Hundreds of immigrant children were taken away from their parents at the US border.

February 20 A young woman named Mirian arrived on the Texas border with her 18 month-old son. She told the border guards how they fled from their home in Honduras, making their way through a cloud of tear gas. The woman needed protection from violence in her homeland.

Фото: Depositphotos

She hoped that she would be able to take refuge with the son in the United States. Instead, agents ordered her to put her son in the back seat of a government vehicle, she told a federal court. They both cried when the boy was taken away from his mother.

For several months, members of Congress demanded to provide data on how many families were divided at the border after the Trump administration decided to take children from immigrant parents to prevent their relocation.

Officials repeatedly refused to provide data on how many families were divided, but suggested that the number was relatively low.

But new data shows that more than 700 children have been seized from adults since October, including more than 100 children under the age of 4.

The data was prepared by the Refugees Resettlement Directorate, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services that takes care of children that were taken from migrant parents. Senior officials of the Department of Homeland Security who work with migrants at the border initially denied that these numbers were so high. But after they were confirmed The Times On Friday, three federal officials who work closely with these cases, a spokesman for the health and humanitarian services department on Friday recognized the number of "around 700."

Homeland security officials have said the agency is not separating families at the border to deter them. “As required by law, DHS must protect the interests of minor children crossing our borders, and sometimes this results in separating children from the adults they are traveling with if we cannot establish a parental relationship or if we believe the child is otherwise is in danger,” a spokesman said in a statement from the agency.

But officials at the Trump administration have publicly stated earlier that they are indeed considering containment policies. Last year, John Kelly, the head of the headquarters of President Trump, adhered to this idea when he was the secretary of national security.

Children excommunicated from their families are taken to the shelters of non-governmental organizations. There, workers seek to find a relative or guardian in the United States who can take care of the child. But if there is no such adult, then children can languish in custody indefinitely. Employees of these institutions say that they often cannot find parents of separated children, because children come without proper documents.

When a child is brought to a shelter, there is no clear process to determine whether he was separated from his family at the time of crossing the border or not.

“The idea of ​​punishing parents who try to save the lives of their children is fundamentally cruel and un-American,” said Michelle Branet, director of migrant rights and justice programs at the Women's Refugee Commission, an advocacy group that conducts interviews and monitoring in immigration centers, including children's homes.

Mirian, whose real name is not disclosed for security purposes, visited three detention centers for immigrants during her time in the United States. It is part of a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of many immigrant parents who seek to prohibit marital separation at the border.

In the lawsuit, she claims that she was never told why her son was taken away. Since February, the only thing she heard about him was that he asked about her and “wept all the time” on the days when he arrived at the orphanage. In addition, the boy developed an ear infection and cough.

“I had no idea that I would be separated from my child for seeking help,” Mirian said in her lawsuit. “I really want to be with him.”

Protecting children at the border is complicated by the fact that there were really cases of fraud. Tens of thousands of migrants come there every year, and those with children are often released in the United States faster than adults who come alone, due to restrictions on the amount of time juveniles can be detained.

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