Donald Trump's policies are a step on the road to genocide, Reform Judaism rabbi warns

“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.