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One moment she was breastfeeding her child, the next moment she cuffed by authorities and screaming. Attorney Natalia Cornelio of the Texas Civil Rights Project, told CNN that her client, a detained migrant mom from Honduras, was breastfeeding her baby daughter when federal immigration officials ripped her away, leaving her so distraught that she had to be handcuffed:
Some parents also claim they have been told their children are being taken to be bathed or cleaned up, then the adults don't see them again.
"The government is essentially torturing people by doing this," Cornelio continued. Advocates add that many parents don’t even know where their kids have been sent to by the Trump administration. “The vast majority of the mothers have not spoken with their children in weeks and they have no idea where they are,” said Congress member Pramila Jayapal, who recently met with detained moms.
It’s unclear exactly how many families have been separated to date. According to a public defender in Texas, “some 500 children have been separated from their parents within the last month.” But the numbers could be larger, with Vox’s Dara Lind reporting that “from May 7 to May 21 ... 658 children were split from 638 adults.” What we do know, is that agents are arresting so many people, the administration is considering “tent cities” for migrant kids—concentration camps.
What assurances do we have that kids are being treated decently, when they’re getting ripped from their parents even during breastfeeding? There is none. Instead, the shame our nation, the separation of the most vulnerable, stares us in the face. "All the women would start crying and would need to take a couple of minutes before being able to continue talking about it,” Cornelio said.
