This archive report was first published on 21 November 2019.
On November 18, 2019, Manfred Nowak, the lead author of the UN Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty, presented a report to journalists, stating that the US had one of the highest numbers of children in migration-related detention.
According to Nowak, the US had more than 100,000 children in migration-related detention, citing a "conservative" assessment based on the latest available official data and "very reliable" additional sources.
However, a day later, the UN human rights office issued a statement clarifying that Nowak's comment referred to cumulative data from 2015, during the presidency of Barack Obama, and not the current number of children in detention.
Nowak later acknowledged that he should have made it clearer that the data was three years old and apologized for the misunderstanding.
AFP initially reported on Nowak's statement, but after determining that the premise of the story was faulty, the outlet decided to retract it.
Official data from the US Customs and Border Patrol shows that between October 2018 and September 2019, 76,020 unaccompanied children and 473,682 "family units" were apprehended at the border.
