BOSTON — Gov. Charlie Baker is reversing a decision to send a Massachusetts National Guard helicopter and crew to U.S.-Mexico border, citing the Trump administration’s policy of separating children from their parents.

The Republican governor called the policy of taking children from their parents as families arrive at the border “cruel and inhumane” and said he would put off the National Guard mission.

“It’s cruel and inhumane, and I told the National Guard to hold steady and not go down to the border — period,” Baker told reporters. “So we won’t be supporting that initiative unless they change their policy.”

The crew had been set to fly down later this month to work with federal officials to help track illegal activity along the border with Mexico.

“They’re not going to the border,” Bakers said, adding that Massachusetts won’t be participating until the family separation policy is changed.

President Donald Trump on Monday pushed back against rising criticism from Democrats and some Republicans, again falsely blaming Democrats for the policy decision.

“The United States will not be a migrant camp and it will not be a refugee holding facility,” he said.

Massachusetts Democrats have joined calls to end the practice.

The Pentagon said Monday that a joint U.S.-South Korea military exercise is being canceled in line with President Donald Trump’s suspension of what he called “war games.”

“Consistent with President Trump's commitment and in concert with our Republic of Korea ally, the United States military has suspended all planning for this August's defensive ‘wargame’,” Dana White, the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, said in a late afternoon statement.

“We are still coordinating additional actions” and “no decisions on subsequent wargames have been made,” White said.

The Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise typically begins in late August. Under the normal schedule for exercises that has existed for decades, the next major joint exercise would not take place until next year.

White added that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis would meet later this week with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton on the future of defensive cooperation with South Korea under the U.S.-South Korea alliance.

Earlier, South Korean media said that the Pentagon and South Korea’s Ministry of Defense would make an announcement on the exercises sometime this week.

"The South Korean and U.S. military authorities have been having close consultations over the combined exercises that U.S. President Donald Trump has said he will stop," a source said on condition of anonymity, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.

The suspension reportedly would include a "snapback" clause to resume the exercises if North Korea stopped bargaining in good faith.

The Pentagon agency in charge of accounting for missing Americans troops has yet to receive notice to prepare for the return of remains by North Korea that President Donald Trump called a key success of the Singapore summit.

"We're standing by [but] we haven't officially been asked to do anything," Chuck Prichard, a spokesman for the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), said Monday.

"This is our business," he said of recovering remains from foreign battlefields. But he added that the work of diplomacy must come first. "We're at the tail end of this."

On the North Lawn of the White House last Friday, Trump suggested to Fox News that the remains of missing Americans from the Korean War might already be in the process of being repatriated.

He said the North Koreans "are already starting to produce the remains of these great young soldiers who were left in North Korea. We're getting the remains, and nobody thought that was possible."

At the Singapore summit last Tuesday, Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a joint declaration committing to sending the missing troops home.

"The United States and the [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] commit to recovering POW/MIA remains, including the immediate repatriation of those already identified," the declaration reads.

At a news conference after the summit, Trump said he was acting on behalf of the families of the missing.

"I must have had just countless calls and letters and tweets, anything you can do -- they want the remains of their sons back," Trump said.

It's unclear, however, how many parents of troops killed in a war that ended with an armistice 65 years ago might still be living.