This article from the Washington Post describes the impacts of the new US policy "in which families arriving at the border would be forcibly broken up, with children and parents separated from one another and detained separately." The article quotes Wendy Young, president of the organization Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), which supports minors who are detained after entering the country, who states that not only is it "much better to have a child arrive with a parent, because that’s a natural source of care and support for the child," but also that, in terms of their immigration status, children staying with their parents "means that the child’s case is attached to the parent’s case, and typically the parent is the one who has the information and the resources to inform the immigrant judge about what’s going on.”
In some of these cases, continues Young, children and families are not allowed to communicate and parents are even being deported, while the child is left behind in the US. Instead of placing children with families, as was previously the typical policy, the government is now planning to place more children in detention centers. “I actually was down at the border a few weeks ago,” Young said, “and saw a facility that opened in the past year or so, that’s actually a permanent facility, a converted Walmart with 1,200 beds.”