WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump has backed down and abandoned his policy of separating immigrant families on the US-Mexico border on Wednesday, after images of children in cages sparked outrage at home and abroad.

“It’s about keeping families together while at the same time we’re going to have strong — very strong — borders, but we are going to keep the families together,” Trump said as he signed the order in the Oval Office. “I didn’t like the sight or the feeling of families being separated.”

Trump signed an executive order requiring that immigrant families be detained together when they are caught entering the country illegally for as long as their criminal proceedings take. But that may violate a court settlement on how long children may be held, setting up a potential legal fight, unless Congress acts on the issue.

The Trump order also moves parents with children to the front of the line for immigration proceedings and asks the Department of Defence to help house them. But it does not end a 10-week-old ‘zero tolerance’ policy that calls for criminal prosecution of immigrants crossing the border illegally.