An unprecedented 69,550 migrant children were held in U.S. government custody over the past year, according to the Associated Press. That’s up 42 percent in this fiscal year from 2018. The report states that around 4,000 kids are still in government custody, with more arriving each week. The data shows more kids have been detained away from their parents in the U.S. than any other country, even though the U.S. government has acknowledged that being held in detention can cause long-term harm to children. The U.S. is being sued for hundreds of millions of dollars by some families who say their children were harmed in detention. A federal judge found this month that the government’s policy has “caused severe mental trauma to parents and their children” and that U.S. government officials were “aware of the risks associated with family separation when they implemented it.”
