Chaos at US border as illegal immigrant parents plead to be reunited with their children

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 US-Mexico border since Donald Trump introduced, then ended, a policy of separating children from their illegal immigrant parents.

Ms Martinez, 29, told The 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 five-year-old 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 been able to speak to her son by telephone. She said: "He doesn’t get angry. He doesn’t make any reproaches. 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."

She added there was nowhere safe in El Salvador, where the gangs' influence is widespread.

"We had no option to go, they would have killed us if we’d stayed," she added. "We left everything behind. Our house, all our things, our jobs. Everything."

Amid many similar tales of chaos the US government has set up a task force to reunify migrant families.

At least 2,500 children have been separated over the last few months.

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

As they were separated from their children some parents hastily wrote phone numbers on their children's clothes, or taught them rhymes to remember the numbers.

Meanwhile, it emerged the US Navy had drafted plans to house up to 25,000 immigrants at a cost of up to $233 million over six months.

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

Mr Trump, who ended family separation by executive order on Wednesday, posted on Twitter a news headline saying "OBAMA KEPT THEM IN CAGES, WRAPPED THEM IN FOIL".

He added: "We do a much better job while at the same time maintaining a MUCH stronger Border!"

In the wake of Mr Trump's executive order on Wednesday the White House was convulsed by tense disagreements.

That included a 90-minute meeting in the Situation Room on Thursday night when there was intense discussion of how to continue prosecuting all adult illegal immigrants without separating children. The administration is faced with balancing laws that prevent children being held for long periods of time with orders to prosecute as many people as possible, while trying to keep families together.

It emerged that Mr Trump had been reluctant to end the separation policy.

At one point during the week he argued it was a good deterrent to illegal immigration and that "my people love it".

Meanwhile, WikiLeaks published a database identifying the names and rough locations of  more than 9,000 current and former government immigration enforcement employees.

The result is a growing wave of anger and official inertia while desperate families try to navigate both the border and a complex set of competing laws.

Nila Serrano, who lives just outside Washington, described how she was going through a long legal process to become a "sponsor" of her eight-year-old nephew Danny.

The boy was separated from her sister-in-law, Lupe Torres, who she said was fleeing domestic violence in Honduras when she was caught crossing the US border.

While Ms Torres was held in El Paso, Texas, Danny was sent to foster care in New York.

Mrs Serrano told ABC News: "It's been traumatic, very traumatic. It's a long separation that should not have happened."

Children as young as eight months old have been placed in foster care around the country after being separated from their parents at the border.

Dona Abbott of  Bethany Christian Services, which has helped place children in foster care, told CNN: "They just want someone to explain what's happening and when they'll get back together with their mom or their dad. They're crying, they have nightmares."

A senior official at the Department of Health and Human Services said: "This policy is relatively new, we're still working through the experience of reunifying parents with their kids."