Trump administration separates thousands of U.S. migrant families

President Trump's zero-tolerance immigration policy split more than 5,000 children from their families at the Mexico border during his first term, when images of babies and toddlers taken from the arms of mothers sparked global condemnation.

- BY GISELA SALOMON

REBECCA BLACKWELL Associated Press PREGNANT asylum-seeker Yaoska, who gave only her last name, comforts her son at a Miami-area motel.

Seven years later, families are being separated, but in a much different way. With illegal border crossings at their lowest level in seven decades, a push for mass deportations is dividing families of mixed legal status inside the U.S.

Federal officials and their local law enforcement partners are detaining tens of thousands of asylum seekers and migrants. Detainees are moved repeatedly, then deported, or held in poor conditions for weeks or months before asking to go home.

The federal government was holding an average of more than 66,000 people in November, the highest on record.

During the first Trump administration, families were forcibly separated at the border and authorities struggled to find children in a vast shelter system because government computer systems weren't linked. Now parents inside the United States are being arrested by immigration authorities and separated from their families during prolonged detention. Or they choose to have their children remain in the U.S. after an adult is deported, many after years or decades here.

The Trump administration and its anti-immigration backers see “unprecedented success,” and Trump’s top border advisor, Tom Homan, told reporters in April that “we're going to keep doing it, full speed ahead.”

Three families separated by migration enforcement in recent months told the Associated Press that their dreams of better, freer lives had clashed with Washington’s new immigration policy and their existence is anguished without knowing if they will see their loved ones again.

For them, migration marked the possible start of permanent separation between parents and children, the source of deep pain and uncertainty.

A family split apart