About 2,000 kids were separated from their families at the border from mid-April through the end of May.
There are three ways children and adults get separated at the border. The first is if there are concerns about a child’s safety. The second is if federal officials can’t confirm a child and adult are family. The third is when a parent will be prosecuted for entering the United States illegally.
Prosecutions have spiked since U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a zero-tolerance policy for illegal border crossings in early April.
From April 19 through May 31, officials separated 1,995 minors from 1,940 adults facing prosecution, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
During the same time period, the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project counted 185 family separation cases in Arizona.
The Florence Project gives free legal help and social services to people in immigration detention centers. Part of the group’s intake process is to ask detainees if they have been separated from family.
From January through June 10, the Florence Project counted 346 parents and children who said they were separated from family, which is a roughly 100 percent increase from what the group tallied for all of 2017.
