Before its apparent reversal, President Trump's immigration policy was on pace to put more than 19,000 migrant children in federal detention by the end of 2018, according to a Washington Post analysis.
The number of children being held by the government grew by about 62 per day since May, after Trump's policy of criminally prosecuting all first-time adult border crossers was implemented. Even assuming that the harsher policy deters would-be migrants and slows the rate of increase, the government was on track to detain an additional 1,000 children every month.
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“The magnitude of the incarceration of children under these new policies remains unclear,” said Michael Clemens, an economist at the Center for Global Development, who has been critical of the proposal. “The rate of incarceration before these recent unclear announcements was extremely high, and it’s certainly not obvious this apparent change in course will result in a large or any reduction.”
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