(CNN) The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History has inquired about obtaining disturbing drawings by migrant children that depict figures with sad faces behind bars.

"The museum has a long commitment to telling the complex and complicated history of the United States and to documenting that history as it unfolds," according to a statement from the museum to CNN.

The drawings by three children who had just been released from US Customs and Border Patrol custody drew international attention last week. The children, ages 10 and 11, were staying at a respite center run by the Catholic church in McAllen, Texas, when they made the drawings.

Renee Romano, a professor of history at Oberlin College, applauded the Smithsonian for making an effort to preserve artifacts documenting the crisis at the border as part of US history.

She said the US government's current policy of detaining immigrants and separating children from parents is part of a long national record of "seeing people as less than human."

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