Why children are separated from parents at the US-Mexico border

Images of groups of children held behind chain-link fences have stunned America and drawn comparisons with Nazi Germany and Japanese-American internment camps.

The scenes unfolding along the US-Mexico border coincide with a crackdown on unauthorised immigration from Central America that was unveiled by the Donald Trump administration in April.

However, the president claims the fault lies with existing legislation passed under previous Democrat administrations.

Pressed by White House reporters about the images of tearful family separations, Trump said: “I hate the children being taken away. The Democrats have to change their law - that’s their law.”

In reality, “there is no federal law that stipulates that children and parents be separated at the border, no matter how families entered the United States”, says Snopes.

According to the fact-checking website, the situation is actually the consequence of a new “zero tolerance” approach to illegal immigration introduced in April by US Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a Trump appointee.

In the past, families entering the country illegally “were rarely criminally prosecuted”, says Politifact. Many were released to await a court date for an immigration hearing, while others were housed in family detention centres before being sent to appear before an immigration court or deported.

The new enforcement policy requires that every adult caught entering the US illegally is detained and referred to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution, even if they intend to claim asylum.

Intentional or not, family separation is the “inevitable consequence” of such a policy, says The Washington Post, a reality that was recognised by Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in May.

“Operationally what that means is we will have to separate your family,” she told the NPR new service, and argued that the policy was “no different than what we do every day in every part of the United States when an adult of a family commits a crime”.

From mid-April to May, more than 2,000 children from Central America were removed from their families at the US border and placed in government facilities, Reuters reports.

Pressure is growing from both sides of the political aisle to come up with a compromise that will end the sorry spectacle of family separations.

Utah Congresswoman Mia Love is one of several Republicans to speak out against the current state of affairs, which she called “heartbreaking”.

“This is not a partisan issue,” she said. “It’s an issue of right or wrong.”