(Image source from: The Conversation)

The United Nations advised American state to instantly halt its contentious activity of dividing Central American undocumented migrant children from their parents at the southern border.

The UN rights said that it is profoundly concerned over the zero tolerance policy introduced by United States President Donald Trump administration in a bid to dissuade illegal immigration.

Spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani warned U.S. policy that it has led people caught entering the country on an irregular basis being subjected to criminal prosecution and having their children, including extremely young children taken away from them as an outcome.

She said information received from US civil society groups indicated that several hundred children had been separated from their parents at the border since October, including a one-year-old.

"The US should immediately halt this practice," she told reporters in Geneva. "The practice of separating families amounts to arbitrary and unlawful interference in family life, and is a serious violation of the rights of the child," she said.

"The use of immigration detention and family separation as a deterrent runs counter to human rights standards and principles," she said.

Shamdasani stressed that children's rights were in the main held in high regard in United States, but she lamented that the country was the only one in the world that had not yet sanctioned the UN convention on the child rights.

Read: Americans Protest Against Barbarous Immigrant Family Separation Policy

She insisted that international human rights laws bounded Washington that its current were flouting.

"The child's best interest should always come first, including over migration management objectives or other administrative concerns," she said.

"It is therefore of great concern that in the US, migration control appears to have been prioritized over the effective care and protection of migrant children."

"Detention is never in the best interests of the child and always constitutes a child rights violation," she said, calling on Washington to "adopt non-custodial alternatives that allow children to remain with their families."

The U.S. says the policy aims to stem a surge of poor kins mostly from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras gushing in the United States.

Each week, thousands citing the daily violence in their home countries cross the U.S.-Mexico border and instantly turn themselves in to government asking for asylum.  

William Spindler of the UN refugee agency stressed Tuesday that the right to claim asylum is a fundamental human right and it is also part of the law in the United States.

By Sowmya Sangam