Why parents are bringing their children on treacherous treks to US border

Critics, including Trump, have long said that allowing migrants to go free while their immigration cases are pending encourages parents to enter the United States with children

When Luis Cruz left behind his wife, four of their children and the house he’d built himself, he’d heard that American officials might split him from his son, the one child he took with him. But earlier this month, the two of them set out from Guatemala anyway.

The truth, he said this week, moments after they arrived at a cream-coloured migrant shelter in Tucson, was that he would rather be apart from his child than face what they had left behind. “If they separate us, they separate us,” said Mr. Cruz, 41. “But return to Guatemala? This is something