MEXICO CITY, June 20 (Xinhua) -- Mexican Foreign Affairs Minister Luis Videgaray on Wednesday requested the U.S. government immediately reunite a girl with Down's syndrome and her brother with their family.
Mexico demands that the United States take all necessary action to ensure an immediate reunion of the child and her brother, who were sent to a shelter in another city, with their mother and family, said the minister.
The 10-year old girl and her brother were sent to a detention center in McAllen in the U.S. state of Texas, while their mother was sent to another facility in the close-by Texan city of Brownsville.
A day earlier, Videgaray expressed Mexico's "emphatic condemnation" of the U.S. border policy, calling it "cruel and inhumane." He urged the United States to reconsider the policy which, he said, "clearly violates human rights."
The policy has also been fiercely criticized by other Central American nations, including El Salvador and Honduras, and international organizations, such as the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
On Wednesday, Chilean President Sebastian Pinera also slammed the policy, saying that "no immigration policy should stop taking care, welcoming and protecting children. This is a universal principle, a principle that more than anything reflects values."
Also on Wednesday, following fierce backlash from the international community, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to keep the migrant families together.
According to official data, more than 2,000 migrant children have been separated from their families at the Mexico-U.S. border over a period of six weeks since the policy was enforced in April.
Of those separated children, 25 boys and girls are Mexican, said the minister.
