TPM reports.

Said Cramer: “By the way, chain link fences are around playgrounds all over America, all over North Dakota. And chain link fences allow line-of-sight visual connectivity with children and families. You know, there’s nothing inhumane about a chain link fence. If it is, then every ballpark in America is inhumane.”

The coverage of President Trump’s sudden reversal on his policy to separate migrant children from their parents at the border is universally brutal.

The Fix: “It’s at once an admission that the politics of the issue had gotten out of hand and that the administration’s arguments were completely dishonest. Virtually everything it said about the policy is tossed aside with this executive action. It’s the political equivalent of waving the white flag and the legal equivalent of confessing to making false statements. Rather than letting Congress rebuke it, the White House is rebuking itself and trying to save some face.”

Politico: “It was a remarkable shift from a president who is typically reluctant to bow to outside pressure. He often doubles down on his existing stance when confronted with criticism.”