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Trump attacks 'filthy' Red Hen restaurant for turning away Sarah Huckabee Sanders

Donald Trump has described a Virginia restaurant that refused to serve White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders as “filthy”.

The president hit out at the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington on Twitter, after it turned Ms Sanders and her family away last week because she worked for the Trump administration.

“The Red Hen Restaurant should focus more on cleaning its filthy canopies, doors and windows (badly needs a paint job) rather than refusing to serve a fine person like Sarah Huckabee Sanders," he wrote. "I always had a rule, if a restaurant is dirty on the outside, it is dirty on the inside!”

Ms Sanders said last week she had been refused service at the restaurant while visiting with several family members, adding that she had “politely left”.

The restaurant’s owner, Stephanie Wilkinson, later said she had told the press secretary her business had “certain standards that I feel it has to uphold, such as honesty, and compassion, and cooperation.”

However, she told The Washington Post: "I’m not a huge fan of confrontation. This feels like the moment in our democracy when people have to make uncomfortable actions and decisions to uphold their morals.”

Senior administration officials have been facing backlash in recent weeks for Mr Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy towards illegal immigration, which has seen more than 2,300 children separated from their parents at the US-Mexico border.

Homeland security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was booed out of a Mexican restaurant in Washington by protesters last week over the separation policy.

Stephen Miller, a senior advisor to the president and one of the architects of the immigration crackdown, faced a similar fate at a Mexican restaurant in the city’s Shaw neighbourhood.

Mr Trump has been forced to backtrack on the controversial immigration policy after it sparked widespread condemnation from across the world.

Thousands of children have been placed in detention centres and separated from their parents, who await prosecution for entering the United States illegally under the new policy.

Authorities will no longer split up parents and children caught making unauthorised border crossings and will attempt to reunite those who have been detached from their loved ones.

However, officials have not revealed how they plan to do this and some experts have warned many adults may have already been deported without their children.