Recently, the former President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, in her capacity as the UN Commissioner for Human Rights blasted the policies of US president Donald Trump for locking up refugee asylum seekers on the US Mexico border separating some from their families and holding them for long periods of time in appalling conditions. “As a pediatrician”, she said, “but also as a mother and a former head of State, I am deeply shocked that children are forced to sleep on the floor in overcrowded facilities, without access to adequate healthcare or food, and with poor sanitation conditions”. She went on to say that according to several UN human rights bodies, detaining migrant children may constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment that is prohibited under international law.

On any given day, 2,000 people including children are held in such facilities with many kept beyond the statutory limit of seventy-two hours. Many children are separated from their parents some never to be reunited because officials have lost contact with the parents. In four years, there have been 4,500 official complaints of the sexual abuse of children while kept in immigrant facility custody.

President Trump constantly rails against immigrants from Central America and Mexico ignoring the fact that the vast majority of illegal immigrants in the United States fly into the country on tourist visas and overstay their time limit. He is well known for openly racist statements.