"If they feel there will be separation, they won’t come," U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House's South Lawn on Saturday, referring to the measures that his administration would be considering to prevent cross-border migration.

The Washington Post had reported on the contemplation of these new policies last week, and that there could be a new wave of separation of undocumented families trying to enter the country through ports of entry on the border with Mexico.

According to the Post, the government would be evaluating between "detaining asylum-seeking families together for up to 20 days, giving parents the option of staying in family detention with their child for months or years as their immigration case proceed," or "allowing children to be taken to a government shelter so other relatives or guardians can seek custody."

Apparently, both the president and his administration will not rest until they are able to definitively implement coercive measures to reduce undocumented immigration at the border, even when this implies another challenge to the limits of human rights.

After the government implemented its first “zero-tolerance” policy, activists and human rights organizations manifested their rage for considering it a human rights violation, whose psychological consequences nested in abuse and inhumanity.

Simultaneously, a minor court forced the government to suspend the measures and reunite the families, something that the Department of Health and Human Resources reluctantly complied with, unleashing an administrative chaos that ended in the saturation of resources and spaces as well as in the definitive separation of many families.

The government's response has been to find a way to keep children in detention for longer periods of time along with their parents, and “deter” undocumented immigration in the country.

However, contrary to the president's assertions, the number of crossings at the border has not diminished. A Washington Post report during the month of August revealed that "the number of immigrant families detained on the border with Mexico has remained almost unchanged between the months of June and July," where the percentage of change has been minimal - from 9,485 in May and 9,434 in June to 9,258 in July.

Even so, the government is poised to insist on the argument of the demoralization and dehumanization of families and will look to permit the practice of keeping thousands of children behind bars.