The Biden administration says tits has identified more than 3,900 children separated from their parents at the US-Mexico border.
Per Independent, the separations occurred as a result of former POTUS Donald Trump's "zero-tolerance" policy on illegal crossings.
Based on government information, Biden administration's Family Reunification Task Force count of 3,913 children who were separated between July 1, 2017, and the end of the Trump administration falls significantly short of the 5,500 children identified by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in court filings.
Another 1,723 cases since July 2017 will be received by the task force who said that they identified "nearly all" children who were separated under Trump's zero-tolerance policy, which will bring the number close to the ACLU tally.
The absence of these children is believed to be the result of a San Diego ruling that excluded the 1,723 children because they were separated from their parents for reasons other than Trump's zero-tolerance policy - such as questions about the children's parentage, Independent reports.
Teenage illegal immigrants are pictured below at a US detention center.
The final number could be increased by the task force also identifying the children who were separated from their parents during the first six months of the Trump administration from January 2017, who were not included in the ACLU lawsuit.
Progress has already been made in reuniting the children with their parents, with 1,786 being reunited and many of these reunions taking place before the end of Trump's presidency.
Meanwhile, contact has been made with the parents of another 1,965 children, however, the location of the parents of another 391 has yet to be identified.
The newly-released report provided the world with previously unknown information about the zero-tolerance policy, including the fact that 60% of children separated were Guatemalans (2,270).
The second most separated group were Hondurans (1,150) followed by Salvadorans (281), Mexicans (75), Brazilians (74), and Romanians (23).
The highest number of separations were recorded at the Border Patrol's Yuma, Arizona, sector with 1,114 recorded, and the second-highest number was at the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, which facilitated 1,025.
A further 982 children were separated at the El Paso sector site in Texas, which ran a trial run of the policy in 2017 that was not publically disclosed.
