Infant Ripped From Mother's Breast At Immigration Detention Center, Mother Handcuffed For Resisting

Trump’s ‘zero-tolerance policy’ continues to separate families in immigration detention centers

The separation of young children and their families at immigration detention centers is a prime example of how the United States is currently failing humanity, and this latest story is no exception. While being detained in Texas, a mother says federal authorities removed her nursing infant right from her breast. The mother has been awaiting prosecution for entering the U.S. illegally.

The mother, an undocumented immigrant from Honduras, told attorney Natalia Cornelio she’s been detained under the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy of referring anyone caught crossing the border illegally for federal prosecution.

While the federal authorities reportedly tore the infant from her mother’s breast, the mother resisted — because that’s what any loving mother would do.

She was handcuffed for it.

Since the zero-tolerance policy was announced last month, approximately 500 children have been separated from their parents, according to Texas law office estimates. According to some parents, they don’t know what happened to their children after being separated. Others claim they were told their children are “being taken to be bathed or cleaned up,” and then the mothers and fathers don’t see their babies again.

The government is essentially torturing people by doing this,” Cornelio told CNN.

Human rights organizations and politicians around the country have been working to fight against the separation of children and parents during the detention process.

The practice of separating families in this manner “amounts to arbitrary and unlawful interference in family life, and is a serious violation of the rights of the child,” Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, based in Geneva, told the New York Times.

White House chief of staff John Kelly recently offered up the White House’s stance on separating families in this cruel, inhumane manner. “The children will be taken care of — put into foster care or whatever. But the big point is they elected to come illegally into the United States, and this is a technique that no one hopes will be used extensively or for very long.”

“Put into foster care or whatever.” OR WHATEVER. This is how we treat human beings? Parents and innocent children? While it’s always been a misdemeanor federal offense to enter the U.S. illegally, previous administrations didn’t refer everyone who was caught for prosecution.

The severity in which the Trump administration is separating and prosecuting these families appears to be part of the legacy of horrors that will undoubtedly go down as one of the bleakest periods of United States history.

As a mother, the mental image of an innocent infant being ripped from the breast is utterly haunting. I would without a doubt lose every ounce of my sanity if my child were separated from me for any reason; for any length of time. The pain and the fear these families are experiencing in immigration detention centers is unfathomable to those of us who are privileged enough to remain untouched by Trump’s policies.

This is the undeniable antithesis of America.