WASHINGTON >> Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao confronted protesters Monday after they accosted her and her husband, Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, over the Trump administration’s temporarily halted policy of separating migrant children from their parents at the southern border.

It was the latest heated skirmish, documented on social media, between officials representing the administration and activists furious over some of its most divisive policies.

In a video posted on Twitter by one of the protesters, a small group of Georgetown students walked up to Chao and McConnell on the university’s campus as they were about to enter a black SUV and leave. One protester began asking the pair, “Why are you separating families?” as audio of immigrant children crying for their parents through sobs played in the background.

McConnell entered the SUV, but Chao stopped to confront the protesters as they gathered around the back of the car.

“Why don’t you leave my husband alone?” she said. “Why don’t you leave my husband alone?”

“I’m not trying to disrespect you,” one protester said, “but he’s separating families.”

“He is not,” Chao said, as a security guard separated her from the clamoring group, escorting her to the other side of the SUV. “He is not.”

“You leave him alone,” she added, raising her voice and pointing admonishingly at the protesters. “You leave my husband alone.”

“How does he sleep at night?” another protester yelled as Chao climbed into the car.

As the administration and lawmakers grapple with a political and public relations crisis over the struggle to reunite separated families and frustrations over floundering efforts to pass immigration legislation, Chao and McConnell are the latest officials to face public wrath outside their political offices.

On Friday, the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, was asked to leave a Virginia restaurant because of her affiliation with the administration. On Monday, the neighbors of Stephen Miller, a top administration adviser known for his hard-line immigration views, endured protesters outside his Washington apartment. (Miller was attending Trump’s rally in South Carolina at the time.)

The increase in clashes instigated by private citizens determined to publicly shame conservative government officials — notably endorsed by Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif. — has divided Democrats over how best to oppose the administration.

“We wanted to ask him a very simple, yet impactful question: Why are you separating families?” said Roberto, the Georgetown student who filmed the encounter. He declined to give his last name because of online threats and backlash. “For me, staying silent is not an option.”

Roberto, an intern with United We Dream, an immigration advocacy group, said the students also wanted to press the possibility of defunding Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection over their involvement in the separation of families.

Chao, herself an immigrant, has defended her husband before: Last summer, pressed on apparent tensions between McConnell and the president, she told reporters, “I stand by my man — both of them.”

The Transportation Department did not respond to a request for comment on the episode, and a spokesman for McConnell’s office declined to comment.

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