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US news anchor breaks down live on air after reading report on children sent to immigration shelters

Emotional footage has captured the moment that a news anchor broke down on camera as she reported on President Trump’s controversial immigration crackdown.

As she delivered Tuesday night’s bulletin, Rachel Maddow appeared visibly distressed as she read details of the young children who are being sent to immigration shelters after being separated from their parents.

Maddow is seen fighting back tears as she reads an Associated Press report about the ‘tender age’ shelters that immigrant babies and young children are being sent to.

Rachel Maddow fights back tears as she delivers the report
Rachel Maddow fights back tears as she delivers the report

‘The Trump administration has been sending babies and other young children to at least three tender-age shelters in South Texas’, Maddow is heard to say.

But after struggling to complete the entire report, she eventually admits defeat.

‘I think I’m gonna have to hand this off’, she admits – before handing over to fellow anchor Lawrence O’Donnell.

Posting on Twitter after the broadcast, she wrote: ‘Ugh, I’m sorry.

President Trump has faced fierce condemnation after children were incarcerated in a former warehouse turned US immigration holding facility in South Texas
President Trump has faced fierce condemnation after children were incarcerated in a former warehouse turned US immigration holding facility in South Texas

‘If nothing else, it is my job to actually be able to speak while I’m on TV.’

Yesterday, harrowing footage captured the heartbreaking sound of children crying out for their parents at a US Customs and Border Protection facility.

The eight-minute recording includes a US Border Patrol agent joking about the cries of the children, comparing them to an “orchestra”.

The recording, obtained by not-for-profit news organisation ProPublica, is reportedly of 10 Central American children who were separated from their parents at the US border last week.