An undocumented Honduran woman says her children was taken from her in the middle of breastfeeding, an attorney who’d spoken to the woman told CNN.
The woman, whom CNN did not name, told attorney Natalia Cornelio of the Texas Civil Rights Project that she was subsequently handcuffed after resisting. The Honduran woman had been detained and placed into criminal proceedings as part of the Trump administration’s new policy of criminally prosecuting anyone caught illegally crossing the border.
Because children cannot be held in criminal detention, the new policy necessitates the separation of children from their parents.
A public defender for the Southern District of Texas in McAllen told CNN that, according to an unofficial count in his office, roughly 500 children have been separated from their parents since Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the new policy last month.