Babies in Cages: It took crying babies from South America to get President Trump to back down for the first time in his presidency. Yesterday Trump signed an executive order ending the policy of separating detained illegal immigrants from their children.

The comedy of it is that Trump signed an order countermanding himself. He’s the one who invoked the policy of separating parents and children, blaming it on congressional Democrats.

“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.”

Actually, that probably is not exactly what turned him. It was the dissent of his usually staunch backers like Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, and even his wife Melania and daughter Ivanka.

Trump left himself wiggle room. He did not order the reunification of nearly 2,400 children taken from their parents since May. That’s a big one. He’s keeping them in his baby jails. He also wants the authority to hold parents and children together for longer than the current legal limit of 20 days.

Immigration authorities have also shipped the separated children all over the country. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said he was outraged to learn that 350 kids had been transited through his city and two hundred or more are still housed there.

Three major airlines have said they will not carry separated children. American Airlines, Frontier, and United have all said they won’t let their planes be used by ICE. “We have no desire to be associated with separating families, or worse, to profit from it,” American Airlines said in a statement .

Crackdown: Immigration officers swarmed an Ohio meatpacking company earlier this week, rounding up 146 workers in what ICE calls its largest operation in recent history.

ICE appears to be stepping up major raids. Two weeks ago ICE detained 114 people who worked for an Ohio landscaping company, and in April nabbed 100 at a Tennessee meatpacking company.

It’s Political: Steve Schmidt, the Republican strategist who gained household notoriety when Sarah Palin ran for vice president, has renounced his party of 29 years and urged a Democratic wave in the fall. He said the Republican party has become “corrupt, indecent, and immoral.” The Trump policy of separating illegal immigrants from their children was the last aggravation. Schmidt said, “It is connected by the same evil that separated families during slavery and dislocated tribes and broke up Native American families. It is immoral and must be repudiated.”

Police Beat: Protests broke out last night over the fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old boy after a traffic stop Tuesday night in East Pittsburgh, Penn. A video clip shows Antwon Rose Jr. running away from the car in which he had been a passenger when he was shot.

The police were responding to a call about a drive-by shooting when they stopped the car Rose was riding in. Investigators said Rose did not have a weapon, but two guns were found in the car.

Nation: Three young people who climbed a fence to swim in the pool at an apartment complex in Durham, NC, were found dead in the early hours of Tuesday morning. The three were 15, 16, and 21 years old. Investigators say they have no idea why all three drowned. — ABC News says it is investigating after a graphic appeared during a live appearance by the President saying, “Manafort pleads guilty to five charges of manslaughter.” This is why you never make jokes around television electronics and microphones. Someone will be fired. — New York’s billionaire former Mayor Michael Bloomberg says he’s dedicating $80 million to political campaigns in an effort to turn the House to a Democratic majority.

Epidemic: Jeanine Pepler, a noted publicist who represented novelists Jay McInerney and Candace Bushnell, hanged herself Sunday night in her home in Sag Harbor, LI, adding to the string of high profile suicides that includes fashion designer Kate Spade and celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain. She was 50.

Whopperski: The Russian arm of Burger King has apologized for offering women a reward of 3 million rubles, about $47,000 and free Whoppers for life if they got pregnant by a World Cup soccer player. They did not apologize for the food.

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