In 2014, many minors felt a need to escape their native countries, like El Salvador, in hopes of escaping violence and finding a new beginning. Specifically in El Salvador, there was a war between the 18th Street Gang and the police. Consequently, it became a new normal for children and adults to find dead bodies lying around and to no longer be able to attain an education. These factors further encouraged minors to find ways to escape this lifestyle. Therefore, their grueling journey to the United States began by dangerously hopping on a moving train, known as The Beast, that traveled from Central America to the Mexican-American border. It was reported that people lost limbs or even died from attempting to get on the train. If people were able to successfully get on, they still had the risk of getting robbed by gang members and/or raped. Even though the journey was extremely unsafe, they believed it was worth risking their lives than staying in El Salvador. 

Thus, the United States began to notice the number of unaccompanied children skyrocket leading to different opinions regarding what actions should be conducted. During this time, Obama's administration was blamed for luring children into the country. They quickly shut down the possibility of separating kids from detention centers because they thought it was inhumane. Thus, he mandated an act that permitted children to stay with family living in the United States, while their case was being reviewed. Because of this, many Americans began forming different opinions and criticized the lack of action that Obama was doing. In response to this, there was an increase in anti-immigration sentiment. Mike Vickers, for instance, reveals how he purposefully put up an electric fence to deter immigrants from wanting to cross onto his property. Additionally, he would capture graphic images, print them, and laminate them to show it to immigration officers. However, once Trump took the presidency, he decided to be more stringent with immigration policies. He implemented a zero tolerance policy where children were separated from their parents and sent to detention centers. 

In these detention centers, there were a number of reportings that revealed the living conditions that these children had to undergo. These facilities were commonly referred to as an "ice box" because of the extremely low temperatures that they were set at. Additionally, 80% of children had inadequate amounts of food and water. They were all packed into confined metal cells that almost looked like they were animals in cages. Michelle Brané, a women's refugee commission, went into the facilities to interview the children. She exposes how there were over 500 kids from the age of infancy to teenagers in the centers. When she asked immigration officers for certain individuals, they had no idea who they were. There was no supervision among children, especially those under the age of 2. A video surfaced the internet in which a young girl begged to call her aunt and see her father, but she was just ignored with no remorse on the inhumane actions they were conducting. 

Furthermore, this detrimental act has created long lasting psychological impacts on children. For one, they were reported to have acted different post separation from parents in detention centers. Children who experienced this trauma commonly indicated signs of losing temperament quicker, being more quiet, or cried more often. This indicates the impact that it had on children where they no longer acted the same. Additionally, these children developed separation anxiety; in which, they could no longer perform individual tasks, such as going to school. This could be explained through the posttraumatic stress disorder they developed from fearing separation.