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The official data has indicated that the Trump administration detained an exceptional 69,950 migrant children in 2019. It was an increase in at least 42% from the previous year. The UN researchers said that more children were detained away from their parents in the US this year than in any other country on Earth following Donald Trump’s family separation policy. Children also spent more time in detention and away from their family than in previous years under the administration’s strict immigration policies, in spite of the government’s own acknowledgment that it can cause them serious harm. One Honduran teenager detained for four months before reuniting with his mother. The teenager said, “There was despair everywhere. There was something there that made us feel desperate. It was freedom. We wanted to be free”.

Another young Honduran detained when he was 16 for more than a year. He said that he saw his peers harm themselves as a result. He said, “They would cry sometimes, alone, or they would hit themselves against the wall. I thought that was because of them being here for such a long time”. It is noteworthy that a vast majority of children are fleeing Central American countries to save themselves from persecution, abuse or violence. Moreover, children have been arriving alone at the U.S border for more than a decade. The number of children in government custody has grown rapidly over the last 2 years.

The federal agency was caring at least 2,700 children and reuniting them with awaiting relatives or sponsors within about a month. The American Civil Liberties Union has indicated that the U.S immigration authorities have separated at least 5,400 children from their parents at the Mexico border since June 2017. More than 1,090 of these separations happened since district judge Dana Sabraw ordered an end to the practice. The United States is now being sued for hundreds of millions of dollars by families who say their children were harmed by being held in detention. A federal judge ordered last week that the government should immediately provide mental health screenings and treatment to immigrant families.