A Honduran woman says US border officials snatched her infant child while she was breastfeeding her at a detention centre in southern Texas.

Natalia Cornelio, an attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project, told CNN the unnamed woman claimed in an interview that authorities had taken her daughter while the family was in custody.

The woman had been detained under the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy to illegal migrants or asylum seekers caught crossing the border between Mexico and the United States.

Since the strategy was introduced in May, anyone found crossing the border unauthorised faces federal charges and are likely to be separated from any children they travelled with.

Department of Homeland Security officials revealed in Senate testimony around 650 children were split from their families in detention centres within two weeks of the policy’s launch.

“The government is essentially torturing people by doing this,” Ms Cornelio said.

The Texas Civil Rights Project says in many cases federal agencies give no information to detained parents regarding their children’s whereabouts.

It said on one occasion it was aware of, border patrol agents told a mother they were taking her daughter for a bath, only to never return the child.

Carlos Diaz, a US Customs and Border Protection spokesman, disputed claims officials had separated a child from its mother as she breastfed.

“Nothing could be further from the truth and these allegations are unsubstantiated,” he said.

Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border Show all 14 1 /14 Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border Immigrant children, many of whom are separated form their parents, are housed in Texas' tent city Reuters Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border A two-year-old Honduran asylum seeker cries as her mother is searched and detained near the US-Mexico border Getty Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border Undocumented migrants ride on the top of a freight train referred to as the beast, or La Bestia Getty Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border A cage inside a US Customs and Border Protection detention facility in Texas Reuters Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border US Border Patrol Academy All new agents must complete a months-long training course at the New Mexico facility before assuming their posts at Border Patrol stations, mostly along the US-Mexico border Getty Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border US-Mexico border fence A group of young men walk along the Mexican side of the US-Mexico border fence in a remote area of the Sonoran Desert Getty Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border US-Mexico border fence in the US Man looks through US-Mexico border fence into the US in Tijuana, Mexico Getty Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border US-Mexico border fence US Border Patrol agent Sal De Leon stands near a section of the US-Mexico border fence while stopping on patrol on in La Joya, Texas Getty Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border US Border Patrol Academy US Border Patrol instructor yells at trainees after their initial arrival to the academy Getty Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border Memorial service in Guatemala Families attend a memorial service for two boys who were kidnapped and killed in San Juan Sacatepequez, Guatemala. Crime drives emigration from Guatemala to the United States, as families seek refuge from the danger Getty Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border Arrests on the border Undocumented immigrants comfort each other after being caught by Border Patrol agents near the US-Mexico border Getty Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border Detention holding facility A boy from Honduras watches a movie at a detention facility run by the US Border Patrol Getty Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border Mexican farm workers Mexican migrant workers harvest organic parsley at Grant Family Farms in Wellington, Colorado Getty Undocumented immigration across the US-Mexico border Mexican family in Arizona A Mexican immigrant family sits in the living room of their rented home in Tuscon, Arizona. The family that Arizona's new tough immigrant law had created a climate of fear in the immigrant community. Getty

Meanwhile, several members of Congress blocked off the entrance to the US Customs and Border Protection headquarters in Washington on Wednesday in protest over the separations.

“I cannot think of an act that is more cruel and more inhumane than to rip the child from the arms of the mother,” Democratic congressman from Illinois, Luis Gutierrez, told crowds at the event.

“A mother who comes fleeing systematic torture, rape, death, gang violence. The cartels run her neighbourhood, run her nation and her government does not, will not, cannot protect her.