President Donald Trump lashed out on Monday at a Democratic congresswoman who urged Americans to confront members of Trump's inner circle in public places as tensions rose over the Republican president's hard-line immigration policy.

Trump faced a global outcry this month, including criticism from some in his own party, over migrant children separated from their parents by U.S. authorities under the administration's policy of seeking to detain and prosecute adults caught entering the country illegally.

The president retreated on Wednesday, ordering an end to the family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border, but leaving his two-month-old "zero tolerance" policy in place. That raised questions about where to house families detained at the border and how to process them speedily. The government has yet to reunite more than 2,000 children with their parents.