Paulina is one of the lucky ones. The Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy separated roughly 2,500 children from their parents in recent weeks, but not all families were split up. In the absence of an official explanation, advocates speculated that border agents left some families intact for lack of detention space, instead releasing them with GPS ankle trackers and a court date.

In this documentary from The Atlantic, Paulina and other children at a shelter in McAllen, Texas, describe crossing the border and spending days in a detention center like the one where recorded audio of children crying helped crystallize outrage against the separations. “They caught us,” a five-year-old Honduran girl told The Atlantic last week. “They took us to a hielera,” an icebox, which is how migrants widely refer to chilly government processing centers. Ashley said agents held her in a different room from her mom. “I missed her and I cried for her,” she said, “I love her.”

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