CNN —Texas has separated at least 26 migrant family units on the southern border since July 10 under Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star border initiative, according to Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid immigration attorney Kristin Etter. “This is just a very harsh and cruel detour from the asylum process,” Etter told CNN in an interview Wednesday. This is a shift in Texas DPS policy on the border, Etter says. Children and their mothers were never separated, but instead turned over to the US Border Patrol together,” Texas DPS Communications Chief Travis Considine said in a statement.

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