Children separated from parents by America's CBP to be reunited after Trump's U-Turn

US President Donald Trump's decision to halt his administration's "Zero tolerance" policy on illegal immigrants has failed to quell the uproar across the world, as thousands of children who were taken away from their parents while crossing the southern US border and put into temporary shelters still have their fate in doubt.

Multiple local media cited government officials reporting that, on Friday, about 500 children taken under the custody of the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) had been reunited with their families. Yet the number remains only a fraction of the total 2,300 children that had been forcefully parted from their relatives since April.

The CBP provide only temporary accommodation for the migrant children during the few days that follow their apprehension, after which the responsibility of taking care the children falls on the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

This US Customs and Border Protection photo dated June 17, 2018 obtained June 18, 2018 shows intake of illegal border crossers by US Border Patrol agents at the Central Processing Center in McAllen, Texas. Children have been taken away from their mothers and fathers in the Border Patrol's South Texas Rio Grande Valley sector, with many brought to the Central Processing Station in McAllen, Texas, since the policy was announced on May 7, according to Manuel Padilla, the Border Patrol sector chief. PHOTO / US CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION/HANDOUT

Also on Friday, an HHS official told CNN, an American broadcaster, that it was working on sending the children in its care back to their families.

"Secretary [Alex] Azar is bringing to bear all the relevant resources of the department in order to assist in the reunification or placement of unaccompanied alien children and teenagers with a parent or appropriate sponsor," HHS spokeswoman Evelyn Stauffer told CNN.

President Trump signed an executive order that reversed the policy on June 20, despite defending it a day earlier. The mounting outcry is believed to have prompted the White House's U-turn.

The latest issue of the Time Magazine./VCG Photo 

However, policy's backlash has not stopped at the president's submission to the public pressure. The continuous exposure of the poor living condition at the stopgap shelters as well as the heart-breaking moments when the boys and girls were removed from their parents' hold has only fueled the uproar.

A series of photographs published by the Time Magazine that exposes the treatment of the migrant children has sunk the Trump administration in a worse public outrage. The photographer, John Moore, Pulitzer Prize-winner for Getty Images, told the publication that the policy of separating children from their parents has changed everything about enforcement at the U.S.-Mexico border and resulted in a level of despair for immigrants that Americans can no longer ignore.

The policy is so consequential that its impact has spilled outside the political domain and sewed the risk of further splitting the public.

The photo from Time Magazine, photographed by John Moore of Getty Images, shows "a two-year-old Honduran asylum seeker cries as her mother is searched and detained near the U.S.-Mexico border in McAllen, Texas on June 12, 2018. The asylum seekers had rafted across the Rio Grande from Mexico and were detained by U.S. Border Patrol agents before being sent to a processing center for possible separation."

Another photo from the Time Magazine, photographed by John Moore of Getty Images, shows the two-year-old girl, Yanela, being held in the arm of her mother, Sandra, near the U.S.-Mexico border in McAllen, Texas on June 12, 2018. 

The very issue of the magazine that contains Mr. Moore's photos has been caught up in the controversy of over-dramatizing what has already been a serious issue with "misleading information".

Lying at the heart of the magazine's controversy is how it handled one of Mr. Moore's photos, where a little Honduran girl screaming as the US officials confronted her mother at the US-Mexico boarders. The initial caption indicates that the girl could be sent to "a processing center for possible separation" whereas the US Border Patrol officials clarified on Friday that the young was not separated from her mother.

The spokesman of the US Customs and Border Protection as well as Honduran deputy foreign minister, Nelly Jerez, also confirmed that the family was not separated at the border.

Security personal stand before shoes and toys left at the Tornillo Port of Entry where minors crossing the border without proper papers have been housed after being separated from adults, June 21, 2018 in Tornillo, Texas. President Donald Trump ordered an end to the separation of migrant children from their parents on the US border June 20, 2018, reversing a tough policy under heavy pressure from his fellow Republicans, Democrats and the international community. The spectacular about-face comes after more than 2,300 children were stripped from their parents and adult relatives after illegally crossing the border since May 5 and placed in tent camps and other facilities, with no way to contact their relatives.

On the story's webpage, the magazine has attached a correction saying that "The original version of this story misstated what happened to the girl in the photo after she taken from the scene. The girl was not carried away screaming by U.S. Border Patrol agents; her mother picked her up and the two were taken away together."

The two-year-old's image has also been juxtaposed on the cover of the magazine's latest issue in front the figure of the US President bowing his head, visualizing one of the most poignant attacks on the policy that has gone viral online.

In addition to the correction, the magazine has defended its editorial decision. In a statement given to the CNN, Time's editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal said "The June 12 photograph of the 2-year-old Honduran girl became the most visible symbol of the ongoing immigration debate in America for a reason: Under the policy enforced by the administration, prior to its reversal this week, those who crossed the border illegally were criminally prosecuted, which in turn resulted in the separation of children and parents. Our cover and our reporting capture the stakes of this moment."

News Source: CGTN.com