The senior rabbi of Reform Judaism has attacked an US immigration policy that has seen the children of migrants separated from their parents as they cross the border with Mexico.

Laura Janner-Klausner said similar policies in history had led to atrocities and genocides.

But she added US President Donald Trump’s planned visit to Britain next month should not be cancelled so that the feeling of opposition can be expressed to him.

As many 2,300 children were taken away from their parents by officials at the border with Mexico under a “zero tolerance” policy, it emerged last week, triggering a wave of outrage in the US and around the world.

“The numbing of empathy, the dehumanisation of other people through the encouragement of disdain are documented stages in history that have led to atrocities and even genocides,” Rabbi Janner-Klausner told The Observer on Sunday.

“What has happened on the US-Mexico border is a moment of reckoning as it points to a systemic toxicity in public discourse and action. This needs to be stopped now.”

She added: “I believe that our prime minister should be meeting her counterpart, to convey to him in the strongest terms the depth of opposition that these policies have evoked.”

Mr Trump signed an executive order last week ending the policy of separating children from their parents at the border, saying “I didn’t like the sight or the feeling of families being separated.”

Families will now be detained together, although campaigners said officials were not making any special efforts to reunite the thousands of children already separated from their parents.