Washington, July 4 (RHC)-- The U.S. government is refusing to release children who have been separated from their parents as part of President Donald Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy on immigration unless the families pay steep transport fees, according to a report. 
 
Parents and relatives have been forced to pay hundreds and in some cases thousands of dollars to cover transportation after children were separated at the U.S. border with Mexico and sent to detention facilities around the country, according to The New York Times.  The fees include a one-way plane ticket for the child and a return ticket for an adult escort. 

The Times report describes a Guatemalan immigrant paying $2,500 to fly two teenage relatives from Texas to New York, a California man paying $1,400 to transport his nephew from Texas to Los Angeles, and a Salvadoran woman being asked to pay $4,000 to fly her niece and nephew and an escort from Texas to California. 

The recent separation of migrant families has meant that parents themselves are often in detention. The cost is therefore being shifted to relatives to use their savings or rely on donations to have the children released into their custody. 

Facing a massive backlash, Trump signed an executive order last week to end the separation practice, but that has not ended the suffering of the more than 2,000 children who have been ripped from their parents in recent months.