The story behind the heart breaking photograph of a crying child at the US border

A hardened war photographer who captured the viral image of a two-year-old crying at the US border has said the situation broke his heart.

The picture captured the horror and desperation felt by many migrant families who are being separated by the Trump administration.

At least 2,000 children have been removed from their parents in a controversial policy that has brought condemnation from all quarters, including the United Nations, prominent Republicans and even Trump’s wife.

The image by John Moore was taken in the Rio Grande Valley and has become a symbol of the administration’s new ‘zero tolerance’ border policies.

The photographer was crouched six feet away from the little girl as she cries helplessly while looking at her unseen mother who is being searched by a U.S Customs and Border Patrol agent.

Moore, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer for Getty Images, recalled: ‘[The mother] was told to set the child down while she was searched. The little girl immediately started crying.

‘I took only a few photographs and was almost overcome with emotion myself.’

Moments after the photograph, the mother and child were hurried into a van with a group of other undocumented migrants and whisked away to a processing centre.

It is unknown what became of the toddler and her mother, who managed to briefly speak to Moore.

The mother told him they had been travelling from Honduras for ‘a full month and were exhausted’.

Honduras is the second poorest country in Central America and is plagued by gang violence and political instability.

Many of those fleeing are in fear of their lives.

Moore has documented wars, disease and refugee crises around the world and has spent over a decade photographing the US-Mexico border.

However he says the situation is now changing and what he has seen now ‘feels different.’

‘Most of these families were scared, to various degrees,’ Moore told the Getty Images FOTO website.

‘I doubt any of them had ever done anything like this before – flee their home countries with their children, travelling thousands of miles through dangerous conditions to seek political asylum in the United States, many arriving in the dead of night.’

‘In this case, this last week, it was different because I knew that what happened after these pictures were taken was going to be something very different,’ he said.

‘Most of us here had heard the news that the [Trump] administration had planned to separate families. And these people really had no idea about this news. And it was hard to take these pictures, knowing what was coming next.’

In the six weeks since 19th April, the administration separated almost 2,000 children from their parents who were accused of being illegal immigrants.

Moore continued: ‘As a photojournalist, it’s my role to keep going, even when it’s hard.’ Moore said.

‘But as a father ― and I have a toddler myself ― it was very difficult to see what was happening in front of my lens and thinking what it would be like for my kids to be separated from me.’

The ‘zero tolerance policy’ means that, unlike under previous administrations, illegal immigrants are being prosecuted as criminals.

This has led to parents being separated from their children and sent to federal prisons.

The children, who are not charged with a crime, are being housed in detention centres, including warehouses and converted supermarkets.

Pictures yesterday emerged of children in 50ft by 50ft metal cages at a detention centre in Texas.

Scattered about one cage with 20 children inside were bottles of water, bags of chips and large foil sheets intended to serve as blankets. Audio of sobbing children calling out for their parents spread fury on Monday.

‘Papa! Papa!’ one child is heard weeping in an audio file.

At the weekend, Attorney General Jeff Sessions cited a passage in the Bible to justify the move.

Many in the Republican Party have now started to turn against Trump, including George W Bush’s wife Laura who denounced the policy as ‘cruel, immoral and it breaks my heart’.

She added: ‘These images are eerily reminiscent of the Japanese-American internment camps of World War II… one of the most shameful episodes in US history.’

Even Melania Trump broke ranks saying it was wrong that 45 children a day were being separated from their mothers and fathers.

However Donald Trump has defended the move proclaiming ‘the United States will not be a migrant camp, and it will not be a refugee holding facility. It won’t be.’