2,000 minors split from parents: US

The government said on Friday that 1,995 children were separated from 1,940 adults at the U S -Mexico border between April 19 and May 31, as the Trump administration implements stricter border enforcement policies. The number represents a dramatic uptick from the nearly 1,800 family separations that Reuters reported had happened from October 2016 through February of this year. The official tally of separations is now nearly 4,000 children, not including March and the beginning of April 2018.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request to provide a breakdown of the age of children separated from their parents and held in custody, but the official said they do not separate babies from adults. A border patrol official on the call said children are sometimes separated from the adults they are traveling with if officials suspect the relationship is fraudulent. Reuters reported that around 13 percent of family separations in the 17-month period through February were because of alleged fraud. Government officials on the call did not go into detail about where the children are being held.