While most Americans reunited with their families over the holidays, sat by warm fireplaces and rejoiced over unending food, children in the detention camps on the U.S. side of the Mexican border spent Trump’s cruel Christmas in cages. They were separated from their families, cold, hungry, sick and maybe even dying.

According to an Op-Ed in The Hill, the season of giving began with President Trump’s administration proposing to take something away — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) which benefits over 700,000 food-insecure Americans.

"Some kids will spend Christmas in border cages" via @TheHillOpinion https://t.co/GkV38voyDd pic.twitter.com/vA0TRt2VjI

— The Hill (@thehill) December 25, 2019

But there’s another looming crisis at the border. Earlier this year, a UN study reported that the United States has the highest child incarceration rate in the world. Over 100,000 kids are detained in U.S. detention camps.

Their “crime”?

Fleeing with their parents to escape criminal violence, as the Daily Kos says. For that, they are being held in “hideous conditions.”

The executive director who monitors border camps also testified about this “holiday humanitarian crisis.” According to Hope Frye’s testimony to congress:

“Some children were too traumatized to even interact with us. Children who were lucid enough to interact with us were glad to see us. They were grateful for the opportunity to sit in an office which was warmer than their cages, to sit on a chair not on a concrete floor.

The children we saw were filthy wearing the same wet and mud stained clothes in which they traveled. Many were covered in mucus and vomit. Babies had soiled diapers.

A breast-feeding mother of a two-year-old said that the water available to her tasted like dirt so she couldn’t drink it.”

https://twitter.com/Marmel/status/1209828292691283968?s=20

At these facilities, migrant children have even begged for basic necessities like food, soap, and medicines. In August this year, at least three of the detained children died from flu.

While the Op-Ed persuades Americans to enjoy the festivities, it implores them to remember that “Thousands of immigrants seeking a better life for themselves and their children have been separated from their families by a cold, cruel and callous president.”

Because, in his words, “When you prosecute the parents for coming in illegally — which should happen — you have to take the children away.”