Mexicans stand on the beach while looking through the US-Mexico border fence into the US from Tijuana, Mexico on May 1, 2016. Getty Images
The Trump administration took another step this spring toward its campaign promise to keep undocumented immigrants out of the US.
In early May, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Department of Homeland Security officials would begin a new "zero-tolerance" immigration policy: Everyone who attempts to cross the border â even those seeking asylum â are now being prosecuted.
The policy seems to be doing exactly what it was designed to do. Homeland Security figures reveal that, between April 19 through May 31, border officials separated 1,995 children from 1,940 adults, according to a report from the AP's Colleen Long published Friday.
Even before the Trump administration enacted this policy, migrant families often needed to separate, largely because crossing the US-Mexico border undocumented was always dangerous.
Steel fencing with razor wire, sensors, and surveillance cameras line most of the nearly 2,000-mile US-Mexico border today. Back in 1971, the US fundamentally changed a section of the barrier: The Nixon administration built Friendship Park, the only federally designated bi-national meeting place along the US southern border.
Until 1994, the park between San Diego and Tijuana did not include any fencing. Anyone could spend time there during the day, under the monitor of US Border Patrol. But border security tightened over time, and today families can barely touch fingertips through Friendship Park's thick steel fence.
Friends of Friendship Park, a local community organization formed in 2006, is now attempting to work with the San Diego Border Patrol to allow unrestricted access to the park again.
Take a look below: