Charlotte and Dave Willner started a Facebook fundraiser, titled "Reunite an immigrant parent with their child," after they saw a viral photo of a 2-year-old Honduran girl looking up and crying as her mother was searched by a Border Patrol agent in southern Texas. They created the page on Saturday, June 16, hoping to raise $1,500. As of Wednesday, more than 300,000 donors have raised more than $12 million. The page is bringing in more than $10,000 a minute, according to organizers.

There was a private lobbying force behind President Trump's change of heart on his controversial policy that resulted in thousands of family separations at the southern U.S. border: first lady Melania Trump.

A White House official confirmed to NPR's Sarah McCammon that Mrs. Trump pressed her husband to act to keep undocumented immigrant families together.

Updated at 2:49 p.m. ET

The battle lines are being drawn five months ahead of the midterms, with more Americans than at any point in at least the last two decades saying they're enthusiastic about voting — and record numbers of voters say President Trump and which party controls Congress are big factors in their vote, according to a new Pew Research Center survey released Wednesday.

Embattled Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday — and was targeted by protesters angry over the Trump administration's border policy that has separated children from their families along the U.S. border with Mexico.

"We're in downtown DC disrupting DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen's dinner at MXDC," the Metro D.C. Democratic Socialists of America wrote in a Facebook post about the confrontation. "The irony isn't lost on us that this is a Mexican restaurant."

Nearly 2,000 immigrant children were separated from their parents after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border unlawfully this spring, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Many pediatricians have expressed concerns about the effects this traumatic event could have on those children.