In this opinion piece for WBUR, Kari Hong - an assistant professor at Boston College Law School and expert in immigration law, immigration consequences of criminal convictions, criminal law and family law - discusses the use of detention facilities for children at the US border with Mexico despite the "established science that children are best cared for by families, whether their own, adopted or in foster care." Hong describes recent visits by two separate United Nations delegations to the US to observe treatment of children at the border and the "shock" they experienced. "Michelle Bachelet," says Hong, "the U.N. human rights chief, former president of Chile and pediatrician, unequivocally condemned the United States for detaining children and separating families as 'cruel and inhumane treatment prohibited in international law.'”
