Families still divided after crossing into US

in Mexico City in Washington ELENA MAYA MARTINEZ did her best to hold back the tears, but it proved impossible every time she mentioned her 11-year-old son who is being held in a US facility for child migrants.

“Why did they have to take my son away?” she cried. “Why is this taking so long to get him back?” The Martinez family was one of thousands caught up in the chaos that has gripped the USMexico border since President Donald Trump introduced, and then ended, a policy of separating children from their illegal immigrant parents. Ms Mar- tinez, 29, told The Sunday Telegraph she trekked north from El Salvador with her husband and two sons, aged 11 and five, after the older boy witnessed a gang murder and they feared for their lives.

She and the five-year-old presented themselves at an official port of entry in California to claim asylum in early May. Her husband and older son did the same on a different day.

Under Mr Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy, families were only supposed to be separated when caught sneaking into the US illegally, not if they presented and claimed asylum. But confusion reigns at the border. Ms Martinez and her son were detained for several weeks but are now free and in Houston, Texas.

The older boy and his father were separated and are being held at different facilities in San Diego.

Ms Martinez said she has spoken to her son by telephone: “He just says that he doesn’t want to be there. He just cries and says that he wants to be with me. The time goes by, and then more time, and more time.

“You can’t just move somewhere else in El Salvador, the gangs are everywhere. We had no option, they would have killed us if we’d stayed.”

Amid many similar tales of chaos, the US government has set up a task force to reunify families after at least 2,500 children have been separated in the last few months, new statistics show.

Hundreds who were held by US Customs and Border Protection have been reunited, but others passed on to the Department of Health and Human Services have been more difficult to find.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that the US Navy has drafted plans to house up to 25,000 immigrants at a cost of up to $233million (£175 million) over six months.

A draft proposal also suggested that a Navy base in California could take a further 47,000.