Exclusive: U.S. migrant policy sends thousands of children including hundreds of babies back to Mexico

Jennifer, a migrant mother from El Salvador returned to Mexico to await her U.S. asylum hearing, shares a moment with her 3 children at Casa del Migrante migrant shelter in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico September 23, 2019. Picture taken September 23, 2019. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) - Since January, the U.S. government has ordered 13,000 migrants under 18, including more than 400 infants, to wait with their families in Mexico for U.S. immigration court hearings, a Reuters analysis of government data found.

Along the U.S.-Mexico border, babies and toddlers are living in high-crime cities - often in crowded shelters and tents or on the streets - for the weeks or months it takes to get a U.S. asylum hearing.