US border staff have been telling illegal immigrants that they are just taking their kids “for a bath” before putting them behind bars, a migrant charity has claimed. The director of the Houston office of the Tahirih Justice Centre Anne Chandler made the unverified allegations after she says she spoke with several migrant parents. Nearly 2,000 children are said to have been separated from their families at the US border with Mexico between mid-April and the end of May. The kids are now living in a number of detention centres along the frontier. Chandler told the Texas Monthly: “The officers say, ‘I’m going to take your child to get bathed.’ “That’s one we see again and again, ‘Your child needs to come with me for a bath.’ “The child goes off, and in a half an hour, twenty minutes, the parent inquires, ‘Where is my five-year-old? Where’s my seven-year-old? This is a long bath.’ “And they say, ‘You won’t be seeing your child again.’” The Tahirih Justice Centre is a nonprofit organisation helping immigrant women and children. Chandler said in some cases agents simply tell the parents that they are taking their children away. “And when the parent asks, ‘When will we get them back?’ they say, ‘We can’t tell you that,’” she said. Chandler said the officers also tell the parents that they are going to ‘prosecuted’ or that they aren’t “welcome in this country”. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a “zero tolerance” policy in May where all those… [Read full story]
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