The children’s lawyer was incensed. Her two tiny clients — one of them blind — had been in a shelter for three months, separated from their mother.

The family had traveled from Mexico to the United States, reaching Nogales, Arizona, on March 1, 2018. Officials at the border found that the mother, Nadia Pulido, had “credible” reasons for seeking asylum from an ex-partner who, she says, beat her and stalked her after their relationship ended.

But U.S. Customs and Border Protection still sent Pulido into an adult detention center run by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She had an hour to say goodbye and try to assure her blind daughter, 6, and sobbing 3-year-old son that she’d see them in a couple of hours.

“A couple of hours turned into months. Painful months,” Pulido recalled in an interview.

Homeland Security’s Civil Rights Unit Lacks Power To Protect Migrant Kids

Photo: Susan Ferriss/Center for Public Integrity