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More than 900 children were separated from their families upon arrival in the United States in one year. (Illustration image) REUTERS / Stephanie Keith

The Trump government says it has stopped the separation of migrant children from their parents, but a big civil rights NGO confirms the opposite: according to this organization, the ACLU, the US administration continues to apply this controversial policy, bypassing the law.

In the past year, more than 900 migrant children have been reportedly ripped from their families on the border between the United States and Mexico. Lee Gelernt deals with the rights of migrants within the NGO ACLU .

" 20 % of them are under five "

According to Lee Gelernt, interviewed by RFI, this is a cruel, illegal and ineffective policy. " What we have discovered is that they separate the child from his parent if he is accused of a crime, even minor. A traffic offense or negligence may be sufficient to justify such separation. Sometimes the parent in question is not even sentenced by a court. The government argues the well-being of the child as an argument, but it is a false argument. We think this is a way of bypassing the court decision that ended the practice of separations. The children concerned are very young : 20 % of them are under five years old. The administration puts these children in danger. Separating a child from his parents causes severe trauma. "

"To scare families"

For Lee Gelernt, these separations can not be used to reduce the flow of migrants contrary to what the US administration would like: " We know that the initial reason for these separations was to scare families and discourage them asylum in the United States. But people in danger will come, whatever happens. "

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Only a minority of these 900 separated children since June of last year are actually in danger with their parents, according to the ACLU. The organization is asking the court to clarify the criteria under which these separations may take place: " We believe that a separation can only be justified if there is real evidence that the child is in danger," says Lee Gelernt . We have already managed once to stop this practice, we hope to stop it again . "

About 390,000 families have been arrested at the southern border of the United States since October 1, according to statistics of US border guards.

►Also read: New tug of war at the US Congress on the migration crisis at the border